The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) has selected CMP Resolutions to develop, deliver and support an innovative training programme to establish the UK’s first holistic Dispute Resolution Caseworker service. The FCO will be creating a volunteer cadre of staff who will provide a one-stop-shop service to support any member of staff involved in a workplace dispute. These volunteers will offer Harassment Advice, carry out skilful mediation, and undertake thorough Investigations into disciplinary and grievance matters: roles which are far more usually split across an organisation. A total of 20 volunteers from all grades and levels from the FCO’s UK and overseas offices will be undertaking an 8-day ILM endorsed programme developed and delivered by UK workplace dispute resolution expert, John Crawley, Founder and Chair of CMP Resolutions.
As the UK’s specialists in workplace disputes – and with ILM endorsed programmes for mediators, investigators and harassment advisors – CMP Resolutions is ideally placed to assist the FCO in the creation of this wide-ranging dispute resolution capability.
Kevin Brant Chartered MCIPD, Employee Relations Adviser at the FCO comments: “The reason CMP won the tender was because they understood our vision for the cadre and shared our excitement for it. In addition CMP had concrete ideas of how we put the vision into practice and embed the cadre in the culture of our organisation. This isn’t easy. We’re based all over the world and made up of many nationalities, but CMP understood these pressures and showed how they could adapt the training to the distinctiveness of the FCO.
All of these points were in addition of course to CMP’s expertise and well deserved reputation for excellence in dispute resolution.”
Managing Director at CMP Resolutions, Katherine Graham, says: “The FCO has identified an exciting new way of supporting its staff in dispute, with the
creation of the Dispute Resolution Caseworker role. These caseworkers will be undergoing a very challenging and tough learning programme that we have developed specifically for the FCO, which combines our existing, successful training programmes. We are particularly impressed by the importance the FCO places on supervision and quality management of this service and are delighted to be working with them on this initiative.”
