The Core Program

a Fresh Start In Workplace Conflict Resolution

A Telecast Originating from the BLM National Training Center

June 22nd, 2000

This transcript is from the closed-captioning file produced during the
telecast.

It may contain errors and omissions in transcription.

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Announcer: the Bureau of Land Management Satellite Network Presents Live
from the BLM National Training Center in Phoenix, Arizona, a Department
Of the Interior Production: \"The Core Program, a Fresh Start In
Workplace Conflict Resolution.\" And Now, Your Core Presentation Team.
Here\'s Craig Calderwood, a Core Specialist with the Bureau of
Reclamation.

C. Calderwood: Good Morning, Everyone. Welcome to the Overview of the
Department of Interior Core Program. In this Telecast We Will Discuss
The Core Program. This Process Uses Alternate Dispute Resolution, Also
Known As Adr, to Resolve Workplace Disputes at the Earliest Opportunity
and at the Lowest Organizational Level. Also with Us Today Is Sarah
Rogers, Department of the Core Program Coordinator. Good Morning, Sarah.

S. Rogers: Good Morning, Craig. How Are You DOIng Today?

C. Calderwood: Good. Thank You. Completing Our Instructional Team Is
Dola Greene, a Core Specialist with the Usgs in California.

D. Greene: Good Morning. I\'m Happy to Be Here. I Really ‑‑ I like the
Core Program and I\'m Especially Happy To Be Here since Craig and Sarah
Forgot to Pick Me up at the Airport, but I Made it Anyway.

C. Calderwood: We Would like To Mention Right up Front That There Is
Additional Information On the Core Program at the New Core Website,
Which Is Located At Www.DOI.gov/core. Dola Will Be Talking More about
This Site Later in the Broadcast. During this Program, We Want to Hear
from You. If You Have a Question or a Comment for Us, Please Give Us a
Call or Send Us a Fax Using the Numbers Provide to Do Your Office. To
Keep Things Running Smoothly, Please Don\'t Bother with Fax Cover Pages.
And We\'ve Reserved the Last Half Of Our Show for a General
Question‑and‑answer Segment. We Encourage All Downlink Sites Today to
Record a Copy of this Telecast for Future Use and in Addition,
Videotapes of Our Show Will Be Provided to Each Bureau Within the next
Few Weeks. Now to Kick Things off Here Is Assistant Secretary John Berry
Who Has Prepared Remarks for Us On the Core Program. Let\'s Take a Look.

J. Berry: Good Day. Eye My Name Is John Berry. I Am the Assistant
Secretary for Policy Management and Budget in The Department of
Interior. Thank You for Your Attention to This Broadcast. As You Know,
Secretary Babbitt\'s And My Highest Priority Is the Happiness and Safety
of Our Employees Here in the Department. One of Our Most Important
Initiatives Has Been Focusing on The Quality of Worklife for Our
Employees in the Department. Today I Am Happy to Announce a New Process
for Communication Where We Can Resolve Problems That Might Arise Between
Employees and Each Other and Employees and Supervisors in the Workplace.
This Is an Important Project That Has Been Developed in Partnership with
Our Labor‑management Council and Is A Great Example of Partnership
Between Us and the Council. Core Is the Name of Our Program. Quite
Simply It\'s an Acronym That Stands for Conflict Resolution. It Is an
Informal Process to Improve Communication in the Workplace. There Are
Four Points I Want to Point out about Core. I Hope You Will Remember
Them. First, Core Does Not Replace Any Of the Existing Formal Processes
That Exist for Federal Employees. Those Rights Continue to Exist And Be
Retained by Employees and Are Not Diminished in Any Way. So Whether We
Are Talking about The Process Resolving Ethics Issues, Equal Opportunity
Issues, Labor‑management, Employee Grievance Processes, All of Those
Remain Intact. Core Is Simply an Alternative to Begin Those Processes to
See If We Can Resolve Just Through an Informal Fair Communication
Strategy to Resolve Issues Quickly and Early. That\'s One of the Most
Important Issues I\'d like to You Remember. Core Will Be Fast. We
Promise an Answer, a Resolution Within 15 Days of You Meeting with a
Conflict Resolution Specialist. Already We Have 50 Specialists Trained
Throughout the Department. Our Goal Is to Ultimately Have 500 So That
These People Will Be Readily Available to Quickly Engage with the
Parties That Are Involved to Ensure a Fair and Informal Process So That
Both Sides Understand Where the Other Side Is Coming From. The Second
Most Important Issue Is Core Is Confidential. Anything You Say to a Core
Specialist Will Remain with That Person. It Is Not Available for Use in
Any of the Other Processes. It Is an Attempt Just to Provide, Again,
That Informal Process for Communication. Most Important Is That You Are
In Charge Throughout the Entire Process. If at Any Time Once You Have
Begun the Core Processor Not Happy or Are Not Satisfied, You Can End It.
You Can Pull out Without Penalty. In Other Words, You Are in Complete
Control. It Is Just an Attempt to Put a Third Party in the Room So That
You Could Be Sure the Other Employee Understands Where You\'re Coming
from and That Your Supervisor Hears What You\'re Trying to Say, and Vice
Versa. That\'s Our Hope with the Core Specialists. The Secretary and I
Are Firm Believers That this Can Be an Important Tool in Our Tool Box To
Solve and Keep the Department Moving Forward in a Positive Manner. I
Hope You Will Pay Attention During the Rest of this Broadcast to Learn
More about The Details of this Important Program. Thank You for Your
Attention. Good Luck and God Bless.

C. Calderwood: We Appreciate John Berry Taking Time to Prepare Those
Remarks for Us. And, Hey, John, We Hope You\'re Watching Because We
Enjoyed the Filming of Your Segment with Sarah Holding up the Bullets on
The Camera Cards for You. Sarah, Why Don\'t You Get Things Started by
Giving Us an Overview Of What the Core Program Is All About.

S. Rogers: I Would Be Happy To. As Assistant Secretary John Berry
Pointed Out, Core Is a Voluntary Option for All Interior Employees.
Important Aspects of the Program Include Confidentiality. Information
Brought to Core Remains Confidential. There Are No Time Delays. Requests
for Assistance Are Normally Handled in 15 Days. It\'s Also Possible to
Have an Extension of Another 15 Days Making a Total of 30. And Positive
Control. An Employee May Stop the Core Process at Any Time. And Fair
Solutions. Fair Because Parties Work out Their Own Resolution. Core
Specialists Do Not Decide What to Do about a Problem, How To Resolve It.
The Parties Do That. Now, Let Me Take a Little Time To Explain Something
of the History about Core. How Did We Get Here? Why Are We Using Core?
Why Are We Using Adr in the Interior Department? In 1996, Interior\'s
Adr Policy Was Implemented. This Was Through the Office of Hearings and
Appeals. This Included Mediation for Natural Resource Issues,
Contractual Problems, Disputes And Workplace Issues. Several Pilot
Projects Were Initiated Between 1997 and 1996. All of Which Were
Successful. And in March of 2000, the Core Departmental Manual Was
Signed. Now It\'s June of 2000 and on July 3rd We\'re Going to Roll out
The Core Program for All Employees. So Let\'s Take a Look at the
Services of the Core Program. Information, What Options Do Employees
Have to Address Their Concerns? Informal Conflict Resolution, Using Adr
Techniques in an Informal Setting. We Also Provide Facilitation
Sometimes for Groups, Sometimes An Entire Office Needs Help to Change
Patterns That Might Be Destructive to the Workplace Relationship.
Sometimes There Are Recurring Problems and People Have Gotten Into
Habits of How They Respond To Things. Sometimes Those Aren\'t Always
Positive Situations. Core Specialists Can Help in These Areas. And If
the Employees Feel They Would like to Go Elsewhere, Core Specialists
Also Offer Referral. They Can Provide Information to Employees about the
Many Different Formal Programs That Are Available Within the Department
of Interior. As Secretary Berry Pointed Out, Core Does Not Replace Any
Formal Processes. Core Does Not Provide Those ‑‑ Does Not Replace Those
Things That Are Normally Associated With Formal Redress Systems. Now,
What Are Those Things That Are Normally Included in Formal Redress
Systems? You May or May Not Be Familiar With Those. Informal Redress ‑‑
in Formal Redress You Typically Have Investigations. Someone Comes In,
Investigates And They Make Findings. They Write up a Report. That
Doesn\'t Happen in Core. There\'s Also the Formal Grievance Process.
Core Can Be Used to Replace the Informal Part of the Grievance Process,
but it Doesn\'t Replace The Formal Grievance Process. And Nothing from
Core That Is Part of this Informal Side of Grievance Can Be Used in the
Formal Grievance Process. As I Said, the Process of Core Is
Confidential. Also Core Specialists Do Not Offer Legal Advice. They\'re
Not Practicing as Attorneys, If They Do Happen to Be an Attorney. We
Have a Variety of Backgrounds Of Our Core Specialists. Some Are in
Accounting. Some Are out in the Field. One Is a Park Superintendent.
None of Us Provide Legal Advice. That\'s Outside of the Bounds of What
We Can Do under the Adr Act. Also, this Is Not a Formal Redress or
Rights Advocacy Program. We Focus on Interests, What Do The Parties Need
to Do to Have a Healthy and Harmonious Workplace Environment? Like
We\'ve Said in the Recent H.r. Conference, If Your Workplace Is a
Heavenly, Harmonious Place, You Don\'t Need Core. But If You Do Have
Some Problems, Core Is a Place to Come. Let Me Tell You a Little Bit
About What Core Specialists Are About. The Core Specialist Does Not Make
a Decision of Merit Concerning Information Presented To Them. They
Don\'t Decide If a Case Is Valid.

D. Greene: an Example of What That Would Be Is If an Employee Came to
the Core Specialist and They Walk in and They Say, \"I\'ve Had It, My
Co‑worker, this Is The Third Time They\'ve Yelled at Me, it Doesn\'t
Even Matter Where It Is, I\'ve Had It, I Don\'t Know What to Do, and
That\'s Why I\'m Here. Then I Listen. The Core Specialist Listens and
They\'re Sympathetic and Because The Employee Is So Upset, It\'s Like,
You Know What? I Think That Person Is Creating A Hostile Work
Environment for You. You Ought ‑‑ You Need to Go to Eeo. That\'s What\'s
Happening with You. But It\'s Not the Core Specialist\'s Role to Decide
What The Employee May Use to Resolve Their Problems.

