Mediation vs. Investigation: Choosing the Right Path for Workplace Conflict

In this episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast, Simon Goode is joined by a fellow mediator mediator and former employment lawyer, Fiona Bigelli, to discuss the realities of workplace investigations and alternative approaches to resolving conflict. Fiona shares insights on the high-stakes, structured nature of investigations, the importance of procedural fairness, and why addressing issues early—with coaching, facilitated workshops, and mediation—can often be more effective and restorative. They also explore practical advice for organizations and individuals experiencing conflict, highlighting the value of clarity, support, and proactive communication.

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Pax People offer options for restoring workplace relationships following completion of investigations in circumstances where the parties remain working together. 

Learn more about Fiona's services or get in touch through their website paxpeople.com.au. 

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My website is simongoode.com 

You can find information about my services or join the Conflict Skills newsletter for free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. 

Email me at podcast@simongoode.com

Please like and subscribe:👍😎.

Thanks as always for listening 🙏

TIMESTAMPS: 

00:00 "Conflict Skills & Workplace Mediation"

04:32 Workplace Investigations and Risks

09:14 Employment Law and High-Stakes Investigations

11:51 Evolving Workplace Conflict Trends

14:58 "Team Bonding via Deep Reflection"

18:21 Addressing Workplace Dysfunction Proactively

23:43 Facilitated Workshops for Team Success

26:15 Grievance Investigations: Costs and Choices

30:04 "Workplace Support and Regulation"

31:49 Managing Emotions at Work

34:14 "Thanks to Fiona Bigelli"

