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Why not hire an independent mediator? The key word here is “hire.” Either the employee has to pay part or all of the cost, or the mediator is paid by the compan

Why not hire an independent mediator? The key word here is “hire.” Either the employee has to pay part or all of the cost, or the mediator is paid by the company. In the first case, it places a significant economic burden on the employee; in the latter, the mediator has an incentive to find for the company to obtain more repeat business.

eslaught 8y ago
The mediator is absolutely working for the company. The whole point of this is to retain people who might still provide value to the company, with the idea that it's cheaper to retain an existing employee than to recruit and hire a new one. The process doesn't need to be "fair" from Amazon's perspective if it accomplishes this goal. The main goals for a mediator (again from Amazon's perspective) would be (a) to improve this process (retain more good employees, keep fewer bad ones) by bringing more objectivity and training to bear, and (b) mitigate potential PR downsides by reducing real and perceived conflicts of interest. I do think a mediator could accomplish these goals. While the conflicts of interest might not be reduced to zero, it's likely that the pool of mediators will have more degrees of separation from the managers and therefore will reduce conflicts. (Whereas the normal employees that are on the jury have to consider the very real implications of their actions if they contradict what an important manager says.)
- Spooky23 8y ago
  This kind of thing only works if you have an employment contract and the company is willing to accept that the manager can be wrong. Meaningful investigations/mediations or tribunals tend to produce surprises, and tend to generate precedent. There’s no way a company would subject itself to that scrutiny.
- lg 8y ago
  this sounds like it's ignoring political realities. if you find against the employee, they are gone; if you find for them, now there is a manager, maybe an important one, at your client who's pissed at you and might make noise about it to higher ups. better for business to do what the manager wants.
everdev 8y ago
I'm not so sure. It sounds like in these cases the company feels it had the right to terminate but is willing to admit the bus might be wrong. I think the mediators would actually have to show that they saved the jobs of some valuable employees from getting fired to get continued business. If they have a 90+% company win rate then the experiment probably isn't productive.

eslaught 8y ago

The mediator is absolutely working for the company. The whole point of this is to retain people who might still provide value to the company, with the idea that it's cheaper to retain an existing employee than to recruit and hire a new one. The process doesn't need to be "fair" from Amazon's perspective if it accomplishes this goal. The main goals for a mediator (again from Amazon's perspective) would be (a) to improve this process (retain more good employees, keep fewer bad ones) by bringing more objectivity and training to bear, and (b) mitigate potential PR downsides by reducing real and perceived conflicts of interest. I do think a mediator could accomplish these goals. While the conflicts of interest might not be reduced to zero, it's likely that the pool of mediators will have more degrees of separation from the managers and therefore will reduce conflicts. (Whereas the normal employees that are on the jury have to consider the very real implications of their actions if they contradict what an important manager says.)

Spooky23 8y ago
This kind of thing only works if you have an employment contract and the company is willing to accept that the manager can be wrong. Meaningful investigations/mediations or tribunals tend to produce surprises, and tend to generate precedent. There’s no way a company would subject itself to that scrutiny.
lg 8y ago
this sounds like it's ignoring political realities. if you find against the employee, they are gone; if you find for them, now there is a manager, maybe an important one, at your client who's pissed at you and might make noise about it to higher ups. better for business to do what the manager wants.

everdev 8y ago

I'm not so sure. It sounds like in these cases the company feels it had the right to terminate but is willing to admit the bus might be wrong. I think the mediators would actually have to show that they saved the jobs of some valuable employees from getting fired to get continued business. If they have a 90+% company win rate then the experiment probably isn't productive.