S. Rogers: Dola Brings up a Really Valid Point There. When You Come into
Core, the Core Specialist Does Not Decide What Course of Action the
Employee Uses to Resolve the Problem. What They Do Is Help the Employee
to Talk about What Their Difficulty Is. As She Mentioned, They Don\'t
Decide, Go to Eeo, Go to Whistle Blowing, Go to Ethics. That\'s Not the
Job in Core. We\'re Going to Practice Good Communications. And as We All
Know, Good Communication Can Reduce Complaints, but it Will Not
Eliminate Them. Why? Because People Make Mistakes. New Realities
Sometimes Clash With Old Policies. Well, You Know, You\'ve Always Heard
This, We\'ve Done it this Way for the Last Ten Years, I\'m Not Changing!
Sometimes People Do Need to Change to Match Those Realities. Budgets
Change. All Kinds of Things Go On. Sometimes People Retire. And the next
Two Years, a Significant Percentage of All Interior Employees Will Be
Eligible for Retirement. How Are We Going to Address Those Stressors
That Come? Because We\'re Not Going to Be Able to Hire People
Immediately To Fill Those Jobs and There\'s Going to Be a Learning
Curve. Core Offers Opportunities to Talk about These Things When There
Are Conflicts. Core Offers Employees at All Levels an Opportunity to
Make Positive Changes in Their Workplace Environment. Now, Where There
Is a Workplace Conflict, Core Focuses on the Interest, on the Common
Goals. Sometimes People Become a Little Emotional. Sometimes They Feel
like Their Position Is Threatened. We\'re Going to Step Inside and That
We\'re Going to Look at Why Are They There? What Motivates Them to
Respond? And What\'s the Overall Mission Of the Office? How Can We Help
Everyone Work Constructively Together? Core Offers Constructive
Alternatives to Resolving Conflicts and Provides Neutral Problem Solving
Environments. And How Do We Do This? The Core Specialist Is an
Objective, Neutral Third Party. Focus Is on the Issues, and Common
Concerns, That Will Make The Workplace Environment Better. Now, There
Are Generally Three Components in the Core Process And Let Me Tell What
You Those Are. We Have an Information Interview. This Is Part of the
Intake Process. In This, a Core Specialist Will Provide Information
about Formal Redress Processes and Make Sure The Individuals Know What
the Time Frames Are If They Feel They\'ve Suffered an Incident Such as
Something Discriminatory Or What Have You and What Their Window of
Opportunity Is for Using the Formal Processes. After This, Mediation
Setting May Be Appropriate. This Is the Key ‑‑ or the Heart Of the
Problem‑solving Environment, the Setting Between Employees, Between
Employees and Supervisors. And When I Mention That All Employees Can Use
the Core Process, I Mean All Employees! If They\'re Wage‑grade
Employees, Gs Employees, Senior Executive Service Employees or Any Mix
Thereof, All Employees Can Use The Core Process, and Craig\'s Going to
Talk a Little Bit More About How this Works with Union Involvement and
What Kind of Agreements Need to Be in Place. Now, Agreement or Consensus
Decision Making, this Is the Conclusion of the Core Process. Hopefully
People Will Find Constructive Ways to Reach Their Agreements. If They
Don\'t, We\'ll Provide a No Agreement Form. Parties Can Come Back to the
Table Late for They Feel like They Need To. Dialogue Between the Parties
in Core Settings Is Protected by Confidentiality under the Adr Act. That
Is, Before Coming into the Core Program, Everyone Agrees That What Is
Said Within the Core Process Is Not to Be Repeated to Others. When
Agreements Are Made, No One Is Formally Bound by That Decision. And
That\'s an Interesting Part Of This. In the Decision Making Process We
Have No Policing of the Agreement. When Someone Agrees, They Make In
Someway as Contract, but We\'re Not Having Teeth in the Contract That
Someone Is Going To Come along and Say, Well, You Didn\'t Do this Part
or You Didn\'t Do That Part. It\'s Left to the Integrity of The
Individuals Who Have Offered What They Want to Do to Make the Situation
Work. And What Happens If the Parties Don\'t Abide by the Agreement?
Sometimes a Core Specialist Will Follow Up, Ask Them to Come Back To the
Table. Core Is a Successful Program Already. But Let Me Look at this a
Little Closer. Why Come to Core? Let Me Give You an Example. An Employee
Came to Core after Not Receiving a Temporary Promotion He Felt He
Deserved. In this Confidential Setting, The Employee Accused the
Supervisor of Not Seriously Considering Him. He Was Upset Because He Had
More Seniority than Other Employees. Particularly the One Who Was
Selected. The Core Specialist Then Talked With the Supervisor, Who
Stated That She Had a Problem with the Employee\'s Dependability. The
Supervisor Agreed That Mediation Might Resolve the Problem. In
Mediation, the Employee Discussed His Concerns about Not Receiving the
Temporary Promotion Because He Felt He Deserved It. The Supervisor
Discussed Her Concerns of Him Being Chronically Late for Work. Sometimes
Not Calling in until Noon. The Employee Admitted He Had Been Late, but
He Had Made up The Time. So What Was the Big Deal? The Supervisor Stated
That Co‑workers Had to Cover His Projects, Take over His Work. As a
Result, One Person Could Not Take off on Her Scheduled Vacation. Both
Sides of the Table Were Frustrated, and Communication Was at a
Standstill. The Core Specialist Talked with Each Party in Private. We
Call That Going into Caucus. In Confidence in this Private Setting, the
Employee Shared With the Core Specialist a Personal Reason for Lateness.
He Had a Child Who Was in Trouble and in Police Custody. This Was Very
Embarrassing to Him. He Was Also Unaware That a Co‑worker Had Missed a
Vacation, And He Felt Very Bad about That. The Core Specialist
Encouraged Him to Share His Information With the Supervisor on the
Understanding That this Would Be Treated as a Confidential Matter
Between Them. Meeting with the Supervisor Individually, the Core
Specialist Learned That the Employee\'s Lateness Began During The Last
Year. Before This, the Worker Had Been Very Reliable, Someone That the
Supervisor Could Always Count On. But Lately He Had Been Moody and
Unwilling to Talk. The Supervisor Felt That She Couldn\'t Consider Him
for a Position of Increased Responsibility Given Those Circumstances.
Now, She Had Tried to Approach Him, Tried to Talk about the Problem, but
She Had Met Every Time with Silence. Back in Mediation, the Supervisor
Told the Employee How Much She Valued His Work. The Employee Then Shared
with The Supervisor His Reason for Being Late. A Little Give and Take
Here. The Employee Offered to Call Whenever He Thought a Problem Was
Developing at Home. With the Door of Communication Then Open, the
Supervisor Offered to Be More Flexible. She Offered to Reschedule
Projects on Short Notice and Find Someone to Assist with the Work. She
Also Advised the Employee That He May Want to Take Advantage of the
Employee Assistance Program to Help with His Child\'s Problems. The
Employee Agreed. The Core Specialist Provided Contact Information about
the Program. The Supervisor Offered to Follow Up with the Employee over
the Following 30 Days. The Supervisor Added That Due to Budget
Constraints, She Would Not Be Filling this Position Until the next
Fiscal Year. There Might Be Another Opportunity for this Temporary
Promotion to Be Filled by Him. Both Parties Came to the Table And Shared
Information. They Agreed to Improve Their Communication. They Preserved
Their Working Relationship. Now, What\'s Also Significant Is That at the
End of This, All the Notes Were Destroyed. No Written Records of Their
Discussions Were Kept. Only the Settlement Agreements Would Be
Maintained, and That by The Core Specialist and Each of The Parties.
Information on That Agreement, What Each Party Agreed to Do, Would Not
Normally Be Shared Except on a Need‑to‑know Basis, And If They Needed to
Go Back And Revisit That Agreement, If Something Had Changed Between
Them, If Something in the Workplace Had Changed, They Can Do That. They
Can Do it Just the Two of Them Together. They Can Do it with a Core
Specialist.

C. Calderwood: Thanks, Sarah. That\'s a Good Example That Shows How the
Core Process Can Really Help. We Would like to Go to Dola Now, Who in
Her Role with the Core She Will Talk about What Is the Role of the Core
Specialist and Another Question She\'ll Address Is How Does an Employee
Learn About the Core Process. Dola?

D. Greene: Thank You. The Role of the Core Specialist Is Comprised of
Four Main Focus Areas. The First of These Is Listening. This Gives the
Employee Thoughtful ‑‑ this Is Giving the Employee Thoughtful Attention.
You Know, Helping Them to Recognize What Their Actual Concerns Are.
Because Oftentimes, Issues Have Become Clouded Over, Especially If They
Have Been Working Together over a Period of Time. An Example of This, If
You Think Of ‑‑ I Don\'t Know If You Do It, But I Do It, I Keep a Shelf,
a Mental Shelf, with Labels of People\'s Names on it like Sarah, Roger.
As Little Things Happen, You ‑‑ I Kind of Store Things on That Shelf.
For Example, When I Agreed to Come and Work with Her in the Interior
Building, and I Had Never Been There Before, So I Went to Main Interior
in D.c., And Remember Now I\'m from California, So I Had Been in the
Building Two Days Before, but I Have a Poor Sense of Direction, And I
Blame on That My Mom, But, Anyway, So I Couldn\'t Find Sarah\'s Office.
So I Walked Around It, and since People in D.c. Dress Very Differently
from California Usgs, I Had Heels on and I\'m Walking Around the
Building, Trying to Find Her Office, Because I Didn\'t Have Her Phone
Number. So, of Course, Because I Didn\'t Have Her Phone Number I Put
That On the Shelf Because That Was Her Fault and Then I Finally Went to
Security and They Had a Picture of Her, but No Name ‑‑ I Am Sorry, but
No Room Number or Phone Number. So It\'s Like, Ok. So Now I Walk Around
‑‑ I\'ve Walked Around about Three Times And I\'ve Passed the Same Woman
Twice Already and I\'m Just like \"I\'m Looking for ‑‑\" and Then She
Recommends Maybe You Should Go to the Sixth Floor and Talk To Personnel.
So Go up There, and I Remember ‑‑ and Then I Still Didn\'t Find Her.
Then I Remembered She Said, I\'m On the Bohemian Floor. So Then I
Started Asking People, Do You Know Where the Bohemian Floor Is? Now
after Eight Minutes Still Walking this These Heels Killing Myself, I
Passed the Woman Again And this Lady Took Me to Sarah\'s Office. So Then
I Said to Sarah, When I Got There, I Said, Sarah People Don\'t Know That
this Is Called The Bohemian Floor. And She Said, Oh, That\'s My Name For
It. It\'s Just a Happy Place. I\'m Like, Ok. So I Put That on the Shelf,
Too. And Then Even Though I\'m Here Today, I Didn\'t Realize, this Was a
Live Broadcast and Sarah Didn\'t Tell Me That I Couldn\'t Wear White or
Yellow, So I Brought the Wrong Top. But That\'s Ok, Because I Got to Go
Shopping. But I Also Put That on the Shelf. So You Can See My Shelf Is
Growing. It\'s Getting Full Now. And They Didn\'t Just Miss Me at The
Airport, They Left Me. So, Again, That Is Also Sarah\'s Fault. So over
the Course of Our Relationship, It\'s Been Very Short, but Can You
Imagine, I\'m In the Workplace, and Then Sarah Comes along One Day, and
I\'m Really Working on a Project, and She Spills Mountain Dew All over
My Papers and Now I Know It\'s Intentional Because She Doesn\'t Use
Sugar, and So It\'s Like, I\'ve Had it with Her and When She Spilled
That Soda, Just Broke That Shelf. So I Go to the Core Specialist, And
this May Actually Be the First Time That ‑‑ When an Employee Goes There
and this May Be the First Time They Feel They\'re Actually Being Heard
Because Sarah Each Time Actually Had ‑‑ You Know, Something Funny, Just
a Cute Remark to Say Like, When I Got to the Hotel From the Airport, She
Said, We Thought You Were in That Van up There. Craig Says, \"I Bet Dola
Is in That Van.\" Saying That She Wasn\'t Listening. But the Core
Specialists Willis Un. The Second Thing We, Do the Core Specialist Helps
Employees to Appreciate the Perspective the Other Party Has, Which Is
Putting Ourselves ‑‑ Do We Get Them to Put Themselves in the Shoes of
the Other Person.