Transcript

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Hello and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator Simon Good. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe. In the episode today, I'm very pleased to let you know that I'm joined by a fellow mediator and old friend of mine, Fiona Bigelli. She actually has a background in workplace investigations, which I've always been interested in myself. But I know a number of people who listen to the podcast are managing conflict within their team, for example, and they're trying to decide which course of action is going to be the best fit given their context and the different people that they're dealing with. And so those decisions about mediation— should we do a mediation at all? In which case, how structured should it be? How formal? Do we want something more like a facilitated conversation, a therapeutic conversation almost? And then on the other end of the spectrum is the workplace investigations, the structured processes designed to substantiate facts. So I thought that that could be a really helpful thing for people listening to listen to the way that I think about some of those different aspects as a mediator, but also hearing from somebody, as I say, with that workplace investigation focus in particular. Let me know if it's helpful for you, if you would like me to interview or talk to more people dealing with workplace conflict. Which kind of issues would you like more information about? And if you would like more resources and tools for dealing with conflict, please consider pressing subscribe, as I said. And if it's useful, please consider hitting the thumbs up or the, the positive review or whatever the different button is on the application that you're using. Those things make a massive difference for little podcasts like this. So thank you in advance if that's something that you're prepared to do. Enjoy the episode. Well, back when we met, I think you were doing some additional training in terms of mediation. Was it the family dispute resolution training you were at the time. Yeah. Yes. And I can't— I couldn't remember if I was a coach involved in the program or I was a manager in running that Relationships Australia mediation service at the time. I think Helen was one of the main trainers or facilitators there. And at the time, I remember you mentioning that you did workplace investigations, and I had had a whole bunch of experience on the other end of the spectrum, the very therapeutic, coordinated family dispute, like supporting families going through divorce and separation. And also in workplace situations, I'd done like facilitating difficult conversations and that kind of stuff. So mediation for me was like the pointy end of the spectrum in terms of a structured process and a little bit more legalistic and that type of thing. So at the time, I was quite impressed by the fact that you were doing investigations, to be honest, because I didn't know so much about it. And I still haven't had a whole lot of interactions with investigations. As a mediator, I'm sometimes called in to facilitate something after an investigation, or I might get told that there's going to be an investigation if the mediation's not successful. But to be frank, I've probably got a few misconceptions bouncing around in my head about what people actually experience when they go through that. I understand that you've shifted your focus from workplace investigations now to probably more of the therapeutic end of the spectrum, from the sounds of it. But could you walk me through, first of all, just What would an average workplace investigation look like? What was your day-to-day kind of looking like as a practitioner in that area? Yeah, okay. So as you mentioned, workplace investigations are, they're a process and they're a very important process and they need to be a very precise, careful process that is implemented because the stakes are usually very high and it's a very stressful experience. So you can imagine if you put yourself in the shoes of someone who has had allegations made against them, in a workplace, the consequences of that can be really quite devastating for people. It could involve, you know, a loss of face certainly, but also it could change something for them in terms of their professional journey. It could potentially, in the most severe cases, it could mean that their employment is terminated. Yes. So conducting a workplace investigation needs to be something that's taken very, very seriously because of the consequences that it has on the person that the allegations are made about, but also So the person who's made the allegations as well, it's very stressful to get to the point where you are making workplace investigation, workplace allegations about one of your colleagues. Yeah, there's so much at stake on both sides. So much at stake. And it is a very, very stressful process, not only for the two people involved, also for the organisation because that's a risk that they're managing. And then of course, workplace investigations involve other people because you are gathering evidence. So I want to start just by saying that a workplace investigation is really to prove that something has happened on the balance of probabilities, which means that it's more likely than not that the behaviour occurred or that a breach of a policy or, say, a breach of legislation occurred or whatever it is that the organisation wishes to investigate. So clarity around why you're conducting the investigation is really important. And I could keep going on and on and on, but I'd sort of want to keep the conversation conversation free-flowing with you. So it would be more factual, like, was this comment made or did this action happen, so to speak, as opposed to they make me feel uncomfortable or something that's— well, yeah, yes. So getting the allegations crafted into really specific, on this day, yes, at this time, in this meeting, you were present, and at this time you said words to the effect of, and this behaviour, if proven, is