Dr. Frederick Elias

EMPLOYEE DISCIPLINE The process of EDR™ starts with the employee being disciplined for violation of a company policy. The assumption is that the company policy is in writing so that there is a "statute" to refer to and upon which the allegation is based. The severity of the violation is irrelevant to the process. What is relevant is that: (a) there is a stated, published policy; (b) the employee is being disciplined for a violation of that policy. The discipline may take any form, be it formal, informal, with penalty or without penalty.

OFFER OF EDR™ This second step of the process is crucial to the success of EDR™ in your organization. Employees must be made aware of the availability of an independent forum to air their dispute. EDR™ requires your organization to: (a) commit in writing to offering this service to your employees, (b) publish the availability of the process to your employees and, most importantly, (c) to advise each employee during the discipline process that he or she has the right to request EDR™.

EMPLOYEE ACCEPTS Though the fee is paid by the organization, EDR™ helps to assure the employee of an impartial hearing through an education process that explains what EDR™ is, what it will and won't accomplish, and by providing statistics to the employee as to the number of decisions both for and against an organization. At any time prior to the signing of an EDR™ agreement, the employee may contact us and ask as many questions about us and the process as they deem necessary to assure themselves of our independence and fairness.

CONTACT EDR™ Once the employee agrees to EDR™, contact is made with us by phone, the Web, or correspondence. We will then mail to you an application for EDR™. The application will request basic information about the dispute, including party identification, the nature of the violation, and the requested relief of the parties. This data is then returned to us with the appropriate retainer.

EDR AGREEMENT SIGNED EDR™ is binding arbitration. Upon the arrival of the EDR™ officer for the hearing, an organization representative and the employee will be requested to sign an agreement acknowledging that the proceeding is binding, and that the parties will be bound by the decision of the EDR™ officer without further recourse.

THE HEARING Most hearings are conducted on site at the employer premises to minimize cost and disruption to the work day, assuming adequate facilities are available. Alternative sites may be used if EDR™ deems the employer site inadequate. Hearings typically last between 1 to 4 hours depending on the nature and seriousness of the allegations. There is no attempt at reconciliation at these hearings - part of the program is to establish "case law" and it is assumed by the hearing officer that the parties have exhausted all other informal means of resolving the conflict. Though informal, the hearings are conducted in a crisp, no-nonsense manner. The parties can expect evidentiary rulings and the resolution of all other issues peripheral to the stated disciplinary issue.  At the end of the hearing the matter will be taken under submission for further consideration and preparation of a written decision.

DECISION PUBLISHED The greatest benefit to the organization is the publication of decisions. In law this is known as the doctrine of stare decisis, or precedence. The names of individual participants are kept anonymous to ensure confidentiality across organization boundaries. The decision is not only provided to the parties in writing, but published on our Web site under the password protected organization's file with full search capabilities so that any person in the organization can research how any particular policy has been interpreted. This gives managers guidance in the application of a particular policy, and provides guidelines to the employees for their conduct in the organization. A small access/maintenance fee applies to the database of cases.