Who takes precedence?

[Gardenpicnic]

If manager refuses to separate two colleagues after mediation although one asks for it, then manager invites work counsellor to further mediate, and counsellor again specifically recommends that for the good of colleagues' relationship and work that one needs to be moved to another room...does the counsellor's report take precedence? Or can work ignore it?

Work can ignore but it depends how strongly they regard the opinion of the counsellor

Or what they think of the situation? Just because someone wants to move to another room doesn't mean they should. Why can you both not just get on with the job and act as professionals? Seriously asking that. Why not? Because that's the crux of the issue. Work is not a playground, and you don't need to be friends with people, so why is this a big issue. So the employer needs to have some good reason to want to do this, and toy are suggesting that they don't have that reason. Without understanding why you want this to happen it's hard to suggest how you convince them otherwise.

Counsellors will primarily consider relationships and make recommendations that promote harmony. They don't always have visibility in terms of what's practical in a workplace context, such as necessary communication during the course of a working day and proximity of interactions.

If the 2 people don't have the capacity to work together because they can't get past this problem, but their role function has a prerequisite for contact, then one or other of them may need to consider their future. Is it that bad?

Neither wants to leave. Work say colleague A should be managing colleague B better, work counsellor says colleague B's communication and attitude are the issue.

If one moved, communication between colleagues A&B would then be mainly via email, which would be fine business wise.

Well then, you'll have to wait until one or both of them is removed. Permanently. If they can't manage to conduct business except by email from different rooms, and neither can or will change, then dismissal will follow when the employer is fed up enough of them. Which shouldn't take too long. They aren't going to pour resource into mediating constantly. It's work, not a playground.

It's pathetic that two adults having got to this stage can not see the role they each play in the mess and just behave professionally.

They are both putting their jobs at risk.

A and B both sound incredibly unprofessional, and it sounds like there is fault on both sides. There is a job to be done, so they both need to get on and do it.

It sounds like A is B's line manager? If so, A needs to manage the situation. That might include disciplinary and/or capability procedures if necessary. If B is unhappy, he/she can put in a grievance. If this isn't upheld, then B needs to either suck it up or leave.

Insisting that they can't be in the same room as each other and can only communicate by email is completely unprofessional on either side.