considered to be unprofessional, disrespectful, and breaches our code of conduct or breaches workplace bullying legislation. Or, so really important that the person that's responding has as much clarity as possible and really understands. Sometimes organisations will ring and say, we don't really know what's going on, but we've got a few complaints that have filtered through, or there's some grumblings. We'd like to conduct an investigation about Simon and, um, 'What we'd like you to do is just sort of go in there and ask a few questions.' Well, that's not a workplace investigation. No, okay. That's really important. You— he's setting you up to fail almost. Well, it's also very unfair to the person because you know what's happening. So the terms of reference are really important. So first of all, really clear allegations. Yeah. Then the investigator also needs to have a very clear process, confidentiality, Who's going to be interviewed? What are the witnesses told? Do they need to sign up to confidentiality and understand their participation? The person that the allegations are made about needs to understand what's going to happen, what their role is. Are they remaining in the workplace? Are they being stood down? What about the person that's made the allegations? They need to know how long is this going to take. And some sort of— and, and I think a lot of people who lodge workplace complaints and they result in investigations, in their mind they often think, if this is proven, this person's employment will be terminated. And actually the bar's very, very high in terms of your ability to terminate someone's employment. So often— Immediately. Yeah, exactly. So certainly sometimes even if certain conduct, even if it is a breach of a policy or it is poor behaviour, even if it is proven, what can happen then is the person is told, you know, the investigation found that you did breach the code of conduct. And so now what are you left with? You're left with two very unhappy people post-investigation, but they still need to work together. Yeah. So that's why I've shifted my focus towards trying to help organizations deal right up front with workplace grievances and realize that an investigation is not always necessary. I like people to think of investigations as being necessary where if the conduct is proven, you're going to do something significant with it. So you're likely to demote someone, terminate someone's employment, make some sort of change. So you need that evidence, right? It matters for a purpose, right? Yeah, yeah. So if the conduct was proven, you would act on it in some way, and that might not necessarily be dismissing them. It might be a performance management plan or a formal warning or— exactly— restructuring to move someone to a different team. That's right, those kind of options. Yeah, yeah. I can imagine that would just be so full-on for everybody that's involved. And for you, the real focus was on clarifying those expectations so that people weren't sitting there sort of just swallowed up by uncertainty, whatever side of the fence they're on in the allegations, and really pushing for transparency as much as possible in terms of time frames, or even potentially, well, if it's shown to be true, what will happen? What are the range of options that we would consider in that circumstance? What are the factors that we're thinking about, et cetera? That's right. How did you find that then as a new workplace investigator? I imagine it would be very overwhelming initially. Well, look, I had the benefit that in a sort of in a prior life, and, you know, when you speak about a long time ago, this is so long ago that I probably won't even say how long ago it was, but I used to work as an employment lawyer. So I had a sort of a baptism of fire in my career of getting into this kind of work early on. Yes. So it wasn't too bad. Bad. I had moved, I'd done it before, but when I was doing it sort of, you know, quite a lot of it, um, and actually interestingly, when we first set up our business, our first workplace investigation ended up, uh, getting a lot of media attention. So we went into one that had a lot of, um, and you know, we were told right up front that if it went really badly and it ended up, you know, somehow ending up in the court system, that, you know, our, our investigation and its findings would need to be able to stand, you know, legal scrutiny. So sometimes the stakes can be really, really high in circumstances where you don't think— I mean, in that case we knew it was going to be high, but, um, you know, in some cases you might conduct an investigation and then you get a call, you know, a couple of years later or a year later, and you're, you're told that the matter's actually gone down a legal path, um, and the findings of the investigation or the process of the investigation has, um, has somehow, you know, become part of that process. Now, fortunately, we've never been cross-examined in court, but I know some of our investigation reports have been examined by barristers. Um, so, you know, following a really robust process with this procedural fairness, natural justice, and writing that report and documenting everything is just, you know, I can't stress enough how you know, a sort of a general internal investigation which misses a lot of those steps can be very, very dangerous if you're relying on the findings. Well, incredibly stressful, and then all sorts of follow-on negative effects that the organisation's dealing with of the fractured teams, like all the other people you're talking about involved. And I don't know if you've noticed this pattern, but it seems to me that very often the good people leave these kind of teams. So you're often left with a few of the people that are in massive conflict and everyone else just drifts out and looks for other opportunities. Well, a lot of people are left very angry after an investigation, and, and sometimes an investigation just doesn't have enough evidence to prove one way or the other. So then you're left with, uh, look, very rarely