Some visitors to the Ombud’s Office tell me they don’t feel entirely comfortable expressing their ideas, concerns and opinions within their team or to their supervis

As this brand new year starts, I would like to offer my best wishes, from the Ombud’s Office, for a healthy, happy and successful 2022! 

Some visitors to the Ombud’s office tell me that they are “too insignificant” or “too low” in the chain of command for their opinion to really matter. 

Some visitors to the Ombud’s office tell me that they are “too insignificant” or “too low” in the chain of command for their opinion to really matter.  We would all like to believe that they are isolated cases, because it’s painful to hear. No one is insignificant – everyone matters! 

We all have our own needs and our own limits.

Conflicts within a team have repercussions not only for its members’ well-being, but also for the achievement of work objectives, resulting in loss of efficiency, lack of collaboration, absenteeism, damage to the team’s reputation, etc.

Very often in the Ombud’s Office, I hear the word “want” rather than “need”. “I want an apology from her”, “I want the guy to be fired”, “I want to be taken off this project NOW”, or even “I want you to resolve this issue for me”.

In a previous article, I underlined how conflicts may actually have a constructive impact when addressed in a timely and effective fashion.

As a CERN manager, you need to have access to many different channels of information. One – and perhaps the most important – of those channels is direct communication with your team and your peers.