Event Details

What is a Facilitated Conversation?

Add Mediation Skills to Your HR Toolbox  

In-house mediation training is becoming common as HR leaders seek to resolve disputes between employees internally.

Organizations have long recognized the value of hiring professional mediators to help resolve disputes. More and more, HR professionals have begun to also see value in securing mediation skills for themselves to assist in this area.

Facilitated conversations provide a voluntary process in which a facilitator guides participants in reaching acceptable solutions to the issues they face. The process aims neither to erase what happened in the past, nor to determine who is right or wrong. It provides individuals with an opportunity to step back and engage in a respectful and confidential discussion.

With skills to facilitate conversations like mediation, an HR professional can enlist the employees themselves in finding a solution to their shared problem. By brainstorming and collaborating, employees often strengthen their relationship during mediation and are better equipped to work together in the future.  In this program, participants will learn valuable skills that will enable them to facilitate conversations to help resolve disputes with their employees.

Program Objectives:

• Learn a ten step technique to facilitate a difficult conversation
• Understand how to guide employees to re-establish trust and engage in meaningful communication
• Guide your employees speak freely and openly about their needs, interests and opinions, and understand the other’s point of view

Amy B. Shannon, President, Pinnacle Leadership Solutions, LLC, and a Partner in Your Partner in HR has specialized in Organizational Development, Human Resources and Training for over 25 years.  For the past 13 years, Amy has been an Organizational Development consultant working with clients in manufacturing, service, financial and healthcare industries.  Most recently, Amy served as the Executive Director II/Vice President of Corporate College where she built robust leadership training curriculum to serve her clients. 

Prior to her OD work, she spent over 10 years as Director of Human Resources with Western-Southern Enterprise and Kendle International, Inc.  In both organizations, Amy built competency-based corporate universities that were recognized on a national level as well as noted numerous times in trade magazines.  Kendle College, her most prestigious corporate university initiative, served 1300 employees in eight countries and was taught in three languages. 

Amy works with her coaching clients in a role of a guide and facilitator, helping the individual to see opportunities more clearly and to implement specific action steps toward improvement.  Amy uses a coaching plan which includes the development of clear objectives and goals for the coaching process.  She has been certified by the Ohio Supreme Courts and Community Mediation Services of Central Ohio in the area of Personal Conflict Resolution and Mediation.

Amy also holds certifications with numerous nationally known training vendors.  She is a regular speaker at national conferences such as The Corporate University Week at the Disney Institute. She is a seasoned speaker for the HR Star Conference Cleveland.   As a result of her high ratings, she has also been a key speaker at the HR Star Atlanta and received the Gold Medal Award three years in a row for best session speaker.  Amy was a recipient of the 2015 HR Awards presented by ERC & CSHRM. 

Amy focuses her energies on growing leaders through executive coaching, leadership and interpersonal skills training.  She also serves as Past-President and a Board Member for the HR Leadership Group of NE Ohio association and enjoys a variety of community volunteer roles. 

Thank you to our July sponsor!

“The use of this seal confirms that this activity has met HR Certification Institute’s® (HRCI®) criteria for recertification credit pre-approval.”