do people come out of an investigation, the complainant or the respondent, and feel positive, right? So adversarial, I guess, just by nature. Very adversarial. Yeah, it, it would be particularly challenging. I've, I've noticed in the mediation cases that I've seen over the years, there's been few different trends that come and go. Like back when I was first doing mediations with workplace teams, a lot of it was about bullying in some form or another. It was micromanaging or being disrespectful or whatever. Whereas these days I get many more that are about accusations of racist comments and those types of things being made, or sexist comments, or it seems like there's more of a— I don't know if these are more sensitive areas for people, or people are more blunt in the way that they talk about it in the lunchroom or something like that. I can remember one mediation case that I constantly think about, maybe like once a month or something, was a mediation I did where it was two staff who had been in a romantic relationship together, so dating, and then they split. So I'm called in as a mediator and I'm hearing all of these, like, they wanted to propose this sexual act or something. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, this isn't— yeah, hang on a second. But what do you mean you'd be good at that? It's some relationship therapy. Well, I would have thought you'd be in it managing that kind of thing. Oh, it was terrible. And the reason I remember it is because I didn't break someone's confidence deliberately, but I sort of think that the way that I chose my words might have hinted at something, right? One of them had begun dating and they didn't want the other party to know that. I'm like, guys, I can't— this isn't really my job. Like, I'm trying to be formal, I'm wearing my suit and everything. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It was very stressful. And so then I said something like, if they are dating other people or something, I was like, oh, I shouldn't have said that, you know. Like, it sort of hinted that maybe I knew anyway. That's the Holy Grail. And you win. It's terrible. But what were the range of issues that you get called in for the workplace investigations. We absolutely do those kinds of issues. I would say most of the workplace issues are people's differences or different interests, but certainly different styles of communication and engagement causes a lot of friction in the workplace. So there is a lot of talk about how important diversity is, and I do agree, I think diversity has a very, very important role in the workplace. What comes with diversity is often conflict because people have a very different expectation. And I think simply conflict comes about where expectations aren't met. Right. Yeah. I think this is going to happen and you think something else. With those differences, often it's something like it's an expectation that's been there for a long time. Like it's how all of my other bosses treated me until now. Why are you treating me differently? Or this is how I talk to all my staff. Like, why are you being so overly sensitive? Sensitive, or whatever else it might be. Well, and, and a relationship could be very important. Relationships can be very important to someone. Driving results could be more important to someone else. So when I talk about different interests, uh, you know, people are motivated by different things. So diversity exists in, in all kinds of ways, um, and it can drive a lot of very beneficial outcomes. It can also drive, uh, a lot of fractures in the workplace. Right, especially if they're not addressed and those expectations aren't clarified appropriately. And when they— sorry to cut you off, Simon, but when they are addressed and when people actually have an opportunity, because we're all so time poor, you know, we don't sit down like you do in a mediation for 2 or 3 hours and have a concentrated focus on what are my interests, what are my values, what drives me, what motivates me, how am I perceived. But when people do do that they learn so much about their colleagues that I think, you know, I don't know why people don't do that right up front when they get a team together because it's a bit like this massive social experiment. You just sort of throw all these people in and say, this person's really capable of this. And Fiona's capable of this, Simon's capable of that. But then all of those other things that just sort of muddled their way through. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe that's sort of what you would talk about next in terms of those processes that you focus on these days. Can I just check though, Fiona? You talked about some of the things that can be helpful from an organisation that's organising an investigation's perspective, like clarifying things, clarifying the allegations, considering the consequences if it's true or not true. Do you have any advice for the people going through an investigation, like someone who's been accused of something or someone who's the— what would you say, like aggrieved party to some extent? If it were me, I would, uh, look for some support, and I would look for some support in ensuring that the process that's been adopted, for example, about me, I would make sure that I'm afforded procedural fairness and natural justice. So I would be quite assertive about asking for a copy of the allegations or understanding exactly the detail of what is alleged against me. So I think getting get some support, whether that be from a union or an employment lawyer, or, you know, a body like Legal Aid, or, you know, whatever, or a friend who might have some expertise in employment relations or employment law. Yeah, I mean, I've, I've helped a few sort of friends casually through those processes, and they have— they've just said, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't had some help with this. So, Kathy, what to ask for? Yeah, I've also got a friend who said he went— he was the subject of a vexatious set of allegations made against him, and he was extremely