C. Calderwood: I Think a Good Example of That Is When in the Last ‑‑ in
the Last Example We Had That Sarah Was Sharing, the Employee Didn\'t
Want to Share Something Very Embarrassing to Him but Then He Wanted the
Supervisor to Know and They Can\'t Read the Person\'s Mind. But the
Supervisor Also Knew Something Was Going on but Couldn\'t Quite Figure
out What It Was. So in Those Type of Settings Where Everybody Is
Listening He, Then You Can Grasp What the Program Is All about and You
Can Share That Information Across The Table So That, You Know, You Just
Don\'t Take for Granted What Has Happened.

D. Greene: Right. The Third Thing a Core Specialist Helps All Parties Is
Interest‑based Problem Solving. What That Means Is That We Help Them to
Find Common Ground. Because Sometimes ‑‑ Because We Have All That
History, We Just Need to Feel That We Have an Understanding ‑‑ the
Employee Needs to Feel They Have an Understanding of the Workplace
Goals, What the Priorities Are, And Oftentimes Through Mediation And
Discussing Things, They Come To Realize That They Really Are Working
Toward the Same Things. It\'s Not Like, this Is What I Want to Do. They
Really Find That Craig Is Not off in Left Field Somewhere Thinking Only
about Himself. He Really Is Focusing on the Mission of the Agency and
Trying ‑‑ and Really Trying to Get Us There. So That Helps Them to Come
and Work Together. And the Fourth Part of this Is Coaching. You Know,
Core Specialists, We Want Parties to Communication. During the Coaching
Process, They Come up with Their Own Strategy, and That\'s Their Own
Solution, and That\'s Very Important Because It\'s Easy ‑‑ You Know,
I\'m a Mom, I Have Two Teenagers, So It\'s Easy for Me To Say, Listen,
this Is What Happens Now, We\'re Here, We Can\'t Reach a Resolution, So
I Will Make a Decision. But That\'s Not What a Core Specialist Does. It
Really Is Coaching and Allows Employees to Come One Their Own
Resolution, and Oftentimes We Know If We Come One Our Own Solution to
Things, We\'re Going To Usually Stick with Those Because I Have Decided
this Is How It\'s Going to Work. As an Employee. So When the Parties
Come Together and They\'re Coached Through That, They Usually Come To
That Process, and it Works. Now, the Second Part of the Question Was,
How Can We Find ‑‑ How Can I Access a ‑‑ How Can I Access Core and How
Do I Learn About It? What We\'re Going to Do Is Start With the Core Web
Page. You\'ve Already Had this Address Before, but I\'m Going to Give it
To You Again. That\'s Www.DOI.gov/core. Once You Get to this Page, There
Are Buttons to Link You to Each Bureau and Office. And You Click on the
Button for A Core Specialist. For Example, Let\'s Look at a List of
Bureau of Indian Affairs. We See the Core Specialist Names There. If You
Click on That Name, Actual Actually Take You to the E‑mail Address. So
That\'s for Easy Access. You\'ll Also Find a Section on There, Called
\"Frequently Asked Questions\" and it Has Answers. I\'m Not Going to
Cover Any of Those Because There Are Quite a Few, and You Can Look Those
Up.

S. Rogers: Dola, I Might Want To Interject, These Questions And Answers
Focus on a Lot of Confidentiality Issues, and If You Have Questions
about Confidentiality, Take a Look at The Frequently Asked Questions And
Answers and You May Find Some of What You Are Looking for There. And If
That Doesn\'t Answer Everything You Want, Do Get in Touch with Your Core
Specialist. Use One of Those Buttons, Lynn Took One of Your Core
Specialists and Give Them a Call. They Will Be Happy to Talk to You.

D. Greene: and Then the Other Section on the Web Page Are the Key
Documents and These Key Documents Are the Core Department Manual, of
Course, And Opm\'s Guide to Alternative Dispute Resolution and the
Endorsement of the Core Program By the Department of Labor Management
Partnership Council.

C. Calderwood: Thanks, Dola. I Would like to Follow up on the
Labor‑management Partnership Council Endorse Amount Little Bit. Yes, the
Core Program Can Work For Unions, Too. Because Core Promotes an Early
Intervention, a Lot of Times What Will Happen Is People Will Get into a
Situation or Problem And They Will Try to Choose Sides, They Will Try to
Get Backing from Other Parties. So If Someone Can Get in into Early
Intervention, They Can Keep the People from Choosing Those Sides, and
They Can Make It Before it Gets into a Positional Type Argument. The
Resolutions of the Disputes Come at the Earliest Opportunity That Can Be
Available to Them, and They Come At the Lowest Organizational Level That
May Come Between Just An Employee and an Employee. It May Come Between
an Employee And a Supervisor. May Come Between Two Union Members or
Different Union Members That Are in Different Organizations. The
Emphasis on the Core Program, Though, That Works with The Union Is a
Mutual Satisfaction to All Parties. All Parties Need to Come Away
Knowing That Every Side Was Heard, That Every Side Was Heard, and That
All of Their Interests and Their Common Things That They Have Together
Was Able to Come to the Table And They Have a Mutual Satisfaction.
That\'s Also for Preservation of Working Relationships. A Lot of Times
When We Are in Arguments Such as ‑‑ or in Positions We Come Apart with
Trying to Isolate the Other Person and Trying to Do Power Plays. This
Isn\'t Trying to Do a Power Play. This Is Trying to Decide, \"What Am I
Really Hearing from the Other Side of the Table?\" There Is Also Another
Factor That Fits in Here and That Factor Is the Cost Savings for The
Membership, Cost Savings for Management, Cost Savings Just For the
Individuals in General. In My ‑‑ I Have Been Working in Union since 1972
and Have Held Every Position, Including President Many Times. I\'m a
Former Member of the Reclamation Partnership Council And I Am Still a
Card‑carrying Member Today. An Example I Would like to Share With You Is
from 1986 to \'92. Our Union Was in a Traditional Bargaining Role and We
Had Spent Over a Million Dollars in Legal Fees and Arbitration Costs.
After Six Particularly Hard Arbitrations, We Were Tired and I Remember
That in 1991, I Had Attend Add Session on Interest‑based Bargaining and
I Knew That it Just Couldn\'t Work In Our Situation Because of the
Hardheads We Were Dealing With. But, I Mean, Those Are the Hardheads on
Both Sides of the Table. I Had to Take a Look at My Side Of the Table
Also and See Where We Were Coming From. I Took a Chance and I Went to
Management and I Proposed That We Open up All the Doors and Consider Any
and All Problems Early Before They Went into the Grievance Form. We
Started Using Adr Way Back in 1992, and We Started Looking for All the
Interests That Were in Each One of the Situations. Something That Was
Very Amazing To Me and Amazing to Everybody That Was There, That 90% of
Everything That We Talked About, Everything That We Took to the Table,
We Held in Common and I Never Would Have Believed That Until it Came and
Was Put into Parts and Everybody Says \"I Agree with That, I like That,
That\'s the Way I Want to Go,\" And We All Had Parts to Go into The
Solution. The Road Has Been a Little Rocky, but No One Grievance Has
Gone Outside That Region from 1992 until Now. So as Stated in the
Labor‑management Endorsement, The Core Program Through an Mou Can Be
Incorporated into the Collective Park Inning Agreement. A Sample Mou Is
Available from a Core Special Heist Can Help You Get a Vote on from Your
Membership in Order to Use the Core Program. This Does Not Change Your
Time Limits in the Bargaining Agreement. And So Depending on Your Mou,
The Grievance Procedure May Need To Be Initiated While the Core Process
Is Going On. Now, Should the Core Not Solve The Situation, All
Bargaining Rights Will Apply. Not All Locations Have an Mou in Place, So
to Use the Core, Check With Your Local Union Representative. There Is
Also Something I Would Like to Mention Also, Union Representation Is
Also Welcome Into These ‑‑ into this Core Process, Because You Need to
Protect the Contract and Protect The Membership and So You\'ll Be Able
to Be Part of That and Be Able to Be a Representation for Those People.
I Would like to Mention to Our Viewers That in a Few Minutes We\'ll Be
Having a General Question‑and‑answer Segment. So If You Have a Question
or a Comment for Us about Anything That Has Been Presented, Please Give
Us a Call or Send Us a Fax Using the Number Provided to Your Office. And
While We\'re Waiting for Those Calls and Faxes to Come In, Perhaps We
Could Elaborate a Little Bit More on Confidentiality. Sarah?

S. Rogers: Sure, I Would Be Happy to Talk about That. Confidentiality Is
Something That\'s Not Well Understood by a Lot of People Who Are Not
Familiar with the Adr Act. In the Process of Core, We Say That There\'s
Confidentiality. What\'s Said in Core Remains in Core. But Let\'s Talk
about There Is an Incident, Something Happens That Someone Feels Might
Possibly Be Grieveable. Let\'s Consider That this Person Elects to Come
to Core, Tries to Get a Resolution in Core. They\'ve Talked about this
Issue In Core, and Then They Decide After That for Whatever Reason,
Whether They Get an Agreement or Not, That They Want to Go to a
Grievance Process or Some Other Formal Redress. What Happens Is That ‑‑
and They Can\'t Talk about What Happened In a Core Mediation Setting.
They Can\'t Give the Who Said What, He Said, She Said, Whatever. That
Can\'t Be Shared Outside the Setting. If it Is, It\'s Considered to Be
Hearsay. It\'s Not Evidence. But That Incident That Happened, Whatever
it Was, That Made the Individual Uncomfortable or Caused Them a Problem,
They Can Talk about That. That\'s Something That Happened Outside of
Core. Just Because You Talk about it In a Core Setting Does Not Make it
An Issue That Can\'t Be Talked About Later. That\'s the Basis of
Confidentiality. People Can Talk about Their Problems. The Problem Is
Actually Outside Of Core. But We Can Talk about How to Make These Things
Work.

D. Greene: Do I Have to Tell My Supervisor I\'m Going to Core?

S. Rogers: Yes, You Do, Dola. That\'s a Really Good Point. It\'s Built
into the Core D.m., The Departmental Manual, That All Employees Have
Given Time to Come to the Core Process and Given All the Time They Need
for Meeting with the Other Parties For a Complaint.

D. Greene: Do I Have to Bring Anything Back Proving I Have Been to Core?

S. Rogers: If a Supervisor Is Not Comfortable, They Could Call the Core
Specialist and Ask If the Individual Was with Them. We Are Going to Rely
a Lot on Integrity in this Process. People Have the Integrity of Wanting
to Do a Good Job, They Want to Make Things Work in Their Workplace, and
That\'s the Basis of This. So, Yes, If Someone Wants to Find Out, Was
Someone There, They Certainly Can. The Core Specialist Will Share
Whether or Not the Person Was There. They Will Not Share What They
Talked About. Does That Answer Some of That, Dola?

D. Greene: Yes, That Does. That\'s Pretty Clear.

S. Rogers: Good.

C. Calderwood: It\'s Time to Hear from You and We Have Reserved the Rest
of the Program To Answer Your Questions about Core. So Don\'t Be Shy.
Give Us a Fax or Give Us a Call. And We\'ll Put Your Questions Either on
the Air or We\'ll Read Your Questions That Come off of The Fax. But
First You Have to Call Us. So Use Those Numbers That Were Given to Your
Office. We Have a Question That Wants to Talk about Can You Use Core
Specialists from Other Bureaus.

