CONFIDENTIALLY SPEAKING  University ombuds Wayne Blair, left, and Laurie Mesibov hosted a drop-in reception recently to discuss their work.

Wayne Blair and Laurie Mesibov both emphasize this point: What they do is not a numbers game.

As the University’s two ombuds, they want people to come through the door, to be sure, but they are not trying to force anything on anybody, not even their advice.

They do not run the business like a car dealership or retail store, which is to say it’s not about earning people’s business so much as gaining their trust.

After a year’s time, they hope they are off to a good start.

Blair, who served as the ombuds officer at Columbia University since 2002, was hired to a full-time, non-faculty position, whereas Mesibov, a longtime professor in the School of Government, has continued working halftime in her tenured faculty post while serving halftime with Blair as an ombuds.

Blair said one of the reasons why he decided to leave New York City for Chapel Hill was the professional opportunity to join Mesibov in creating a new ombuds program from scratch.

The second reason was the strong support the office has received from Chancellor James Moeser.

“From the chancellor on down, people wanted to see it happen,” Blair said.

The office is the brainchild of the Chancellor’s Task Force For a Better Workplace and was its top recommendation when it presented a host of recommendations in its final report in fall of 2004. Blair and Mesibov were named to run the office that December.

Mesibov spent four years, from 1996 to 2000, working in the Office of the Provost directly with many campus units on a range of work-related topics. She also chaired the Performance Management Review Board, advised employee grievance panels and served as a member of the Faculty Grievance Committee.

“I thought an ombuds office could be an additional opportunity for people at all levels,” Mesibov said. “Although there were already in place a number of routes people could go, it just seemed to me that having this office, as a confidential, informal opportunity to talk and to resolve problems and disputes would be a good thing to have.”

Before the office opened in May of 2005, the two of them appeared individually and together at various forums to make people aware of the new office and to establish a level of trust that they could build upon once it opened.

That process, Blair said, is continuing.

“The reality is that this is a program that is new to the culture of Carolina, so it will take time for people, when they think of the their options of resolving their issues, to think of the ombuds office as being among them. We are one of a number of support services people have, depending on the issue that needs addressing. We are the informal one.”

It is as important for people to understand what the office cannot do for them as it is for them to know what it can, they said.

The ombuds office is not a lawyer’s office. The first person who walks into their office does not become a client they have to answer to, or advocate for.

Their job is to listen.

Their job is to offer an outside perspective and to present the various options an employee might take to deal with a problem.

And it is also their job to remain neutral and to allow the person, when they leave the office, to know they are still in control of what happens next, if anything at all.

 “The decision isn’t ours,” Blair said. “They get to decide whether to move forward, and they get to decide the manner in which they move forward, or let a matter drop,” he said.

When someone complains to a supervisor about a problem, that employee has started a formal process, or what Blair calls “putting the University on notice” that a problem exists for which a solution must be found.

The ombuds office, in contrast, allows the employee to pull back and reconsider.

 “Some people come to us because they want someone to help them think through identifying their options and identify what the consequences of each might be so they can make a more informed decision,” Blair said.

What people can expect from the office is a place that is safe, welcoming and neutral — and a place where they are not going to be judged no matter what they say, or might have done.

Even the location of the office — in University-owned property off of Franklin Street with the entrance off Porthole Alley — hints at discretion, as does the outside intercom that requires visitors to identify themselves before admission.

The reason for the guarded access is to eliminate any possibility that an employee already inside the office could be seen by someone they know. Such chance encounters could compromise the confidentiality that Blair and Mesibov recognize as a cornerstone to their effectiveness.

In addition to providing a dispute-resolution service, the office was expected to identify and recommend changes that may improve the work environment for all employees.

There may be a situation where there is a pattern of complaints within a particular school or department, or under a particular supervisor. At the same time, there may be a particular issue — such as flexible work hours — that emerges repeatedly as a concern

In either case, Blair said, part of the office’s role is to connect the dots and bring the information to the attention of decision-makers, with possible suggestions on how an issue might be addressed.

“We do that without linking where we got the information from, or linking individuals to the issue, unless of course, given permission,” Blair said.

Blair cited one issue that has emerged throughout campus: The problems that can arise when a longtime employee is promoted to a supervisory role.

 “They know the job, but they don’t yet know how to manage people,” Blair said. “Not knowing how to manage people well might be interpreted as being rude, obnoxious, inattentive, and not responsive to the needs of those who report to them. When you talk to them, they talk about how their staffs have the expectation that they know all the answers, but they don’t. But they don’t know how to say they don’t know.

“It’s not as if they are not good people, or don’t have the skills to do be good managers. But they may lack some sense of confidence in how to do it, how to tie certain things together to make them a far more effective and productive manager.”

Often, additional training can help.

There have been instances where the office has tried to mediate a dispute between two employees, if both parties agree to it. The thinking, for all parties concerned, is: “If I can get this resolved quietly, discreetly, confidentially, why not?’”

Mesibov said it is important that employees understand that the office seeks to provide assistance no matter what the problem might be.

“We are ready and willing to talk about any workplace issue,” she said.

Although they don’t want to make too much of it, the office handled nearly 250 cases by the time it marked its first anniversary last week. Of the 250 cases, roughly one third of them involve faculty, with the remainder involving either staff or administration.

Some concerns involve one group more than another.

For instance, staff members are more likely to come to them seeking help in regard to control over their work hours or how much autonomy they should have in making decisions without their supervisor’s approval.

Faculty, in contrast, have far more autonomy in all these areas. Still, Mesibov said, faculty and staff have more issues in common than some might think.

“At the heart of so many of the issues that we hear about, we find a lack of communication, or poor communication, or the illusion that there has been clear communication, “ Mesibov said. “Another issue is one of feeling respected or not respected in their workplace.  That crosses all boundaries.”

Last month, Mesibov and Blair presented their experiences developing the program at the annual convention of the International Ombudsman Association in La Hoya, Calif. They plan to make a similar presentation in Philadelphia in October before the Association for Conflict Resolution.

“We talked of how we wanted to model what we preach,” Blair said. “We wanted to develop a program that was as cutting edge as possible.”

Over time, they said, they hope the office will become a part of the culture of Carolina and such an integral part of the institution that people will quit thinking of it as something novel and new.

“We take our obligation as being part of a leading public university to extend to what this ombuds office ought to be,” Mesibov said. “We want it to be excellent on any measure that people can think of for how we operate.”

A better gauge for measuring success the first year might be the fact that people who have used the program have come back. And just as importantly, they are encouraging other people to use them as well.

“People have been willing to give us a try, which is basically what we asked for,” Mesibov said. “Give us an opportunity, and then make your judgment about whether it was worthwhile.”