Progress in the Pandemic: How Negotiation Works is Responding to the Current Crises
By Kathryn Menefee, Program Manager
Right now, mid-pandemic and with an economic recession looming, many people are struggling to find and keep steady employment. And so Candace, a resident at a program for people newly released from prison, was very excited to have been offered a job at a grocery store. But as she explained - over Zoom -- during our Negotiations Strategies course, she needed to renew her driver’s license in order to start working. What should have been a simple task was made much more complicated by the pandemic: The DMV had instituted new, limited hours, and she wasn’t able to get an appointment there until after the job’s start date. Candace knew she needed to approach her new employer about this problem, but she didn’t know how to do it.
The other participants had great ideas. Candace could ask her employer whether an ID other than a driver’s license would be acceptable. She could ask him to push back her start date to allow her time to renew her license. Or, she could start on the original date and her employer could hold her paychecks until she could provide the updated license. Sometimes it was hard to hear these suggestions over Zoom – the Wifi at the residential program was weak, and the participants’ screens often froze – but the participants always waited patiently for the technology to cooperate so everyone could have their say.
Usually, Negotiation Works teaches its courses in person, not only to avoid such technological problems, but also because negotiation relies so much on body language and other nonverbal cues that can be easily lost in a virtual setting. But from the beginning of the pandemic, we knew how important it was to continue offering our courses to people in marginalized communities. For people whose lives are already unstable, the economic, social, and health disruptions of the pandemic can be especially devastating. It is more important than ever that these individuals have the negotiation skills and tools to settle disputes in their lives and advocate for themselves effectively. So, we adapted our curriculum to the Zoom model – including coming up with several new scenarios and activities that would work remotely – and reached out to women’s shelters and other residential sites in the DMV area to see who might be able to host our course.
We have now taught forty-one participants in over twenty individual classes over Zoom at four different sites in the area. The participants have told us how much they appreciate being able to participate in group activities during this isolating time. And many, like Candace, have been able to find help and support for the unique problems they face during the current crisis, including staying connected with far-flung family members and convincing teenage children to keep social distancing. And though we worried that technological issues would make the Zoom course less enjoyable, we were happily surprised by the enthusiastic response in our end-of-course surveys. One woman, who had previously attended an in-person Negotiation Strategies course, even wrote: THIS COURSE WAS SUPER FUN OVER ZOOM (capitalization hers).
Not all of our work in the past few months has just been adapting and teaching our curriculum in a remote format. We have also been changing and adding to our materials based on what we have learned from the current crisis. After listening to participants describe their recent struggles, we created one-page informational flyers to address common pandemic problems: how to negotiate unpaid bills when the pandemic has affected your income; and how to negotiate household tensions during lockdown. We also developed a standalone negotiation workshop around pandemic-related issues to offer to non-residential sites that are unable to commit to a multi-week course. With so many people living in semi-lockdown, it is important for these sites to still be able to connect with and offer support to their clients.
Finally, we have been inspired by the pandemic fallout and racial justice movements of the recent months to rethink the mission and vision of our organization. We teach negotiation not only because the skills are critical for resolving singular disputes but also because individuals use these strategies to advocate for themselves and others and, in doing so, to build more stable, resilient communities.
And so, we are working on ways to emphasize advocacy and community-building in our programs. As the country heads into an uncertain future, strong communities will be even more vital to secure the health, safety, and well-being of the people we serve.