S. Rogers: Absolutely. Now, That\'s Something That We\'ve Been Working
with All of the Bureaus On. We Have a Person in Each Bureau Called a
Core Dispute Resolution Manager. That Person Works with All the Core
Specialists in Their Bureau, and They Also Work out Arrangements Where
If There\'s a Conflict of Interest Where Perhaps an Employee Knows the
Core Specialist Is Friends with Them, Maybe You\'re in a Carpool
Together and They\'re Not Comfortable with Going to That Core Specialist
or Having Them Involved in the Process, They\'ll Talk to the ‑‑ What We
Call Cdrm, or Talk to the Core Specialist and Say I Would like To Use
Your Service, but I Really Would like it to Be Someone Else. That Core
Specialist with Work With Their Cdrm to Find Someone Else in Another
Bureau. Sometimes It\'s Just There Is a Great Geographic Distance
Between Where the Core Specialist Is and Where the Employee Is. Now,
Yes, We Can Provide Core Specialist Services by Telephone, by Video
Teleconferencing Unit, but Sometimes, Say If Dola, Who Is In Usgs, Is
near Where There Are Several National Park Service Employees and They
Don\'t Have a National Park Service Core Specialist There, Dola Is
Probably Going to Be Asked to Provide Core Services. She\'s Happy to Do
That. We\'ll Coordinate That. That\'s Part of the Beauty of This
Program. Core Is the Same Program in All The Bureaus Across Department
of The Interior.

D. Greene: and I Would Love To Come to a Park.

C. Calderwood: We Have Our First Caller on the Line. We\'re Going to Put
Her on the Line Now. Hi, Pat, in Denver. Can You Hear Us?

Caller: Yes, I Can.

C. Calderwood: Would You like To State Your Question over the Air?

Caller: the Question Is: How Does the Core Process Interact With the
Informal Complaint Process of Eeo?

C. Calderwood: Did You All Hear the Question?

S. Rogers: Yes, We Heard the Question. Would You like Me to Answer the
Question?

C. Calderwood: Please Try.

S. Rogers: Eeo Is Offering a New Program Soon Called Eeo Plus. That\'s
Going to Have an Adr Function in There, an Informal Adr Function. Core
Does Not Replace That Process. The Way Things Are Written Right Now, to
Go to Eeo and Use this Process, You Still Have to Go, Have Your Name
Recorded and State What Your Issue Is. You Can Still Go to Core at the
Same Time and Request to Use Core Services. Core Does Not Replace What
Eeo Does. If You Believe You Have a Discrimination Issue Going On, You
Have 45 Days in Which to File a Formal Complaint. But at the Same Time,
You Can Go To Core While Perhaps an Investigation Is Going on or
Whatever Service Eeo Chooses to Offer, or If They Feel Services Are
Appropriate. But You Can Go to Core and Ask For Assistance to Deal with
That Particular Person That You Had a Problem with That Firsthand. Does
That Answer Your Question?

Caller: a Little Bit. What I\'m Kind of Concerned about Is What If
Someone Is Involved In the Informal Complaint Process and Needs a
Mediator? Do I Work Through the Core Coordinator?

S. Rogers: If You Are in the Eeo Process, Eeo Will Assist You With That.
But If You Prefer to Use the More Informal Workplace Mediation Program,
Then You Will Go to the Core Specialist. Very Often an Eeo Counselor
Will Probably Refer to You a Core Conflict Resolution Specialist. And by
the Way, Core Stands for Conflict Resolution.

C. Calderwood: I Think Another Part to this Question, Pat, If We Can
Talk about it a Little Bit, Sometimes the Person Doesn\'t Know Exactly
Where the Process May Fit. The Core Specialist Will Also Tell Them That
They Have So Many Days to Go to Eeo, but They Will Not Direct Them or
Tell Them Which Way They Have to Go. And Also in the Eeo Process, When
You Are Talking about Mediation, the Eeo People Have Their Own Mediators
That Can Take Care of Some of Those, and I Know Lot of the Core
Specialists Do Both. So I Think it Will Have to Be a Choice That Comes
from Each One Of the Offices There. How Are We DOIng on Your Question,
Pat?

Caller: Very Good. Thank You.

C. Calderwood: We\'re Going to Go Ahead and Go to Caller Number Three on
Line Three Who Has Been Waiting. Call E‑, Fred, in Washington, You\'re
on the Air.

Caller: Yes, My Name Is Fred. I Have a Question. During the Mediation
Session With Core Representatives, Are Witnesses or Representatives
Allowed to Participate?

D. Greene: Actually, If Would You like to Bring Other Parties In with
You, You May Do That, However, the Employees Are the Ones That Need to
Be Discussing The Issues That Are Involved Here.

S. Rogers: We Do Have a Program, in Fact We Have a Part Of the Core
Implementation Plan Where Someone Can Have a Representative There for
Them. If It\'s a Union Official, If It\'s Perhaps an Attorney ‑‑ as Dola
Said, We Encourage the Individuals to Be at the Table To Discuss Their
Problems, but That Does Not Preclude Them from Bringing in an Outside
Witness If They Choose To. We\'ve Even Had a Few Spouses In. That\'s
Fine. It\'s Whatever They Feel Will Help Them Be Able to Address What
Their Workplace Concern Is And Answer That Question. Does That Provide
You the Information You Were Looking For? He\'s Dropped.

C. Calderwood: I Hope That Answered Your Question There, Fred. We Have a
Fax That Came in with A Question. Who Pays for the Core to Travel To
Another Office? Want to Talk about Appear Little Bit, Dola?

D. Greene: I Would Really Love to Talk about This, but Since I\'m at the
Usgs, and Sarah Works for Department, She Probably Should Talk about Who
Pays.

S. Rogers: That\'s Going to Be Worked out by the Individual Bureaus. If
They\'re Sharing Core Services, the Bureaus Will Work Together, Those
Cdrms That I Mentioned, Will Work Together to Talk about Who Is Going to
Share The Cost of this If That\'s Necessary. Typically the Bureau That
Has an Employee Who Is Requesting Services Will Pick up That Cost. We
All Have to Look at What Are The Monies That We Have Available to Do
This, but That\'s Why Right Now We Have 48 Core Specialists Available.
As Assistant Secretary Berry Mentioned, We\'re Hoping to Build That
Number, Build Our Capacity, For Handling Core Services to 500 in the
next Few Years. So Hopefully We\'ll Have Readily Available Resources for
You, Core Specialists.

C. Calderwood: That Question Came from Gene from the National Training
Center. We Thank You for That Fax That Came in There. Our next Fax That
We Would like To Talk about Is from Joe. I Can\'t See Where He\'s From.
But the Question Is, Rp Provides Mediation Service for Conflict
Resolution. This Program ‑‑ Is this Program Redundant and What Service
What Service with the Service ‑‑ the Other Part of the Question Is How
Does One Become a Core Specialist, and How Much Training Is Required and
When And Where Will it Be Held? And the next Question, What Will Follow
up Occur after the ‑‑ What Follow‑up Will Occur after The Agreements Are
Reached? We Covered a Few of Those in the Process. In the Eap, Someone
That Comes Into the Core Process May, after They Talk it out with a Core
Specialist, Decide That\'s Where They Need to Go and the Information Is
Available from The Core Specialist to Send Them To Eap.

S. Rogers: or to Get a Referral.

C. Calderwood: or to Get a Referral to Become ‑‑ and One Becomes a Core
Specialist by the Training ‑‑ as Mr. Berry Talked About, There Has Been
50 Core Specialists That Have Been Trained and They Went Through a
Two‑week Process Where They Went Through Training on All Different Types
of Grievances And Formal Things That Can Happen and the Eeo Process and
Then They Also Went Through a Training That ‑‑ in Mediation Where They
Learned Communication Skills. They Learned to Be Able to Listen and to
Be Able to Ask Questions That Make Sure That Both Parties on Both Sides
of The Table Will Be Heard.

S. Rogers: and One Thing That\'s Important to Mention Here Is That
Workplace ‑‑ Informal Workplace Mediation Is Not Replacing Anything
That\'s Currently Available in Department of the Interior. This Is a
Wholly Separate Adr Function. There Are Very Specific Specialties for
Any Adr Practitioner. The Core Specialists Is a Practitioner in Informal
Mediation. The Training They Have Is Some Of the Best That\'s
Commercially Available. In My Own Background, I Came From Department of
Defense Where I Served as National Ombudsman. That Is the Very Extreme
Side of Being an Informal Mediator. We Have Brought That Here to
Interior. Informal Mediation Allows Us the Flexibility of Talking about
Issues Confidentially, and That\'s Part of the Adr Act. So, Craig?

C. Calderwood: Ok. We Would like to Go Now to Our Caller. Hi, Gary, in
Boise.

Caller: Hey, Craig, How Are You.

C. Calderwood: Good. Can You State Your Question on The Air, Please?

Caller: Yes, in Our Organization We Have Been Encouraging Our Folks to
Participate in Mediation Voluntarily. The Department Manual Says That If
a Supervisor Isn\'t Willing to Participate in Mediation That ‑‑ In the
Chain of Command, the Next must Participate and this Is Kind of a
Struggle. We\'re Not Sure How to Deal with This. This Is No Longer a
Voluntary Situation as I Interpret the Dm.

S. Rogers: That\'s a Very Good Point, and That\'s Part of What Our
Secretary for the Interior And All of the Interior Management Talked
about in this Program. In Order to Put the One Tooth in This Program, as
I like to Say, Is That Management from the Bureaus Does Have to
Participate When There\'s a Problem. When an Employee Feels That They
Have Something They Need to Have Addressed, It\'s Important to Know ‑‑
for Them to Know That If It\'s Not Just with Another Co‑worker,
Particularly If It\'s With a Supervisor, That They Will Be Able to Talk
about this Problem Informally. They Don\'t Have to Go to a Formal
Grievance Process or Some Other Formal Redress System to Be Able to Have
Their Concern Heard. Core Was Developed So That We Could Bring These
Things to the Table That Need Perhaps Systemic Changes. Yes, Written in
the Department Manual Appear Supervisor Has the Option to Say, No, I\'m
Not Comfortable with Being Part of This Process. That\'s Ok. And Then
It\'s Strongly Recommended That the next Level Supervisor or Manager
Participate. Someone from the Bureau Will Have to Come to the Table and
Must Be There. Now, Can We Force Anyone to Be Part of the Core Process?
We Can Get Them to the Table. That\'s the Job of the Core Specialist to
Help Get Them Talking, to Find out What Are Their Interests. Everyone
Has an Interest Who Works with the Department of the Interior in
Whatever Bureau to Get the Job Done. That\'s What We\'re Going to Focus
On, Is Getting the Job Done. Not What the Positions Are. Everyone Knows
If a Supervisor Comes to the Table, They Don\'t Take off That Role of
Being a Supervisor, but What Are Their Interests? What Is That Common
Ground They\'re All Trying to Work Toward? If It\'s Trying to Develop an
Environmental Program for Saving Endangered Fish, If It\'s Trying To
Reclaim Polluted Waterways or Land, If It\'s Just Trying to Make Sure
That the Mountains of Paper Work Keep Flowing, There Are Common
Interests That Everybody Can Find. And That\'s Why It\'s Important That,
Yes, We Do Need to Make Sure That the Supervisors, That Someone from
Management, Come to The Table, and That\'s Where Our Secretary for
Department of the Interior, and Particularly Assistant Secretary John
Berry, Wanted to Make Sure That There Was Cooperation and That We Did
Put the Piece in There That We Would Have a Guarantee That Both Parties
Would Come to the Table.

