Out of the blue last week came a formal consultation in relation to a proposed re-write of the ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, the first major look at it in nearly 20 years.
The new Code contains 95 paragraphs to its predecessor’s 47, but just the last six of them usher in without fanfare what may be the biggest, perhaps only, positive change in recommended practice for employers in, well, ages. Businesses which fully grasp the opportunity which this change would present may laugh in the face of interminable AI-assisted grievances and cut through complaints of dubious good faith with renewed confidence that The Law will back them.
Superficially, the change is small – a simple transposition of the encouragement to address workplace grievances through mediation from the Foreword into the main body of the Code. That small change is nonetheless a very big deal because it brings mediation under the penalty regime attached to the Code, i.e. a possible 25% uplift or reduction in compensation for any unreasonable departure from that suggestion.
And the reason that matters is because (assuming the revised Code is implemented as it stands) employers should now regard mediation (including permutations such as facilitated conversations) as the default starting point, not just a possible outcome, in tackling a workplace dispute, to the extent that a failure to start there could lead directly to claims for an uplift in compensation against them....
You don't have permission to access "http://www.khou.com/article/news/nation-world/false-social-media-post-wrongly-identifies-deceased-man-twin-falls-in-n-out-shooting-suspect/507-8f3f6198-8148-42...