angry once the process was over. And he talked to me about it, and I said to him, you know, at some point you've got to let it go. You know, you and I know— we talk, you know, you and I know all about that therapy, but, but you've got to— perhaps it's important to express to your employer how that process felt to you and at what points you would have liked things to have been different. Yeah, it's some of the hardest mediations I've done is when you call in after the allegation is not substantiated and the other person's still swearing black and blue, they said it, they did it, or whatever. Um, very challenging. Is that often the case, that it's not substantiated? Like the results come back? It is often the case, right? Um, if you don't have enough evidence, you'll find a lot of investigations will say this set of allegations is not proven on the basis of sufficient evidence, or this little bit's proven but this little bit's not proven, so on balance— yes, I mean, you see a lot of investigations that say the person has not engaged in bullying but there's been some lack of capabilities and some unprofessional behaviour. Okay, that's why the comment was made. Yeah, exactly. But you know what I think? I sort of think whether it's bullying, you know, whether bullying's made out or it's not, or whether, you know, Section X is breached or not, if you've got two people in front of you that if you've got somebody saying, "This person has done this or says this," what you do have in front of you is dysfunction and you do have a lack of psychosocial safety. So I think it's important for, you know, where allegations are made, it's not always about can they be proven or not by an independent person and can they withstand scrutiny. It's about organisations just acknowledging right up front something is not working here, whether it's bullying or not. So we've got to deal with it regardless of whether it's proven or not. Yeah, dysfunction is a really good way of thinking about it. Yeah, we're not functioning as we should. No. In medical terms, you would call it a disorder. It's like, yeah, things are out of order. They're not in the arrangement that they need to be. You know, your heart doesn't have enough, whatever, blood pumping through this particular section or something. And relationships are the same. There's this disorder and it causes dysfunction. So that admitting that they have a problem, or at least deciding to do something about it if there is one, is probably that first step there from the organisation's perspective. Could you tell me a bit more then about what you focus on these days and the types of processes that you've moved to? And I suppose that might help people to understand what kind of options exist after a workplace investigation for restoring a bit of that relationship. Yep. So, so we often talk with clients about about the situation where a complaint's been made. And often we'll talk about whether an investigation is an appropriate way to go. So sometimes when people ring up, for example, and say, we've got an allegation of some very serious sexual harassment that's occurred, what do you recommend? Well, obviously we're not recommending mediation because in that instance, if the, um, if the behaviour is proven, then the stakes, as we talked about, are very high and there's likely to be some serious consequences. So we would say at that point we would recommend an investigation, or we would recommend, uh, a process that's much more determinative. Yes. In the hope— in the hope that there is— there are facts that are able to be made out there. Um, but what we're working really on now is working with organisations to resolve conflict early and just have harmonious, really good functioning relationships where you've got high-performing people. They might be quite different and get on each other's nerves and have friction. Yes. But learn, and also building that conflict capability so that when conflict arises, they've actually got the ability to work through it or to think outside of their own perspective, think about how they're being perceived, use neutral language, ask questions, take a line of inquiry, do all those things so that people can move towards achieving and working together productively. Rather than being too positional and combative. Is it training workshops or coaching? We do training workshops. I mean, that's part of our mediation process, in fact. So, we adopt a bit of what we call conflict management coaching in our preparations for mediation, and we give people copies of various models that we've got about neutral language. We also prepare them for the mediation so that when they attend the mediation, they're already using language in the mediation that's more future-oriented, that's more inquiring. Curious. Exactly. That is about learning and explaining rather than putting the other person to proof or defending. You did this, you shouldn't have done this. Yeah. What you need to understand is this. Yeah. You know it. Yeah. You just say, you need to understand, people's ears just immediately close over. It's like a mechanical thing that you can always see happening in real time. What you don't know is, or obviously what you're not getting is, all those kinds of things. So we work on, we work with people to really think about how their communication is going to help them work through a process. And that's how they're coming across potentially to other people and adjusting depending on the person that they're dealing with and that kind of thing. Do you do, like, ongoing work with teams then, or what would the process typically look like in terms of timeframes? Yes, so we do mediations, and as you know, mediations are where two parties enter into the process voluntarily to work things out between them, and there's all the confidentiality, and it's— it feels a bit formal to people. Structured, at least. And structured, yeah. Feels a bit scary when they come into the office. We try to be really nice and friendly and, you know, provide tea and coffee and muesli bars and, you