I Think Another Part to this Is That a Lot of Times People Think
There\'s a Penalty for Going Ahead and Coming to a Core Program. That\'s
Not the Case. What Experience Is Found Is That When People Come to the
Table And They Find out They\'re Just Talking Across the Table, All of
The Concerns That They Had about Coming to the Table Go Away, and They
Actually Resolve Something That Happened in That Process, Whether it Is
to Keep the Communications Open or Preserve The Relationship with the
Parties, and So I Think as the Process Goes On, I Think ‑‑ and Gets More
Well‑known, More and More People Will Not Be Afraid Of it and They\'ll
Just Be Able To Come to the Process Just in a Voluntary Manner.

S. Rogers: and One Other Thing That\'s Important in Here And Then I\'ll
Let this Question Go Because I Know We Have Some Others That Have Come
In, but Under the American Sentencing Guidelines, If an Agency Has, in
Fact, Done Something That Perhaps Would Wind Them up into A Fine, If the
Agency Shows Where There\'s Goodwill, Management Has Participated in
Trying to Find Solutions, the Fine Against the Agency, and That Is Your
Taxpayer Dollars, Is Typically Lessened Significantly. So We\'re Looking
at this Is Cost Effective for the Taxpayers as Well as for Department of
the Interior and the Individual Bureaus.

C. Calderwood: Gary, How Does That Answer Your Question? Is That Ok?

Caller: Well, You Know, I Understand That It\'s Important That We Have
Management Participation. I Think Most of Us Who Have Been Involved in
the Mediation Process Will Do Exactly as You\'re Suggesting, Craig, and
That Is We\'ll Encourage and We\'ll Set Examples That Will Show it Is
Not a Win‑lose Process. But I must Say, Making it a Mandatory
Requirement for Managers Is Going to Be a Challenge for Us.

C. Calderwood: and I Think We Can Work with That. You Know, after They
Become More Familiar with the Process. Gary, We\'re Going to Have ‑‑ We
Have about 20 Faxes out Here. We\'re Going to Have to Go. If You Have
Any More Questions, Please Follow up with Us Our E‑mail and We\'ll Make
Sure We Get the Answers to You.

Caller: Thanks Much.

C. Calderwood: We Would like To Go to a Fax That Came from ‑‑ I Think
It\'s Eileen from the BLM In New Mexico. The Question Is: Can You Expand
On the Need to Know for Access To the Agreement? Let\'s Take That First
Part of The Question.

S. Rogers: Let\'s Take a Look At This. On the Hr Side, and Dola, I\'m
Sure, Will Want to Talk a Little More about This, What Is Need to Know?
If There Is an Agreement and Say An Employee Agrees That They\'re Going
to Come to Work Every Day At 8:00 and That They\'ll Have Two Breaks and
That They\'re Going to Do Flex Time During a Certain Portion of the
Year, Those Are Things That They Would ‑‑ They\'ll Agree to Do to Meet
The Job Requirements. And the Manager Agrees That They\'ll Allow Flex
Time and They\'ll Do Certain Things. That Agreement Then May Have to Go
up to Someone in the Human Resources Side of the House, and They Are
Bound by Confidentiality as Well, Just to Check and See If That Manager
Had the Authority To, in Fact, Grant That. And, Dola, You Might Want to
Talk a Little about This.

D. Greene: Right, Because Sometimes ‑‑ You Know, If a Core Specialist Is
Wanting to Come to An Agreement During the Process And, Let\'s Say, If
the People Said, Well, All They Had to Do Was Give Me That Promotion,
and I Am Happy and That\'s It, and The Supervisor Is Like, Well, Ok,
Maybe I Could Consider That. Is That Really Something That Can Be
Considered after the Process Is Completed? And Someone Else Is Selected?
Before They Would Sign Anything Like That, it Would Have to Go To Human
Resources to Determine If They Actually Could Do That. Is That Something
That Really Could Happen in this Instance? Or Do They Need to Look at
Another Channel for DOIng That? But Need to Know Also, as Far as The
Signed Agreements, They Stay With the Parties ‑‑ Parties Get A Copy, and
the Core Specialist Has a Copy of That.

S. Rogers: That\'s Right.

C. Calderwood: Another Part Of the Question That Eileen Asks Is: Is this
under Exemption 6 Of the Foia Act?

S. Rogers: Let Me Address That. Under the Adr Act There Are Two
Documents That Are Two Documents That Are Foia‑able If You Will. One Is
the Agreement, If It\'s Two, Three, Four, However Many People There Are,
That They Come To the Table and Agree to Mediate. There Are No Issues
Stated on That Document. The Other Document That\'s Foia‑able Is the
Final Agreement Or the No Agreement. On the Final Agreement, it Does Not
State What the Issues Were That Were Discussed. It States What Party
Agrees to Do. The Parties Sign That, the Core Specialist Signs That.
That Is Potentially Foia‑able But It\'s on a Need‑to‑know Basis.
Otherwise, All Other Information, Everything That\'s Shared in the Core
Process, Is Considered Confidential.

C. Calderwood: I Hope That Answers Your Question, Eileen. If at Any Time
the Questions Aren\'t Completely Answered, Please Get onto Our E‑mail
and We Will Make Sure We Get You the Most Correct Answers That We Can
Get. Ok. Next One Comes, I Have No Name On this One, it Comes from ‑‑
Just Says How Do You Expect 50 Trained Core Specialists to Cover All of
DOI?

D. Greene: I Asked That Question.

S. Rogers: That\'s an Excellent Question.

C. Calderwood: When Will Others Be Trained and How Can I Become a Core
Specialist?

S. Rogers: Those Are Great Questions, and to Have 50 People, 48 People
out There to Help a Body of 65,000 Employees, That\'s a Very Excellent
Question. We Are Going to Deal with That As We Can. As Soon as We Find
out What Kind Of Business We Have, What Level Of Activity. That\'s How
the Bureaus Are Going To Look and Gauge How Many Core Specialists Do
They Need. Now, If You Want to Become a Core Specialist, If You Are
Interested in This, Give a Call To Your Bureau. Look up on the Website
at Www.DOI.gov/core, Click on Your Bureau, Go to the Bottom of That
List, and You\'ll See Where the Cdrm Is, the Core Dispute Resolution
Manager. For Instance, in National Park Service, That\'s Going to Be Jim
Poole. If You Are in Bia, That\'s Going To Be Terry Steele. We Have a
Whole List. And Bor Where Craig Is From, That\'s Kathy Jones. Tell That
Person That You\'re Interested and Why You\'re Interested. They\'ll Put
You on a List of People That They\'re Going to Consider to See Which
Ones Will Be Appropriate to Have Trained And What Geographic Locations
They\'re Trying to Bring People To, and They\'ll Be Certainly Very Happy
to Consider You. It Is a Selection Process.

C. Calderwood: Let\'s Talk About One More Part of this Question. How Can
I Go to a Core Specialist ‑‑ Can I Go to a Core Specialist Outside of My
Agency? Dola, Want to Try That?

D. Greene: Yes, First, You Would Go to Your Cdrm, and They Would Contact
a Cdrm in Another Agency and They Would Work out Something So That You
Could See A Different Core Specialist.

C. Calderwood: Ok. Rita from ‑‑

D. Greene: Excuse Me One Second. Cdrm, Again, Is Core Dispute Resolution
Manager.

S. Rogers: and We Have All This Spelled out on Our Website And on a New
Brochure That\'s Going to Be Coming out in Just a Couple Weeks.

C. Calderwood: Another Question That Comes from Rita in New Mexico,
What\'s the Process For Recruiting Core Specialists? We Recovered That
Again.

S. Rogers: Say That Again, Craig.

C. Calderwood: What Is the Process for Recruiting Core Specialists.

S. Rogers: That\'s What We Were Talking About. It\'s a Process Where You
Volunteer. All the 50 People We Have Were Pretty Much Volunteers, a Few
Were Selected by Bureaus Because Of Their Own Individual Talents And So
We Have Them with Us. But All of Them, like the People Requesting Core
Services, Are Volunteers.

C. Calderwood: Ok.

S. Rogers: Let Me Interject Real Quickly Before We Go On, What Does a
Cdrm Do? This Is a Person Who Manages the Activity of the Core
Specialists Within the Bureau. I\'m the Core Program Coordinator Or
Manager and I Work with Them To Help Manage the Use of These Core
Specialists, and Particularly as They\'re Being Traded Around or Their
Time Being Shared Between Bureaus. Particularly I Serve as a Technical
Resource to All the Core Specialists When They\'re Exploring Areas That
Perhaps They Have Not Dealt with Before, Or If We Have Some Difficult
Cases That Come Along. I Also Set up the Training for All of the Core
Specialists in The Department and the Bureaus.

C. Calderwood: We Would Also Like to Encourage to You Call in If Would
You like to So That We Can Put You on the Air and Make Who Are Your
Questions Are Heard And Understood. A Question Comes to Us from
Lorraine. It Says: There Are Any Solutions That Core Cannot Use? And in
this Process They\'re Talking about Money, Time Off, Et Cetera. I Think
They\'re Talking about in The Settlement Agreements.

S. Rogers: Individuals Can Offer up Any Kind of Thing They Want to Ask
For. They Could Always Say, Well, I\'ll Not Go Any Further with This If
You Give Me a Promotion, Or If You Give Me a Bonus I Didn\'t Have.
Again, Those Things Are ‑‑ We\'re Going to Have to Go with the
Supervisor to the Human Resource Side, or Wherever We Need to Go,
Ethics, Wherever and Find Out, Is That, in Fact, Something Appear
Supervisor Can Offer. Core Specialists Do Not Get into The Bidding
Process, If You Will, Of, \"Well, You Know, I Want this Bonus to Be
\$3,000, Do I Hear 5,000?\" No, We Don\'t Get into That Business. But If
It\'s an Issue of Did an Employee Work at a Certain Time And They Felt
like That They Were Deserving of Bonus Pay or What Have You, Thanks
Platform. Core Is a Platform for the Employees to Be Able to Talk to
Their Supervisors with Each Other about Where They in Fact There. What
Was the Common Understanding? Is There a System Problem about The Way
the Policy Is Applied? This Is a Place Where We Can Make Changes If
Necessary. Where Management Can Step In. And this Is a Tool for
Management to See, What Impact Are Their Policies Having? What Impact Is
the Current Application of Policy Having?

D. Greene: So it Would Be Money from the Standpoint of Maybe Every
Employee in My Office Received an Award Except Me. Well, No More Cake or
Brownies. Anyway ‑‑ Just in Case That Were The Case, Then I Could Meet
with My Spur ‑‑ Go to Mediation with My Supervisor, If I Felt That Was
the Only Way That I Could Get to the Bottom of What\'s Going On, Because
If Everyone Gets One Except Me, They\'re Deaf ‑‑ There Definitely Has to
Be a Problem.

