Mock Mediation at the 8th National Employment Law Conference 2012

Wong Lu Peen giving an excellent presentation on Mediation

The Role Players

Role Play in progress

One of the hardworking people behind the scene, Amirah from MySeminars

I just got back from doing a role play (mock Mediation) dealing with sexual harassment at the 8^th National Employment Law Conference 2012 held at the Swiss Garden Hotel & Residences (27^th June 2012). The conference was held at the new wing of the Swiss Garden Residences which looked really nice and classy. The conference was organized by MySeminars. The organizing team was headed by Amirah Alkaff (I do apologize as I have forgotten to take a photo of her for the blog!) who had done a splendid job in getting more than 100 participants.

I was there rather early as I wanted to give the morning traffic a miss and it could also be a real challenge to find a parking space at Swiss Garden. Being early, I decided to go for the buffet breakfast at Level 6 of the Swiss Garden Residences. If you ever have the chance of having breakfast there, I would strongly recommend their “nasi lemak”, especially the “sambal” which is close to excellent. They also served pretty good coffee at the buffet breakfast. As for their egg station, I must comment that their omelette is one of the smallest omelette I have ever seen. I think they should use more eggs and add more ingredients!

The morning started with a presentation by my fellow Mediator and a good friend, Wong Lu Peen. She did a great job in introducing Mediation and talking about conflict management in the workplace. Lu Peen also took the opportunity to promote the Malaysian Mediation Centre and my book, “Mediation Skills and Techniques” at the Conference. Thank you, Lu Peen.

Immediately after Lu Peen’s presentation, we did the role play or “mock Mediation” called “Way to go, baby”. I played the role of Harry, the alleged sexual harasser while my other fellow mediators, Sumathi Murugiah played Sally, the victim and Tejindar Kaur played the role of the Mediator. Even though, we had the script but we made up our lines as we go along. Apart from making the role play educational, we also wanted it to be entertaining as well. There were a few laughs coming from the participants. I believe the participants enjoyed the role play. As this role play dealt with sexual harassment, I wanted to conduct a small test to see if the participants could trigger if I slipped in an innuendo or two. At the end of the role play, I told Sally (Sumathi Murugiah), “We have worked very well “hand in hand” with each other for the last 15 years”. Immediately when the participants heard “hand in hand”, there was laughter as those words immediately triggered the participants’ imagination.

The Conference was a good one and well attended. Congratulations to Amirah Alkaff, the other Amirah (whom unfortunately I did not get the rest of her name) and all the other team members in organizing a splendid Conference!