know, sugar and things like that. Good idea. People with higher sugar levels tend to, tend to do better in these. Concentrate more. No keto diet for those sort of things. Temporary cheat day. Exactly. So I always put chocolates and things on the table. It works, you know. But it does make a difference. We've got a physical body. So if you're hungry or, you know, anything really, it's going to affect the way that you're thinking. That's so interesting. Well, I know what it feels like to be hangry. And I know what it's like to have hangry children. Well, then you combine the two and you have a conversation about angry children. Yeah, exactly. But then on the other side, what we're doing a lot more of is what I call facilitated workshops, is where the organisation directs the parties or requests that the parties attend what we call a workshop, not a conversation, because it's more than just a conversation. It's about preparation. It's about skills to bring together. And the workshops are about What's my role at this— in the organization? What are the behaviors that are expected of me at work and in my role? What are the behaviors that make me successful? What are the behaviors that make us successful together as a team? And then we have much more of a future-oriented discussion around what skills, what behaviors, what sort of regularity of meetings or discussions and things need to occur back at work so that we can shift away from dysfunction, conflict, hurt feelings, etc., towards functioning. And sometimes that's one workshop with preparation. Sometimes I do that, we do that with teams. Yeah. So we, we might meet with everybody individually and get, you know, people feel heard and we get a really good understanding of what's going on. And then we can be really quite detailed about the actions, um, and we really allow people to decide because they know their jobs, they know the environment, they know all of their little nitty-gritty of what needs to be done. Right. So they're really leading the solutions and the resolutions, and that's the start of great teamwork in and of itself. So that's what we're seeing really works very well. Would that also be the kind of thing that you would recommend immediately after a workplace investigation? Like, really clarify what's going to happen for the rest of the day. This is what's going to happen tomorrow. This is the plan for next week type of thing. Like, very step-by-step, detail-oriented. And I wonder if some of your work as a lawyer and then the investigation has really bled into the work that you do these days with teams. Removing that uncertainty just makes such a big difference, doesn't it? Oh, I think the uncertainty is the scariest part. Yeah. I think also people feel really quite horrified that their colleagues are brought into the process. So it takes on a life of its own. It's very, it's very challenging. I know a lot of the, the HR clients we have they find the process really stressful because they're managing two parties. They're often managing a very senior person, and, um, investigations can take a very long time. Yeah, they typically take between sort of, you know, 4 to— and sometimes, like, I've heard of it— I mean, we— ours haven't gone on this long, but I've heard of investigations going on for as long as up to 3 months. So you can imagine being left in limbo for that long, right? And they're very, very expensive as well because they involve a lot of time, a lot of resources, not only for the investigation, the cost of the investigation itself, but all of the time spent, you know, the leaders in the organisation, all of the employees, the disruption to business. So, so I think you, you have to really think very carefully before you go down the path of an investigation because They're a big deal, and there's lots of other options to do other things. I think there's a misconception out there that if you get a grievance and someone says, "I feel bullied," that there's an obligation on the organisation to investigate. There is not. There's an obligation on the organisation to act. Okay. And that can be in a variety of ways. Which could include training or facilitated meeting or coaching or those options that you've talked about. Can an organisation do an investigation internally? Are there any constraints around doing that? They can. So the independence is always a question mark over that. So if you've got somebody who is an HR manager that's doing the investigation, obviously they report through to who? Someone more senior. Their salary is paid for by the— by the employer. So if that ever comes under scrutiny, the first thing that will come out is this, this is not really biased. Yeah, exactly. This is not really independent, you know. Is there a bias here towards finding one way or the other? Now, that sounds like we're questioning the integrity of practitioners. We are not. And I think most practitioners who conduct investigations do so with the utmost of integrity. It's where, if this became part of a legal process, it's very hard to argue that you don't have an alignment towards the organisation that— Of course. Yeah. How could you demonstrate that? It would certainly be impossible. Well, with mediation, when we talk about impartiality, it's perceived impartiality. What matters is that the clients know that we're not taking sides, and if they're worried we are, well, we need to do something about it type of thing. So that perceived independence probably is quite similar. It's— Yes. Well, it needs to be independent, but it needs to be perceived to be independent. Perceived. Exactly. And I think I hear a lot of people say— I've had a client ask me, do you think we 'Build an in-house mediation service at our organisation, and, you know, what do you think, could we all become trained as mediators?' And I said,'We could, but I don't know how that would go in terms of independence and impartiality. I would counsel against that.' And you, as you know, Simon, mediators always have that little bit of magic where they're able to ask questions