S. Rogers: this Is One of Those Places Where I like to Say We Get the
Dirty Little Secrets Out of the Closet. In the Workplace, There Don\'t
Need to Be Secrets, by and Large. So If There\'s a Process That Someone
Doesn\'t Understand, Core Is the Place Where You Can Bring It up Without
Fear of Retaliation or Penalty, and If a Core Specialist Feels like
There Might Be Some of That Going, on The Core Specialist Is Going to Go
to Management. They\'re Going to Go and Talk About These Things. Perhaps
Invite Them into the Core Setting to Talk about What\'s The Impression
with the Employees?

C. Calderwood: and Also I Know Coming into Core You May Have a Problem
That You Just Don\'t Know Where it Fits or You May Have a Problem That
Has Missed Some of the Time Limits In the Formal Process and it Still
Hasn\'t Been Corrected. So Can You Bring That to the Attention to a Core
Specialist, Try to Get That in and Get Talked about So That Some of
These Issues Can Be Resolved. A Lot of Issues Do Get Resolved When
They\'re Talking over the Table. Barb in Phoenix Sends Us a Fax That
Says: What If Your Local Union Hasn\'t Signed an Mou on Core? Because a
Union Has Exclusive Bargaining Rights, the Core Membership, They Can\'t
Go to the Core Member and Ask for These Type of Services. So If You
Would like To, You Need to Get with Your President And Ask Them If They
Would like To Look at That Mou, Present it To the Membership, Because
the Membership Has to Agree on This, And Then Also Be Able to Put That
Mou ‑‑ it Doesn\'t Have to Become Part of the Bargaining Agreement but
Has to Be Something Ratified by the Membership. So I Would Highly
Recommend It. We Did this Clear Back in 1992, Had Nothing but Positive
Results That Have Come from Using These Agreements to Do Alternate
Disputes Resolutions.

S. Rogers: by like to Say That Recently We Handled a Core Case Where
Union Leadership Came To the Table with the Individual. In One Case, the
Union Representative Was the Representative for the ‑‑ One of The
Parties Who Was There. That Was Fine. By the End of the Session, the
Union Representative Wasn\'t the One at the Table DOIng All the Talking.
It Was the Individual Party Who Felt That They Were Comfortable Enough
and Confident Enough That They Could Talk. Part of this Is People Being
Able to Gain a New Tool, like Secretary Berry Said, Get a New Tool, Pull
it out of Their Tool Box, and That\'s Communication. Feeling like It\'s
Comfortable Enough to Come and Talk to People. Like Dola Bringing up All
My Little Problems with ‑‑ Between Her Coming to My Office and Us
Getting Here to the Airport. Confidence. That\'s Where We\'re Coming
From. People Being Able to Talk. And Hopefully One Day Core Won\'t Be
Necessary. But until People Stop Making Mistakes, We\'re Going to Need
Core.

C. Calderwood: They\'re Going To Need Somebody to Sit in and Make Sure
Both Sides of the Table Are Heard. They Always Tell Me I\'m Being Heard
but Not Listening. This Says Describe the Collection Criteria and Grade
Level of Employees Selected for The Core Specialist Positions From the
Albuquerque Fish & Wildlife Service.

D. Greene: Actually the Grade Levels Vary in the Employees in Core.
They\'re Just All Different Grade Levels. The Selection Criteria, We
Were Nominated in Usgs by Our Managers, and That\'s How We Were Selected
to Go ‑‑ to Be Core Specialists.

S. Rogers: and You Had to Be In a Nonadvocacy Role, or Any Potential
Aspect of That Had to Be Outside of That. Now, There Are Very Few Core
Specialists Who Are Also in Eeo, But They\'re Not in a Position,
Usually, Where They Make Any Kind of Decision of Merit. We Want to Be
Very Careful of That. Core Is Meant to Be a Complementary Program to
Many of The Formal Processes That Are Already out There. So When We\'re
Selecting Core Specialists, We Want to Be Careful to Make Sure That
Other Employees Who Might Use Their Service Don\'t Feel Like, Well, If
this Doesn\'t Work, and I Have To Go to Them for Some Other Service, If
It\'s Ethics, Whistle Blowing, Eeo, Whatever, That They\'re Already
Going to Know Something about Me and They Might Write this down in a
Report. That\'s What We\'re Trying to Stay Away From. In Core, It\'s
Really Meant to Be Kind of a Triage Program, to Try And Take Those
Things off the Plate of Formal Processes That Maybe There Is Just
Nowhere Else To Go. Like, Say, If an Employee Goes On Reserve Duty, Say
They\'re a Military Member Part Time and They Go for Their Two Weeks of
Annual Training, and the Supervisor Says, No, You Can\'t Go and Denies
Military Leave. Where Does That Person Take That Complaint? Where Does
the Supervisor Go to Ask Questions? Well, That Information Happens Took
on the H.r.m. Website, but If Nobody Knows the Law Changed In 1996 about
That, They Are Going to Be at a Stalemate, and Core Is a Place Where
They Can Come. Those Are the Kind of Things ‑‑ There Are a Variety of
Other Things. Say If One Employee Has Been Living in an Office That\'s
Too Cold and the Other One Wants it Too Hot and They Have Been Fighting
about This, and Finally They Keep Looking for Things Until They Can
Reach out for Some Kind of Issue until They Can Take to it a Formal
Grievance or Eeo Arena, but That\'s Not Really Why They Are Fighting,
It\'s That the Office Is Too Cold. Core Is a Place Can You Bring This.
And Can You Talk about It, Hopefully Before It\'s Become an Escalated
Issue, but We Do Have Those Cases like Dola Talked About, and I Talk
about it Being Like a Trash Bag over My Shoulder, Talking about How
People in Close Relationships, They Take Old Issues and Toss Them in
this Thing and Eventually the Shelf Breaks or The Trash Bag Breaks and
All This Stuff Comes Out. And They\'re Talking about in 1982, Craig Did
this and That in 1991, Dola Did This.

C. Calderwood: That\'s What We\'re Trying to Avoid. Trying to Get to
These Before They Get That Far, Giving Somebody a Place to Bring up the
Little Tiny Issues.

S. Rogers: Little Tiny Issues That Mushroom.

C. Calderwood: If We Can Get Them Before They Mushroom, That\'s the Goal
of Some of the Core Program. National Park Service at Harper\'s Ferry
Says Has Any Agency Considered Contracting Out Core Services to Ensure
Neutrality? In this There Is What\'s Called a Shared Neutrals Program
That Does Some of the ‑‑ Some of the Mediation Services for Some of The
Agencies, but the Core Specialists Are a Neutral Party And I Think ‑‑ I
Have Been to The Training with Each One of Them and I Believe Each You
One Of Them Will Be a Good Neutral To Be Able to Share Things With, And
Because of the Confidentiality, it Will Work For Everybody Just to Use
the Core Specialists.

S. Rogers: It\'s Also Important to Keep in Mind That This Is Kind of a
Peer Mediation Platform Where ‑‑ We\'re Using Department of Interior
Employees And Giving Them Really Superior Training, Some of the Best
That\'s out There Available. We\'re Giving Them the Same Thing That\'s
Available to ‑‑ in the Commercial World, Almost Anybody Can Hang up a
Shingle and Say They Are a Mediator. We Know What Kind of Quality
Training These People Have Had. And That as Craig Says, Both and He I
Have Been Through Training With Every Single Core Specialist. We Know
What Level of Activity They\'re Capable of Responding To. And as They
Gain More Experience, They\'re Going to Be Even Better Service
Providers, But When You Go Outside and We\'re All Concerned with Being
Good Stewards of the Taxpayer Dollars, When You Go Outside of The
Department to Try and Hire Adr Specialist, You Are Generally Talking
about a Thousand Dollars a Day for a Contract Person. Now, Core Training
Has Been Very Expensive, and the Bureaus Were The Ones Who Were Willing
to Dedicate 25% of Collateral Duty Time, That\'s What We\'ve Come up
With, to Handle Core Related Problems.

C. Calderwood: Another Part Of this Question That They Have Is: What Is
the Department\'s Position on Employee Relation Specialists Serving as
Core Specialists. That\'s Cover in the Dm Manual.

D. Greene: I Know That ‑‑ at The Usgs We ‑‑ Our Core Conflict Dispute
Resolution Manager Temporarily Was the Head of Our Employee Relations
and She Said That She Could Not Serve in That Position. So it Was
Actually Very Temporary and She Left That Position.

S. Rogers: Yes, We ‑‑ it Can Be That an Employee Relations Person Can
Serve as a Core Specialist When They\'re Not Handling Their Own
Population. For Instance, We Have One That\'s In Nbc and She Is Probably
Going To Swap out Services with Someone There in Her Local Metropolitan
Area. She\'ll Help People in Another Bureau, and People in the Other
Bureau Will Help the People in Her Population. So There\'s Not Going to
Be a Perception of Conflict of Interest, Whether Real or Imagined. We
Strictly Want to Avoid That. That\'s Why We\'re Very Careful.

C. Calderwood: That\'s Very Important Statement If That There Seems to
Be a Conflict of Interest, Then the Person Will Back out as the Core
Specialist And Go On. So That Answers the Last Part of The Question,
Which Is, Can We Piggyback on Another Local Specialist.

S. Rogers: Absolutely. Very Good Questions.

C. Calderwood: Ok. Susan, I Guess, from BLM, the Question Is: How
Available Will Core Representatives Be to Promote ‑‑ to Remote BLM and
Park Service Locations? That\'s a Good Question.

S. Rogers: I Can Tell You That in the Park Service They Have Put Forward
a Budget Proposal to Train a Number of Core Specialists. We\'ll See What
Happens with That. Our Goal, as Secretary Berry Mentioned, Assistant
Secretary Berry Mentioned, Was to Train Upwards of 500 Core Specialists,
And I Think That\'s What\'s Going To Help. Now, Park Service Has Put
Some People out There in What Would Be Remote Areas. Usgs Also Has
People Throughout. And Bureau of Reclamation Has People at Very
Different Locations. So We\'re Going to Provide Services as Best We Can
to These Distant Spots. We\'re Also Going to Do Some Services by
Telephone, by Video Teleconferencing Unit. If You Have a Telephone, We
Can Reach You to Provide Services.

C. Calderwood: and this May Be, until We Get All the Core Specialists
Trained, this May Be Where You Can Use a Core Specialist from Another
Agency, Which Is the Second Part of this Question, How Much Does the
Cost Involve and Who Pays Travel and Per Diem. Right Now as We\'re
Getting the Capacity Built up to Take Care Of All the Core Services That
Are Needed, People Are Inviting Other Core Specialists Can Do You Mean
Cut, Take Care of this And They Are Paying for per Diem. The Bureaus Are
Usually Paying For Their Ways but Paying for Per Diem and Travel. So
this Is Something That Could Work for Everyone. Another Question from
Washington, D.c. from the Fish & Wildlife Service, Who Do the Core
Professionals Report to Within the Organization?

S. Rogers: That\'s a Chain of Command Issue, and That\'s the Cdrm, That
Core Dispute Resolution Manager, and They\'re Working with Me as the
Coordinator to Manage All This. Very Good Question. You\'ll See That on
That List If You Guy to the Website and Click On the Button for Your
Bureau, Go to the Bottom of It, and You\'ll See the Core Dispute
Resolution Manager Listed Right There.

