How We Can Help

When serious concerns arise in a workplace — harassment, discrimination, misconduct, or policy breaches — organizations require a process that is both procedurally sound and humanly grounded.

I provide independent workplace investigations that are:

• Neutral and impartial

• Trauma-informed

• Structured and defensible

• Respectful of all parties involved

Certified through the HRPA Workplace Investigations program, I conduct thorough fact-finding processes that include careful intake, structured interviews, document review, and clear written findings. My reports distinguish between evidence, credibility assessments, and conclusions, and are written in plain, accessible language.

What distinguishes my investigative work is that it is embedded in a broader practice of workplace mediation and organizational development. For over 27 years, I have worked in complex, high-conflict environments across healthcare, education, government, nonprofit, and corporate sectors. I understand not only how to determine facts, but how investigations affect teams, leaders, and culture.

When appropriate, I can also support:

• Post-investigation communication planning

• Leadership guidance

• Team reintegration or repair processes

My role in an investigation is strictly neutral. I do not provide legal advice. I provide clarity.

For organizations seeking an investigator who understands both procedural fairness and the human systems that follow, this integrated approach offers depth, steadiness, and practical support.

Tim has been delivering training since 1998.  He has contracts with ACHIEVE Centre for Leadership & Workplace Performance and the Dispute Resolution Office of Saskatchewan Justice, delivering workshops that consistently receive high praise.  The content of the training experience can be closely tailored to your workplace, targeting the precise areas of needed impact.  Not sure if your need fits the list? Let’s talk and figure out what might work.  Further, Tim can blend the experience, if his other consulting skills such as mediation or group facilitation seem to be needed.

• Contracts with ACHIEVE and DRO
• 19 years of experience
• Best practice in adult learning
• Overwhelmingly positive feedback from participants
• Highly effective results

Tim Nickel knows when to strike a deal and when to repair the relationship.  He knows when to do both and when to simply minimize damage and risk.

• Tim Nickel is a Chartered Mediator with ADR Canada.
• 20 years of experience working full-time in non-profit, government and private consulting settings
• Has led thousands of conflict resolution processes.
• Tim mediated and supervised mediators in the adult victim offender mediation program of Saskatoon Community Mediation Services.
• He has been a leader in the Dispute Resolution Office with high-conflict families referred through QB court, child protection through courts and social services, human rights mediation through the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission, ambulance service .
• Tim has mediated nearly 500 civil law suits of all sorts through the Saskatchewan Court of Queen’s Bench.
• He has specialized in helping conflicted workplaces with pairs or groups, but also works in communities and other organizational structures.

Complex challenges rarely belong to a single organization. They sit at the intersection of government, institutions, non-profits, boards, leadership teams, and communities—each with its own mandate, constraints, and political pressures.

I help these groups work together productively.

My role is to design and facilitate clear, disciplined processes that:

• Surface differing interests and assumptions without escalating conflict

• Clarify authority, accountability, and decision rights

• Translate competing mandates into shared strategic direction

• Build durable working relationships across institutional boundaries

The goal is not superficial agreement. It is functional alignment—so that independent actors can coordinate action, manage tensions, and make progress in environments that are politically sensitive, structurally complex, or historically strained.

Tim Nickel is trained in Organizational Diagnosis from the Community At Work Group of San Francisco and has been handling cases of workplace conflict and organizational change for 12 years.

• Has completed full organization assessments as a lone consultant or within consultant teams for both small (8 members) and large (Saskatchewan Department of Learning >800 employees) organizations
• Consulted with the Saskatchewan Human Rights Commission in Chief Commissioner David Arnot’s major change initiative that included specifically significant changes to legislation, culture, relationships, policies and procedures, and client journeys through the complaint system
• Sees the patterns underneath the symptoms and consistently creates deep personal connections, motivating people to make the changes they need. At ease in the boardroom and the shop floor, Tim has made a reputation out of truly understanding people – wherever and whoever they are.