Question:

Jaimie and Mary are work colleagues in the support team of a large department at the University. Mary has been on maternity leave and the department was reorganised while she was away.

Mary has now returned to work to find that, due to the reorganisation, Jaimie has been given other duties including producing management reports and statistics. Jaimie is now asking Mary for information and advice on how to produce reports and stats (which was previously Mary's responsibilities) and appears to be ‘supervising' Mary. Both Mary and Jaimie used to be very good friends.

Mary's position

Mary is clearly upset and distressed. She has not been informed of the changes and feels that her relationship with Jaimie has been badly damaged. She has lost trust in her friend and feels that Jaimie has done things behind her back while she was away. She tries to be as distant as possible from Jaimie.

Jaimie's position

Jaimie considers that Mary knows more about the changes to the reorganisation than she does. She thinks Mary has started being obstructive when she asks her for things and believes that Mary is jealous of her new ‘role', which is why she does not seem to acknowledge the changes. Their relationship is steadily deteriorating and finally they have a huge argument over a double room booking, for their boss.

1. Based on the case above, assess critically this conflict and its organizational and personal impacts.

2. Suggest which alternative dispute resolution method you would select to solve the above conflict between Mary and Jaimie.

3. Explain any three alternative dispute resolution methods highlighting their importance in relevant situations.