C. Calderwood: and Because it This Is Collateral Duty for Most People
Right Now, They\'ll Report For Their Regular Duties to Their Manager and
Then to the Specialist for Their Core ‑‑

S. Rogers: for Purposes of Core, Anything That Has to Do With Core,
Whoever Is That Core Specialist Reports Only to the Core Dispute
Resolution Manager. Now, We\'re Also Very Careful to Make Sure That Any
Case That\'s Handled, Confidentiality Applies, Nobody Is Going to Be
Talking about This. We\'re Not Going to Be Sharing Information. If the
Core Specialist Works for One Person, They\'re Not Going to Share That
Information with Their Boss in Their Regular Job. This Is a Collateral
Duty, but It\'s a Very Important Collateral Duty and That\'s Why People
Are Very Carefully Screened. It\'s a Nominating Process Typically, or
Volunteer, but Everyone Is Screened to Make Sure That There\'s No
Conflict of Interest There.

C. Calderwood: That\'s Why We Said Within 15 Days, Because If Someone
Brings Something to the Core Specialist, You Know and It\'s Going to
Take Loft Time, They\'re Going to Have to Get Permission from Their
Supervisor To Take That Time and Also Coordinate Witness the Cdrm.

S. Rogers: and That\'s Already Established When They\'re Selected as a
Core Specialist. They Have That Time to Dedicate.

D. Greene: I Have a Question From Cass Bay. This Is Bureau of Land
Management. What Happens When an Employee ‑‑ Coos Bay? Ok. Great. Coos
Bay. What Happens When an Employee Raise as Concern, I.e., Hostile Work
Environment, Sexual Harassment, Will the Confidentiality Be Maintained?
Yes, it Will Be Maintained. The Core Specialist Does Not Pass on Any
Information That They Receive. If We Do the Referral, as Sarah Brought
up Earlier ‑‑

S. Rogers: If That\'s Necessary.

D. Greene: Right. We Have Referral with Eeo and Other ‑‑ the Other
Formal Processes in It. You Talk to the ‑‑ Just Want to Keep it with
Core. No ‑‑ Yes, the Confidentiality Is Maintained. No, We Will Not
Discuss it with Anyone.

S. Rogers: Keep in Mind, the Core Specialist Does Not Make a Decision of
Merit. They\'re Not Going to Decide. If Someone Says, \"I\'ve Been
Harassed, or It\'s a Hostile Work Environment,\" a Core Specialist Is
Not a Reporting Authority for The Agency. They\'re There as the Core
Specialist, as this Neutral Third Party. Can You Say Almost Anything to
a Core Specialist. They\'re Not Going to Decide Who Shot Whomever, or
What Action Actually Happened. Sometimes People Are Just Blowing off
Steam, and the Core Specialist Is the One That Can You Do That. We\'ve
Had People Come in and Say, Well, Yeah, I\'m So Upset About this That I
Said I Was ‑‑ I Was Going to Burn down His House and That, by Golly, You
Know, I Did It. And Then You Find Out, Well, No, He Didn\'t, He Was Just
Blowing Off Steam about This, and That\'s Not What Happened. We Have
People Say All Kinds of Things. We Even Had One Person State That He Was
High on Drugs and His Management Had Put Him in That Position, and
Actually That Wasn\'t the Case at All. This Person Was Just Trying to
Establish a Position. Rather than Talking about Their Interests. We\'re
Not Going to Talk about What an Offense Is or What it Might Be. We\'re
Going to Try and Ask Them If They Want to Use Core Services, What Are
the Issues They Want to Address, and in a Perfect World, What Would They
Like Their Workplace Environment To Be Like? How Can We Help Them Get
There? What Are the Things They Need to Do and What Are the Things That
The Other Parties Need to Do? This Is about Responsibilities. Everyone
Has Responsibilities to Make the Workplace Environment Work. This Isn\'t
about Who Is Right ‑‑ Whose Rights Have Been Tramped On. This Is about
What Our Responsibilities Are Individually to Contribute to There Being
a Harmonious Workplace Environment. Now, I Have a Fax Here. It Says ‑‑
One of You Two May Want to Answer It. It\'s from Dorothy Booth. It Says
What Type of Training Would a Core Specialist Need? Is a Core Specialist
Considered A Collateral Duty? And If So, What Percentage of Time Is
Spent in Core Work?

D. Greene: ‑‑ Could You Hold It up So I Could Read it Again? I\'m a
Visual Person. I Need to See This. As Far as They Discuss the Type Of
Training That Core Had Before, but as Far as Background, I\'m a Human
Resource Specialist and I Used to Be in a Personnel Office. Now I Happen
to Be in a Mapping Center in Menlo Park. So Personnel Really Is My
Background. And as Far as the ‑‑ Oh, the Collateral Duty. Well, They Say
It\'s 25% of the Time, and My Boss Is Just Waiting to See If That Really
Is What it Turns out to Be.

C. Calderwood: Are There Any Other Parts to the Question. We Still Have
a Little Time If Somebody Wants to Call In. Following up on
Confidentiality, If Someone ‑‑ Because of All the Notes Are Destroyed
from the Core Specialist, If Someone Calls Us In, All We Can Say Is,
Yeah, the Parties Met at this Time. The Agreement to Mediate. This Is
the Agreement They Agreed On. That\'s the Only Thing That Can Be Brought
Forward. So Nothing Else Can Be Taken Into Any Other Setting That They
May Want to Go Into.

S. Rogers: and this Works. This Process Isn\'t New. Informal Mediation
Has Been Around since the Early 1980s. In Fact, I Have Been Involved
With this since 1982. It Works, and It\'s Cost Effective. It\'s Cost
Effective for Everyone. Workers Don\'t Typically Want to Be Outside of
the Workplace Having to Deal with an Issue. They like to Be Able to
Resolve Things Quickly. They Don\'t Want to Have to Hire An Attorney.
And They Don\'t Want to Necessarily Have to Take Other Workers Away So
That They Have To Help Substantiate That There\'s a Problem.

D. Greene: in Core You Really Have the Opportunity to Pre ‑‑ The
Preventative Work. Just the Upfront ‑‑ I Know My Office Is like ‑‑ Well,
It\'s Not Quite a Revolving Door, but People Sometimes Just Want a Place
to Go and Vent. It\'s Like, No, I Don\'t Want to Do Anything about This,
but I Just ‑‑ Just Need to Yell and Scream a Little Bit, and Then I Give
Them Various Weapons, and They Go Back ‑‑ No. Go Take Care of This. No.
But Sometimes That\'s Just ‑‑ We All Need to Be Heard and I Think That
Is Really Significant. As Long as You Are Communicating, Then Can You
Resolve a Problem. If You Are Listening and Thinking about the Other\'s
Perspective, Recognizing Common Interests, You Can Resolve the Problem
More Often than Not.

S. Rogers: the Only Time That Confidentiality Would Potentially Be
Broken Is If There Is a Threat of Imminent Physical Harm to Self or
Others And That\'s Covered under the Adr Law. If Someone Says \"I\'m
Going to Kill Her, I Hate Her,\" That\'s Not So Much Commune Dating a
Real Threat. But If Someone Says \"I\'m Going To Kill Her, and I\'m
Going to Do It Thursday at 2:00 and I Have Weapons and Here Is What They
Are.\" That\'s Communicating a Real Threat and the Core Specialist Is
Going to Stop the Process Right There and Go to the Appropriate
Authority. But That\'s the Only Time That You\'re Really Going to Break
Confidentiality.

C. Calderwood: We Find a Lot Of These When They Come in and Talk and
Find out Where They May Want to Go, a Loft People Times People Go Away
and Solve Their Own Situations. It Just Gives Them a for Do You Mean
Talk. We Have a Caller Now We Are Going to Put on the Air. Louise in
Medford, Hi.

Caller: What I Wanted to Know Is Union Stewards Can Become Core
Specialists?

C. Calderwood: Can a Union Steward Become a Core Specialist? I Did a Lot
of Core Work When I Was a Union Steward and I Think It Becomes a Part on
the Integrity and Neutrality of the Person. When They\'re into the Core
Situation, They Need to Make Sure That Just as Everyone Has To, the
Confidentiality Is Upheld and That What Is Said There Is Also Protected
in Their Union Contract. So, Yeah, a Union Steward Can Become a Core,
but Not in an Advocacy Role, Just as Someone That Comes in There to Help
in a Situation and to Complete the Problems.

S. Rogers: Yes, a Union Representative Can, Indeed, Be a Core
Specialist. Just Keep in Mind That They Put Aside That Potential
Advocacy Role, and That\'s Particularly Good If They Help Another
Bureau. There Are Those Times We\'re Going to Have to Look at That Kind
of Thing, but We Encourage Union People, Particularly Those In
Leadership Roles, or Who Have Served in Leadership Roles, to Volunteer,
to Become Core Specialists. They Have a Unique Understanding, as Craig
Does, For Just How Valuable Core Can Be.

C. Calderwood: and Also, Louise, What We Need to Remember, Too, Is That
the ‑‑ What Is Said in Core Is Private. So it Cannot Be Used in Any
Other Setting. So the Union Steward May Take on A Different Role There
Because He Can\'t Use Anything That\'s Said in That Core Process to Go
Into a Grievance Procedure, to Go into Arbitration. So Those Are Things
That Just Cannot Be Used.

Caller: Other than the Basic Facts of the Case, Which Is What I
Understood You to Say Earlier, I Mean, If the Person Has a Complaint and
Decides That They Do Want to Go Then into the Grievance or Complaint
Procedures, Then They Can Reiterate What Their Complaint ‑‑ Original
Complaint Was?

C. Calderwood: Yes, Because You Would Have That Documented On a
Grievance Form So That the Time Limits Do Not Expire.

S. Rogers: Yes, in Deed.

Caller: Thank You.

C. Calderwood: Thank You, Louise. We Have No More Calls and No More
Faxes. Does Anybody Have Any Final Thoughts They Might Want to Share?

D. Greene: I Would Just like For People to Use Core. I Think It\'s a
Good Program. I Really Would Encourage it and Remember I\'ll Come to
Parks. Just Knots to the East Coast in The Wintertime.

C. Calderwood: Sarah, Any Other Thoughts?

S. Rogers: I\'m Very Happy That We Have the Core Process in Place Now,
and I Think this Is Is a Really Exciting Opportunity for All Employees
to Be Able to Address Perhaps for The First Time Those Final Things ‑‑
or Those Things That They\'ve Held in the Closet a Long Time, They\'ve
Held in Their Bags, on Their Shelves, in Little Jars. Now Is the Time
That You Can Bring Them out Without Fear of Retaliation. Those Things
That You Feel Would Make ‑‑ or Are Better to Address Now and Make the
Workplace a Better Environment.

C. Calderwood: Ok. We Got Another Call Coming In. We Will Wait for the
Information To Come on the Screen. Ok. We\'ll Go Ahead and Take this
Call Now. Hi, Kim, in Denver. Wait a Minute. Did I Lose You, Kim?

Caller: I\'m Here.

C. Calderwood: Can You Repeat Your Question, Please?

Caller: Yes, We Would like to Know, How Will Department of Interior
Determine If Core Is Being Successful?

