The people behind Australia's specialist workplace mediation practice, and the thinking that shapes how we work.
Most people in workplace conflict are reasonable people in an unreasonable situation. Our job is not to decide who is right. It is to give both people a safe, structured way to say what needs saying and to work out how they will go forward.
The mediator is independent of the employer and of each person in the room. That is what makes it possible for people to speak openly.
Employers and employees get the same preparation, the same time and the same respect. Agreements last because nobody was pushed into them.
Private intake sessions first, then a joint session. The same process every time, so people know what to expect before they walk in.
Anna Faoagali has been mediating since 2000 and was nationally accredited in 2009. She founded Emverio in 2015 because the standard facilitative mediation model, the one Australian mediators are accredited in under AMDRAS, does not fit neatly in workplaces.
Workplace mediation is relationship driven. It sits inside a complex regulatory environment, with challenging power dynamics, and it asks the mediator to understand culture, neurodiversity and psychosocial risk. It also has one unusual feature: the employer pays, but is not necessarily part of the process. Anna built a team that supports each other to respond to these challenges, so employers get a facilitative process, with baked in competencies and strategies designed to work for workplaces. The same structured process, delivered the same way, at every site across Australia and New Zealand.
She holds a Master of Legal Practice, Skills and Ethics from Monash University and Bachelor degrees in Law and Commerce from Griffith University, and is a nationally accredited mediator.
Before Emverio, Anna was Manager Conciliation at the Energy and Water Ombudsman Victoria and mediated and conciliated for the Queensland Ombudsman, the Anti-Discrimination Commission Queensland and the Commonwealth Ombudsman. She has trained mediators in Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea and Samoa.
Anna and her team have mediated for multinational corporations, government bodies, universities and community organisations across Australia and New Zealand. Through the wider Emverio group they also provide workplace investigations and an independent complaints and whistleblowing service.
Emverio is a national panel of accredited workplace mediators and specialists, supported by a small operations team. Read their profiles and find the right person for your matter.
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