Dear In Practice,

In my role as ombuds, I regularly offer workshops on navigating conflict, effective communication, and related topics. I love working with groups and have also had occasion to facilitate listening sessions, restorative circles, and other group processes. I see these as important opportunities for capacity building and also as a way to more publicly add value within my organization. Sometimes these services are requested in response to ongoing climate concerns or after a challenging incident within a department. At times, attendance is required. I’ve drawn a line and declined to provide my organization with the names of those who attend these events, but the very fact that I’m working with what feels like a captive audience makes me uneasy. I felt similarly when I was in the academic sector and would sometimes be asked to join a faculty member’s class to lead a restorative intervention with students. Is it ethical for an ombuds to lead or facilitate processes where those in attendance are required to be there?

The Boundaries of Our Assistance

Offering workshops and facilitating group activities add value to our organizations. An ombuds should be viewed as the conflict resolution expert for their organization and these services advance that goal. Requests may come directly from leadership or they may evolve from our work with visitors. Workshops allow us to add value for the group as well as to address specific problems/individuals through a generic approach.

The IOA Standards of Practice remind us that ombuds consultations are voluntary and cannot be a required step of any formal process. I distinguish offering workshops and facilitating group activities from consultations, in terms of voluntariness. I have delivered trainings or presentations with the goal of benefitting the team while also intending to impact specific individuals. It is the individual focus that can make it preferable that some of these group options be mandatory (those you are hoping to impact the most are often the ones who find no interest in the topic and, unless required, won’t attend).

These situations also present opportunities to remind colleagues of the boundaries of our assistance. As the ombuds, I should not be the one to communicate that the activity is mandatory nor should I administer the sign-in sheet.

David Talbot, JD, MDR, Ombuds

An Ongoing Tension

There's an ongoing tension between leaders and ombuds when it comes to training. Our ethical principle of informality sometimes conflicts with expectations about participation and reporting. For example, I've been asked to distribute sign-in sheets or report who attended and who left early. I decline these requests as outside the scope of our role. If I agree to conduct a training, I am clear that I will not take on any managerial responsibilities.

I've found that contracting ahead of time is essential to helping me navigate this tension. I ask what the leader is hoping for - not just in terms of training topics, but also desired outcomes. Once I understand their goals, I ask clarifying questions about the intended audience, the overall purpose of the training, and whether attendance is mandatory.

The question about mandatory training often prompts a response like, "Well, I expect everyone to be there." That opens the door for me to explain my standards and practices. If there’s pushback, I might ask, "If you knew everyone attended, what would you have? What would that give you?" This helps shift the focus from attendance to impact and often leads to a more productive conversation about goals and outcomes.

Lisa Neale, Ombuds, Harvard Medical School

This Particular Work is Complementary

Professionals from formal offices invite me to provide facilitation or observation for groups in which they require attendance, and I do accept such invitations. I see this particular work as complementary to the other services I provide as an organizational ombuds (listener, thought partner, idea generator, information gatherer, facilitator.) Those who attend the required events are not visitors to the ombuds office. What this distinction means to me is that I am not bound by the IOA Standards of Practice when engaging in this type of group work. However, I would decline to take attendance or offer a sign-in sheet. If the entity sponsoring the event keeps a sign-in sheet of attendance for their own documentation, that is their choice and I would not review or confirm their attendance record. If a participant in one of these events chooses to become a visitor to the ombuds office, then our practice standards certainly apply in that context.

Ronnie Thomson, Corporate Ombuds, Sandia

A Friendly Onramp to Engaging

The challenge for ombuds is identifying how we can contribute our knowledge and experience to interactions with individual visitors, teams, and educational program participants, add value to our organizations, and conform to the IOA Standards of Practice. Our office serves 19,000 constituents and we cannot reach them all individually.

We rely on educational programming as a valuable strategy for reaching a greater number of constituents. Our office structure includes an educational program coordinator – a confidential employee dedicated to awareness-, skill-, and knowledge-building, who does not work as an ombuds.

Attending our educational programming is always voluntary and our approach honors participant dignity and aims to provide psychological safety. We further promote these two principles through working collaboratively as an ombuds office team to develop procedures that provide choice, encourage voluntary engagement, and protect the privacy of educational program participants.

Leaders often find educational programming to be a friendly onramp to engaging with the ombuds office. When we are invited to facilitate a workshop, we make an initial assessment of whether educational programming is an appropriate service for all before agreeing to serve the unit. We also tell leaders that if participation is mandatory, our office cannot provide this service for them.

Lisa Yamagata-Lynch, University Ombudsperson and Director, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

Duren Thompson, Educational Program Coordinator, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

We value the opportunity to engage with our membership on the dilemmas we face in our roles. Please let us know your perspective on this dilemma in the comment section below.