The job of workplace mediation isn’t just to resolve grievances and prevent conflict in the office, it’s to improve business performance too.
In fact, we get more referrals for workplace mediation that concern underperforming sales teams than anything else so here we’re going to explore why it’s such a powerful tool.
Related article: What is Workplace Mediation?
Typical issues within sales teams
Most factors that result in underperforming sales teams and salespeople stem from poor communication.
As a leader are you clearly communicating the culture of the business, the business’ goals, and what you expect your team to deliver?
Do you have the correct balance when it comes to power within the team, managing individuals emotions and their capabilities?
All this and more can affect team dynamics, individual performance within the team, and therefore the team’s overall performance.
How workplace mediation can help
Bringing in a third party mediator can help you see the bigger picture from an impartial perspective. It’s not about you vs your employees; workplace mediation seeks to create outcomes that benefit all parties.
In the case of sales teams that’s usually to help you get the best out of each individual salesperson, build a cohesive team, and therefore generate improved results.
Workplace mediation facilitates:
- Improved communication – which creates a better culture
- Improved culture creates better individual understanding of the company mission
- Improved understanding of the mission creates a clearer mindset for all
- This mindset removes doubt and drives action
This all leads to improved results.
Salespeople need open communication lines from the top-down to keep them focused and motivated. They need clear objectives and to understand what is expected of them and what this means for the company.
Balanced communication is also important. The entire collective needs to feel like a team rather than a dictatorship.
Workplace mediation finds the underlying cause of any issues you may have within this ideal framework and facilitates all relevant discussions to achieve the desired outcomes.
Workplace mediation can correct a power imbalance, cultural imbalance and any emotional imbalances within your team. We make the playing field fair for all so you can get the best out of every member of your team and get them doing what you need them to do to win
Empowering team members with workplace mediation
Workplace mediation can have an immediate impact on performance by identifying why certain salespeople may be underperforming and then resolving the problem quickly.
The conflicts we see between an individual salesperson and the business are rarely physical. Problems usually occur as a result of one of the following:
- Lifestyle conflict
- Culture conflict
- Emotional conflict
- Mental health conflict
Workplace mediation levels the playing field between management and staff and creates a ‘safe space’ for each individual salesperson to share their thoughts without fear of reprisal. By using workplace mediation it shows that as an employer, employee wellbeing matters to you. It shows that you’re providing support to manage and resolve any conflicts that you might not yet be aware of.
This automatically improves your culture and lifts employee motivation levels even before the practical issues are addressed.
It’s important to understand the personalities and lifestyles of all the individuals within a team to get the most out of them.
Ultimately, it’s the job of workplace mediation to facilitate discussions to help you identify how to engage and improve the performance of each salesperson in your team.
Can we help you?
The benefits of workplace mediation are broad. Do you want to find out more about how it could help you?
Talk to the ADR Mediation team today. Call us on 01772 954602 or email info@adrmediation.org.uk.
You can also find out more about our workplace mediation services here.
