Conflict repair and escalation
In force on publication. Last reviewed 2026-08-18. Times used: zero.
1. Who this covers
Saberra has no employees, so this is not a grievance procedure. It covers everyone who can currently be in conflict with Saberra:
- Customers, over service, billing, data, or conduct.
- Partners, over commission, attribution, territory, or standing.
- Contractors, over scope, payment, or credit.
- The Steward, over a refused reserved matter or the continuity plan.
- Anyone affected by Saberra's conduct who is none of the above.
It is written now, while there is no live conflict, because a repair process designed during a dispute is designed by whoever is winning.
2. The ladder
Each stage names who decides to move up, and how long a stage may sit before the next is available. Anyone may skip stages where safety, legal exposure, or a power imbalance makes a lower stage unreasonable. Nobody is required to raise a concern directly with the person it concerns.
| Stage | What happens | Clock |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Direct | Raise it with the person involved, in whatever form suits | 14 days |
| 2. Written | Put it in writing to conduct@saberra.com. Acknowledged within 3 business days, substantive response within 14 days | 30 days |
| 3. Facilitated | A neutral runs a conversation, selected as in section 3. Saberra pays | 45 days |
| 4. Mediation | A professional mediator. Cost shared, or Saberra pays where the other party cannot | 60 days |
| 5. Repair or separation | A written repair agreement with specific undertakings, or a clean end to the relationship on stated terms | — |
Stage 5 is not failure. Some relationships should end, and ending one deliberately with terms written down is a better outcome than a slow attrition where nobody says why.
4. What Saberra commits to
- No suppression. Saberra will not require a non-disclosure agreement, a non-disparagement clause, or a confidentiality term as a condition of resolving a complaint about Saberra's own conduct. This is a scope boundary under document 00 and a reserved matter.
- No retaliation. Raising a concern will not affect a customer's service, a partner's standing or commission, or a contractor's work.
- Nothing is off the record by default. A complaint about conduct is recorded. What is kept confidential is the complainant's identity and the content, not the fact that a process ran.
- The founder is not the last resort. Where a complaint concerns the founder, and it usually will, stage 3 onward runs through the neutral or the Steward. A ladder that terminates in the person complained about is not a ladder.
5. Where the founder is the subject
This is the case the document exists for, because in a one-person company every complaint about Saberra is a complaint about Rick Broider.
- Stage 2 correspondence still goes to conduct@saberra.com and is still answered by him, because there is nobody else. That is a limitation and it is stated rather than concealed.
- From stage 3, the complainant may go directly to the Steward instead of agreeing a neutral with the founder.
- The Steward may make public that a stage 3 or higher process occurred, and its outcome, without the founder's consent.
6. What gets recorded
For every matter reaching stage 2 or higher: date raised, stage reached, date closed, whether a repair agreement was made, whether its undertakings were met, whether the same issue has arisen before.
Counts are published quarterly under document 07: matters opened, matters open past 60 days, matters closed by repair, matters closed by separation. Content is never published. The pattern is the useful signal; the details belong to the people in them.
8. What this does not fix
A one-person company cannot offer an independent internal escalation, and every stage below 3 ends with the founder assessing a complaint about himself. Stages 3 to 5 and the Steward's publication right are the compensating controls, and they are weaker than a real independent function.
This process has never been used. Until it has, it is a plan, and its first real test will reveal things this document got wrong.