that if you were to ask and you were internally involved, you already knew the answer. Yeah. Well, well, it also steers someone in a certain direction of thinking, which— so, so independence gives you the ability to help people walk down pathways. Whereas we're genuinely curious, genuinely open. Yeah. Until you've seen the first party, then you try to forget what they told you and treat the second person equally as curiously and openly. But it can be challenging. Yeah. Well, Fiona, I really appreciate you talking about both the types of things that can help resolve that conflict as well as clarifying those expectations. The one area that I'm just thinking about still from what you've said is the animosity that still must be sitting there. You know, you've talked about them— obviously it's an adversarial process, so there's not much goodwill in the end. Is there any guidance that you would suggest for the people involved to get over the, the hurt or the anger or whatever else it might be, or for the organization to support the people when they're still sitting there with really strong emotions? Look, I think the organisation needs to be the first— if you want to call the organisation a person, the organisation needs to be the first person to take the steps to support the parties. Um, what I would say, if you are involved in an investigation, whether you're the person making the allegations or you're the person who has the allegations made against you, I think if you can access some coaching, that's really helpful, because a coach very much feels like a person who's in your corner, as from, say, a mediator or a facilitator. So if you can get some coaching or some counselling, I think that's really helpful just to, to be calm. Think about how you will react. Um, always remembering that when we're in the workplace, we're turning up and performing the job we're paid to do. So how do you regulate? How do I regulate when I go to work rather than just, you know, completely flip out? Which is quite— I mean, we're human beings, it's very hard to regulate all the time. Very challenging as we become overwhelmed and we escalate, of course. Yeah. So what do you talk to them about then? Like just breathing techniques and mindfulness activities and those types of things? I typically try to talk to them about if they want to remain employed and it's really important for them, I ask them to think about, you know, try to sort of project in your mind, you know, why am I here? Why is it important for me? And how do I want to be perceived by other people? So if I, and I paint the picture for them, I say if I turn up to work and I present as grumpy and angry, think about the next time someone is looking to either conduct your performance review or potentially promote you into a role. That behaviour sticks in people's mind, often more than the good work you do. Yeah. So just remember that there's always a cost when you, when you become unregulated at work. Um, and, and think about the consequences. So if people can sort of see a value and think, I better try to maintain my composure. But then obviously you need an outlet. And I've talked with some clients about if you feel really upset or you're really angry, just remove yourself, go downstairs and ring someone who's going to calm you down, not someone who's going to whiz you up by saying, oh my God, that your boss sounds like a total witch. You know, you just go back in there and I wouldn't put up with that. That's not the person you ring, even though they're the best kind of people to speak to when you're angry because, you know, you feel so validated. But you need to ring someone who's going to help you remain calm because they'll be able to do it probably when you're feeling like your head's going under the water. Yeah, a great bit of, a bit of advice to finish on. See, I'd ring you. I'd ring you. All right, sure. I did what you need. No, you wouldn't. You'd be the calming influence. I need to understand this. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention about that whole investigation process or the more like relationship building stuff on the other end? Um, look, I think the relationship— if you're conducting an investigation, I think it's really important, you know, if you're an HR manager or you're, you're thinking about doing an investigation for the organization you work for, I think it's always important to remember that at the end you've either got a happy person and an unhappy person, or you've got two unhappy people. But in the equation, there's always unhappiness. Interesting. So keep your expectations realistic. So, so think about about what you're going— what your plan is for support and for restoration. And to keep— and also remember, you in your mind might think, if this gets proven, this person is going to be gone. And then when you go to see the employment lawyers, the reality of how hard it is and how much evidence you need to be able to prove that you've gone through all the processes is much higher than often people anticipate. Yeah, that's such a— I totally agree, and I bet that that resonates with a lot of people listening. Fiona, thank you much for your time, for sharing all of your knowledge and wisdom, as well as some of your experiences in all of that. It's been great seeing you again, Simon. Just another massive thanks to Fiona for taking the time to have the conversation, as well as her generosity in sharing the experience and knowledge that she's acquired over the years. If you would like to get in touch with Fiona, or you would like would like to inquire about potentially using some of those services that she mentioned, their website is paxpeople.com.au. So paxpeople.com.au. And if you would like to get in touch with her, she suggested that LinkedIn is probably a good option. Fiona's last name is Bigelli, which is B-I-G-E-L-L-I. And thank you as always for listening. Please consider hitting the like button, and hopefully see you again in a future episode. Episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Bye for now.