Read: Independent Insights

The most important workplace developments of the week point in the same direction: organisations will increasingly be judged by the reality of how work is organised and how conflict is handled — not merely by the language of a contract, policy or values statement.

For the first time, a large volume of South African medico-legal disputes will pass through a mediation process as a matter of course rather than by exception. Whether that produces better outcomes is not yet known as the scheme is young and no outcome data has been published. But the opportunity is real, and there is a decade of evidence from a comparable public health system about what determines whether it is taken.

A simple guide to the High Court Rule 41A Mediation Process