Workplace Mediation

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Nickie is a senior workplace mediator registered with the Civil Mediation Council, a mediation assessor and an HR consultant, with 375 workplace mediations behind her. She brings together two perspectives that are rarely found in one person: decades of experience leading HR at the most senior level, and extensive hands-on practice resolving conflict between people who, at the outset, often cannot see a way forward.

Whether the dispute is between two colleagues, across a whole team or at board level, Nickie creates a confidential, impartial space where people can be heard, understand each other and agree practical solutions they are able to live with.

A CMC Registered Workplace Mediator, accredited through Pragmatism Mediation UK, Nickie has conducted 375 workplace mediations since 2022. 

Her caseload covers the full breadth of organisational conflict, including:

• Shareholder disputes, where ownership, investment and the future direction of a business are at stake;

• C-suite and director conflicts, where a breakdown at the top can affect the whole organisation;

• Team mediation, helping groups rebuild trust and agree new ways of working together; and

• Individual workplace disputes between colleagues, or between managers and the people they lead.

Her mediations have ranged from two parties to as many as nine, so she is equally comfortable with a focused conversation between two people and with complex, multi-party disputes where relationships, interests and positions overlap.

Her clients span professional services, education, healthcare, charities, logistics, SMEs and professional sport. Parties have included CEOs, directors, LLP partners, business owners and individuals holding national honours, many working in high-pressure environments where reputations and relationships are at stake.

Nickie has conducted mediations in person and online across the UK and Ireland, and internationally, including in the USA, Argentina, Poland, India, Germany, South Africa, Italy and Spain. Working with parties from different countries and cultures has given her a strong awareness of how communication styles and workplace expectations can differ, and how those differences can shape conflict.

Nickie mediates both workplace disputes and employment disputes, including matters already registered at the Employment Tribunal. Her results speak for themselves:

• 98% success rate in workplace mediation, measured by the parties reaching a Mediation Outcome Agreement; and

• 100% success rate in employment mediation, where the parties found an alternative way forward to a Tribunal hearing.

Many organisations return to instruct Nickie on further matters, from leadership disputes to team relationship challenges, and recommend her to others. That repeat business reflects the trust clients place in her professionalism, neutrality and ability to manage highly sensitive conversations.

Alongside her own practice, Nickie is the assessor for the Pragmatism Mediation UK five-day Civil Mediation Council mediation training course. She assesses delegates as they work towards qualifying as mediators, provides detailed written feedback to each one and offers a follow-up conversation to talk it through. For those who pass, that feedback supports their continuing professional development; for those who need further work, it gives clear, constructive guidance on the skills to strengthen before reassessment.

Assessing other mediators keeps Nickie closely connected to the standards and techniques that underpin good practice, and it continually sharpens her own.

In 2024, the Civil Mediation Council recognised Nickie in its ‘Inspiring Women in Mediation’ feature, publicly acknowledging her commitment to supporting people and developing others within the profession. https://civilmediation.org/mediator-search/?region_search=&expertise=&mediator_provider=Nicola+Verheijen

Nickie is a committed advocate for mediation as a constructive, human-centred way to resolve workplace conflict. She writes regularly on workplace communication, conflict resolution and psychological safety, and was invited by the Civil Mediation Council to write an article for its website, published under the title ‘When an Employment Tribunal Says “The Most Obvious Example Would Have Been Mediation”’.

Before focusing on mediation, Nickie spent 25 years in senior HR leadership roles, including as Director of People at a Top 100 law firm. That experience gives her a deep, practical understanding of how organisations work, the pressures leaders face and the employment law context in which workplace disputes arise.

It also means she understands what happens after a mediation ends. She knows how agreements need to be framed so that they are workable in practice, and how to support managers and HR teams to sustain the progress made.

Nickie's style is calm, direct and genuinely impartial. She listens carefully, takes time to understand what sits beneath each person's position and helps the parties move from blame towards what they need in order to move forward. She is not afraid of difficult conversations, and she handles them with warmth, respect and a firm hand on the process.

Her work draws on an understanding of how conflict affects people, including the stress, defensiveness and loss of perspective that can make disputes so hard to resolve. Helping people recognise and manage those responses is often the turning point in a mediation.

Nickie is based in Liverpool and Wirral and works with organisations across Merseyside, Cheshire, Manchester and the wider North West, as well as throughout the UK, Ireland and internationally. Mediations can take place in person at your premises or a neutral venue, or online where that better suits the parties.

If you are dealing with a workplace dispute and would like to explore whether mediation could help, please get in touch. Nickie is happy to have an initial confidential conversation to understand the situation and talk through the options.