S. Rogers: That\'s an Excellent Question. We Hadn\'t Gotten into That.
We Are Setting up a Reporting Format of Just Statistical Data. We\'re
Going to Scrub of it of Any Names, Make Sure Nothing Is Broken in
Confidentiality, Nothing Is Broached or Breached. We Are Developing a
List Now of Those Potential Issue Areas That Would Be Addressed in Door,
and Are Being Addressed in Core, and On a Yearly Basis and this Is
Included in the Departmental Manual, by the Way, We\'re Going To Provide
Many Information up To Mary Barr. It\'s Also Going to Be Included In the
Adr Report That the Also Of Hearings and Appeals, Bob Boum, Is Putting
Together and We Are Going to Show What Kind of Issue Areas We Are
Dealing with And We Are Going to Use this for Developing Trends to Be
Able to Analyze If Policies Are Put in Place, and We Suddenly See Spikes
in Certain Areas, like If It\'s Promise with Workplace Environments
Dealing with Physical Amenities, If It\'s Dealing Personal Relationships
Between Certain Levels of Employees, If It\'s Certain Been ‑‑ a Certain
Benefit That People Don\'t Understand and They\'re Coming in and Asking
Questions And Asking to Resolve Problems, Like Flex Hours, with
Management, We\'re Going to See Where Those Things Spike over Time and
Be Able to Look Back And See When Policies Were Enacted or Perhaps What
Was Going on in an Individual Bureau. We\'re Going to Be Careful about
Making Sure It\'s Not So Defined Down That You Will Be Able to Pick out
Where an Individual Complaint Came From, but We Are Going to Report Data
up the Line To Show What Kind of Activity We\'re Having and in What
Areas. Yes, Very Good Question.

C. Calderwood: See If There Is Any Potential Problem. Kim, Are There Any
More Parts to Your Question?

Caller: No, Thank You Very Much.

C. Calderwood: Thank You, Kim. The next Call Is Richard in That
Sacramento. Hi, Richard. You\'re on the Air.

Caller: this Is Rich Poole. How You DOIng? Hey, the Question Has to Do
with The Current Administrative Grievance Process. If I Was Not Going to
Use Core And I Was Going to File a Grievance, There Is X Number of Days,
10 or 15, to File an Informal Grievance. In Other Words, I Have X Number
Of Days from the Event When I Knew about Something That Happened That I
Didn\'t Like. Now, in the Core Process, the Way We\'re Reading This, Is
That There Is No Initial Time Frame. In Other Words, Nine Months After
Something Happens to Me, You Know, a Big Fight in the Office and Nine
Months Later I Can Go to a Core Specialist, Try To Get it Resolved, and
If I Don\'t Get it Resolved, Then I Have 15 Days and I Can Still Make a
Formal Grievance, Is That ‑‑

C. Calderwood: No There Is a Time Limit on the Formal Grievance Process.
So, Rich, You Wouldn\'t Be Able To Take That In. You Might Be Able to
Solve it Through the Core Program, but Your Time Limit Has Run Out.

Caller: So the Current Guidance on Administrative Grievance Is Still in
Place, in Other Words, There\'s X Number of Days to File the Formal
Grievance?

C. Calderwood: There Are X Number of Days When You Should Have Received
the Information, Or the Information Actually Happened to File That
Grievance. That Doesn\'t Stop from You Taking it to a Core Program After
It\'s Been Filed, Either And Try to Solve That at the Lowest Possible
Level.

S. Rogers: One Thing, Also, Rich, Is There Is Also Put into The Dm the
Capability If You Go Within the 15 Days to Core, and 15 Days from an
Event Happening, And You Ask for Core Assistance, If at the End of the
15 Days of Core\'s Assistance, Even 30 Days Of Core Assistance Being
Provided, If at Any Time You Don\'t Get a Resolution You Like, Or If You
Do Get an Agreement But Then You Later Decide Would You like ‑‑ Decide
You Would Go Woo like to Go to Core, You Have 15 Days after the End of
Core Services Being Provided to File A Grievance. You Do Get Somewhat of
an Extension. You Should Have on the Front ‑‑ On the Front End You Have
15 Days after a Grieveable Act Happened to Go to the Administrative
Grievance Process, but If You Go to Core Instead, If at the End of the
Core Process, You If You Don\'t Feel like You Got the Help You Needed,
You Have an Additional 15 Days.

Caller: That\'s What We Were Not Clear On. Initial 15 Days from the Date
of The Event.

S. Rogers: Yes.

C. Calderwood: Thank You, Rich. We Have a Fax Now That Comes in From Joe
with BLM in the Rosenberg District. It Talks about Group Mediation. This
Is a Good Question Here. Will Core Specialists Be Trained To Mediate
Conflict Resolutions With Entire Work Groups of 20 or More Employees?

S. Rogers: Absolutely. That\'s Part of Our Advanced Training, but We\'re
Providing Some of That Now. In the Old Days We Had Large Groups or
Individuals Who Were Trained to Provide Facilitation. We\'re
Incorporating into That Core. That\'s a Place ‑‑ Core Is a Place Where
You Can Address Systemic Problems and Work on Change, And, in Fact, it
May Be That a Workplace, an Office, Has Gotten into Some Habits That
Aren\'t Productive That Might Be Conflicting, Causing Harm to One
Another. It May Be That, in Fact, this Is A Problem That Doesn\'t Just
Belong in That Office but That Moves Further up and It\'s Throughout the
Whole System. Yes, We\'re Training Them to Be Able to Talk with Whole
Groups, 20, 25, However Many. We\'re Going to Try to Keep it Down to a
Manageable Group, but To Focus on What the Issues Are, Let People Have
Equal Time, If You Will, to Talk about Those, Without Getting into
Positional Areas and Then If We Have Some Something That Needs to Go
Further Up, That\'s Where If It\'s Appropriate We Will Take it Further
up the Chain, and We Have That Ability to Do That. So, Yes, They Are
Getting That Training Now.

D. Greene: Recognize in the Group Setting Now, If You\'re All In There,
You\'re 20 People, You\'re All Confidential Here, You\'re All Keeping
this Where it Is. I Mean, it Might Be an Issue. But like Sarah Brought
Up, Some Of the Things Appear Group Could Have, I Know We Had a Problem
With Chairs, Ergonomics, and Just Various People Around the Building
Were Having Problems, But at Different Times and Nobody Was Saying.
Everybody Here Has a Problem With Chairs. And Then after Quite a Few
Little Visits, We Realized There\'s a Problem Here. It Wasn\'t Something
That Management Wasn\'t Willing to Correct, but it Just Had Not Been
Brought up Before. So Oftentimes Something like That Could Be an Issue
And, of Course, We Got New Chairs, So it Was Resolved Pretty Easily.
Just Remember the Confidentiality When You Are in A Group Because
Everyone Is There, and Speaking Freely, Usually.

C. Calderwood: Also in a Group Setting, this Would Be a Time When We
Would Want to Use Co‑mediation. We Would Want to Have at Least Another
Person in There to Make Sure That Everything Is Recorded And ‑‑ But,
Remember, Everything That Comes out of There Will Still Be Destroyed.
All the Notes Will Be Destroyed. The Charts Will Be Destroyed. So We
Just Want to Know How Can We Solve the Problem and Can We Get the
Communication Back on Both Sides and Can We Preserve The Relationship
the of the Parties and Anything Else That Can Be Solved in Those Type of
Settings.

S. Rogers: Now, Co‑mediation Is Something That Was Just Brought up My
Craig. Co‑mediation Is Where We Have More than One Core Specialist
That\'s There. We Have Different Core Specialist That Bring Different
Strengths to the Table. Sometimes We Need a Combination Of Strengths.
Sometimes Fur Dealing with a Large Group and There Have Been Problems
Going on for a Number Of Years, You Will Want That Flexibility to Help
Keep the Parties on a Level Communication Field with Each Other, and it
May Take a Couple of Folks to Help Do That. That\'s What Co‑mediation
Means. It\'s Two or More Core Specialists Working Together With the
Team.

C. Calderwood: Ok.

S. Rogers: I Guess We\'re About out of Questions.

C. Calderwood: We\'re about Out Questions Here. So We Appreciate Your
Questions, Your Comments, and Remember, If We Haven\'t Answered One or
If You Have One Still out There, Go Ahead and E‑mail Us and We Will Try
to Get Answer ‑‑ Get an Answer to You as Quick as We Can. I Think There
Have Been Good Questions and Good Comments Made Throughout Here. We Have
Done Some Facilitation In Large Groups Already, So I Think That as We Go
Along, We\'ll Be More Prepared and Others Will Be More Prepared to Take
on These Situations. Any Final Comments Before We Wrap it Up?

D. Greene: I Guess I Would Ask, Are We Going to Put the Questions on the
‑‑ Are We Going To Incorporate These in the Question and Answer Section
on The Web Page?

S. Rogers: That\'s a Real Good Point. The Web Page Is Actually an
Evolving Document, So Those Things That You See in the Frequently Asked
Questions and Answers, Those Are Going to Move Around over Time. We\'re
Going to Change Some of Those out Because, like Everything, We Don\'t
Want to Be Static. We Want to Address New Issues, Perhaps Leading Edge
Questions About Adr and Some of That Kind Of Stuff and That So, Yeah,
We\'ll Be Changing That and Particularly with Inputs from The Core
Specialists Who Are out There in the Field. Additionally, We\'re Going
to Be DOIng a Column in \"People, Land And Water\" of \"Ask the Core
Specialist,\" and We\'re Going to Start That up Either in July or
August, but Pretty Shortly, After We Write an Article That Explains a
Little More about Core for Those Who Perhaps Haven\'t Had a Chance to
See Our Telecast Here and Then Starting With That, We\'re Going to Do
Some Generic Questions. Again, Guarding Confidentiality. That\'s
Something May Hear Me Harp about All the Time. We Will Talk about These
Things. So Feel Free to Send in Some of Those on the Website.

C. Calderwood: That Wraps it Up for the Core Program and Our Program
Telecast. We Would like to Thank You as The Audience for Joining with
Us. If Would You like Additional Information about the Core Program in
Your Agency, Please Contact Your Agency Core Representative and See ‑‑
or See The DOI Core Website At, Again, Www.DOI.gov/core. I Would like to
Thank Sarah Rogers from the Department and Dola Greene from Usgs for
Explaining the Core Program to Us and We Especially Would like To Thank,
Again, Our Viewers Who Called and Faxed Us Questions. We Appreciate Your
Participation. Now, to Help Us Evaluate the Effectiveness of this
Telecast, We Would like You to Use the Downlink Sites in All Agencies
And Provide the Total Number of Viewers at Your Office Who Participated
in this Program. Please Use the BLM\'s Automated Viewer Reporting and
Evaluation System on the BLM National Training Center at the Homepage At
Www.NTC.BLM.gov/satnet. We Hope Our Program Has Given You a Good
Understanding of the Advantages and the Benefits of The DOI\'s New Core
Program. Thank You for Watching and So Long from Phoenix Training
Center. Thank You.

Announcer: to Help Your Office Participate in Future Telecasts, See the
BLM Satellite Downlink Guide and Visit the NTC Homepage on the World
Wide Web. NTC\'s Internet Address Is Www.NTC.BLM.gov. Transcripts of
this Program and Other NTC Broadcasts Are Available on the Homepage. For
More Information on Upcoming Distance Learning Events, as Well as
Traditional Courses, Call the Training Center at 602‑906‑5500 or Visit
the Homepage. This Broadcast Has Been a Production of the BLM National
Training Center.