This enhanced understanding and improved communication can lead to improved relationships in the workplace and between bargaining agent and management. Mediation also has an educational dimension. The dispute resolution techniques and skills of the mediator can be learned by the participants and used in dealing with other disputes. The mediator teaches dispute settlement skills in addition to using them. The experience of several grievance mediation programs indicates that the parties ability and desire to resolve disputes on their own are enhanced by their experiences in grievance mediation.
Adjudication is often an unsatisfying experience.
It is a formal process replete with esoteric points of law and extensive testimony of witnesses. This can be a trying, if not traumatic, experience particularly when a witness is subjected to cross examination. Mediation, on the other hand, affords through its informality an opportunity for all those affected by the dispute to be involved in the outcome in an atmosphere that is safe and conducive to open discussion. As a general rule mediation is less time consuming than adjudication. Most mediation sessions take one day, whereas the adjudication of discipline or complex contract interpretation cases can take several days and, occasionally, weeks of hearing.