An effort is made to schedule the mediation in less than a week of the received request. Sessions can usually be arranged for employees on or off the work schedule. Supervisors are often willing to schedule mediation during working hours, but if a participant does not want the supervisor to know about the mediation it can be scheduled after work hours. Mediation sessions generally last between one and two hours. Not all issues may be resolved in one mediation session.
Mediators welcome second meetings or follow-ups if such are deemed necessary by the participants.
You cannot choose your mediators. The mediators are told the participants' names and generally will not mediate a case where they are familiar with one or more of the parties. If you get to a mediation where you cannot work with one of the mediators you may refuse to continue with the mediation and ask for a new set of mediators. This has not happened in our experience to date. In spite of the clarity that better communication brings, this does not always produce mutually agreeable resolution to conflict.