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Denise Evans, Business Director: Social Services

The consensual resolution of disputes in a professional, timely and appropriate manner is fundamental to keeping businesses going. Early intervention usually produces the best results and is certainly likely to have the lowest cost.

Relationships are one of the most difficult things we do, and life is all about relationships. There is hardly an aspect of our lives that does not rely on an interdependent relationship with someone. And where there are people and interdependent relationships, there is bound to be conflict. There is a good chance that a lot of that conflict will be with people at work, because there is plenty of opportunity. The statistics are consistent about how much of our life is spent at work, it’s a whopping 90,000 hours or one third of our entire awake working life!

Comparing the way that New Zealand organisations and individuals go about resolving their disputes to others internationally is an interesting exercise. I recently attended a conference in Seattle of the American Bar Association on dispute resolution. While this was a large conference with many excellent ideas and presentations, I came away with three major observations.

The death of a person can create significant stress for families and other people who are involved in making arrangements for any ceremony which marks the passing of that person.

An article written by Denise Evans, Scheme Director of Fair Way’s Commercial and Private Dispute Resolution service