Ombuds Services

An ombuds office is the conflict resolution center of an organization where a trained neutral ombudsperson resolves and prevents conflict and brings systemic concerns to the organization for resolution. It’s the place employees can go with an issue or concern when they don’t know where else to go.

An ombudsperson offers support through coaching, active listening, generating options, providing information, making referrals, mediating, and facilitating difficult conversations. Simultaneously, they effect macro change by alerting the leaders to trends of issues and concerns, making recommendations for change, and training the organization in conflict resolution and productive communication.

An ombuds office is:

• Independent: the ombudsperson is unaligned in the organization and reports as high in the organization as possible. They decide how and whether to act without the influence of anyone outside of the office.

• Impartial: the ombudsperson is unaligned and unbiased. They do not advocate for an individual, for the organization, or for any specific outcome.

• Informal: the ombudsperson helps people resolve situations by listening, reframing issues, providing information, and making referrals. They do not participate in any formal process, make decisions, investigate issues, create policy, or keep identified records.

• Confidential: everything told to the ombudsperson remains confidential unless the ombudsperson is given express permission to disclose it or if it falls under an exception to confidentiality. Even the fact that someone chooses to visit the ombuds office will remain confidential. Any records kept are de-identified and are only for the purposes of reporting broad trends.

For more information, visit the website for the International Ombuds Association (IOA), the professional agency for ombudspeople: https://www.ombudsassociation.org/

An ombudsperson or a mediator will keep all communication confidential unless the client discusses a planned commission of a crime or expresses a threat of harm to themselves or to others.

• Through its unique and trusted place within the organization, an ombuds office has multiple benefits:

• To provide individualized support and coaching to help employees through workplace challenges

• To provide a safe space for employees to express dissatisfaction or frustration without fear of retaliation or judgment

• To anticipate and address issues before they escalate or cause harm to employees

• To signal to employees that leaders are not afraid to hear what is really going on in the organization

• To encourage organizational critical self-analysis

• To advance conflict resolution and communication skills across the organization

• To strengthen the workplace culture

Both human resources and an ombuds office are important resources for employees of an organization. An ombuds office is independent, impartial, informal, and confidential, while Human Resources represents the organization and has reporting responsibilities. Although conversations with Human Resources can at times be confidential, they are not automatically confidential, and in some situations, notifying Human Resources of an issue can automatically set off a formal process or require them to disclose the situation to leaders.

The ombuds office and Human Resources work best when they collaborate and recognize each other’s strengths. They can refer employees to each other to ensure that employees are being served by the most appropriate resource for their unique situation.

The ombuds field is still relatively unknown. Sometimes leaders hear about these offices from other organizations or from their own employees, and they agree that their organization could benefit from ombuds support. But they don’t know what needs to exist in order to make an ombuds office effective, and they don’t have the time to figure it out! At The Resolved Approach, I help you get to the point where you are ready to hire an ombudsperson and open the office. This includes gaining leadership support, engaging employees throughout the process, understanding what key stakeholders want in an ombuds office, developing the ombuds charter, and crafting a job description. I offer the one-stop shop you need to get from here to a working, breathing ombuds office.

I can contract with you to conduct ombuds services for a set amount of time or on an ongoing basis. As your ombudsperson, I can support employees through workplace challenges, conduct mediations and facilitated dialogues, and organize trainings. All discussions are kept confidential. After an agreed-upon amount of time, I can compile and present a report to the leaders of your organization detailing de-identified trends in the organization and some recommendations for improvements moving forward. Schedule a free consultation with The Resolved Approach to learn more about how ombuds services could look at your organization.

Mediation is an opportunity to sit down (virtually or in person) with those you are disputing and have a productive conversation facilitated by a trained neutral. In mediation, you get to explore creative options for resolution and decide whether you want to reach an agreement and what that agreement entails.

As an ombudsperson, I conduct facilitative mediation, which means that the parties to the mediation completely control the outcome of the situation. A facilitative mediator asks questions, listens, and leads the productive conversation between the parties, but the parties themselves will determine how and whether they want the situation to resolve.

If you could do that, you probably wouldn’t have found me in the first place. Something is preventing your organization from moving forward, and a proactive approach will make the difference that allows you to address the issue and move on. In your free consultation, I can help you pinpoint exactly what’s holding your organization back and help you determine if you need external assistance to move past it.

Your free consultation is completely non-binding. I’m committed to helping your organization find the most affordable, efficient, and effective solution for your situation, even if you do not choose to work with The Resolved Approach. If we’re not the right fit, I’m happy to refer you to other resources that may help.