Can your database help your overall conflict resolution strategy?

Yes, obviously. When a blog post title is a yes/no question, the answer is usually "yes." So the better question is: How? And the answer has to do with how you see and use your database and software. Most unions and employers use databases by now, because there's really no other time-effective way to stay on top of your work, particularly if you're a union rep or HR associate with a lot of member grievances or disciplinary cases. Databases (and software apps that use them) are so essential for keeping track of details, that they're sometimes overlooked for their most powerful features: aggregate reporting. "Aggregate reporting" is a 50 cent term for what a lot of people would call statistical reporting (except that technically, statistics are from samples). But counts, sums, mean averages and medians, grouped by specific criteria, are even more descriptive of real data, and should be used to identify problem areas. Your grievance software should allow you to look at any non-unique data point and group values. For example, you should be able to see at a glance where your overtime disputes fall by location, and by supervisor. Is one supervisor having more than his share of complaints? Could he benefit from a review of the OT rules? Now add a breakdown by step. Are they getting resolved at step 1, or do you have a bunch languishing after step 3 and destined for arbitration? How about disciplinary issues? With a good database and app, you can create discipline issue buckets and check them in the software on a per case basis. Then run reports to very quickly see what issues are popping up most, and where. Don't forget what the databases can do for you. At Step One we can help you set up all the "buckets" you need, and you can modify them as needed. And our flexible reporting tool will let you group by any non-unique criteria in your database and apply any filter.