Clare Chapman became Chair of Acas in July 2020. Clare is also a non-executive director and Remuneration Chair at M&G and the Weir Group and is Co-Chair of The Purposeful Company.
2023 to 2024 felt like a year of conflict. From industrial disputes in the workplace to geopolitical unrest and the year of elections, few of us will have been unaffected.
While some of these challenges are resolving, conflict continues to cause deep unease and worry for many. This is certainly true in workplaces where inflationary pressures and cuts in real pay have triggered workplace disputes across the public and private sectors.
Acas holds unique insight on the world of work to offer a new UK government, which can improve workplace relations and promote economic growth.
Positive workplace relations means economic growth
Acas research shows us that still too many employers are investing in resolution only after the point where disputes have become entrenched and embittered. We want to enable an earlier focus on informal resolution for a greater positive impact on staff engagement and productivity. This is even more important given that demand for skilled labour is amongst the tightest in 2 decades.
This is not just a pandemic-induced blip but a longer-term trend across advanced economies that’s likely to continue as workforces age. Tightness often results in reduced income or profit, and the best way for companies to get ahead of this is to engage with staff and improve workforce relations and what matters to staff.
In April we celebrated 10 years of the early conciliation service. In that time, we have offered to help over 1.5 million employers and employees to avoid costly, and often distressing, court action. Our recent investment in the service this year has led to a reduction in the cost of cases last year by 11%. At the same time we increased early settlement rates with a record-breaking 78% resolved before they reached an employment tribunal.
Having a positive impact on industrial relations
We are also having a significant positive impact on industrial relations. While the number of strike days fell by nearly 50% to 2 million in 2023 to 2024 compared to the 30-year high seen in 2022 to 2023, inflationary pressures and a cut in real pay have led some to exit the labour market, with over one-fifth of people of working age now economically inactive.
In this climate, we handled 618 major industrial disputes and promoted a settlement in 94% of those we conciliated in, almost half of which involved threatened or actual industrial action.
Our proven expertise – enabling early resolution of collective and individual disputes and widespread promotion of good practice – helps significantly mitigate the cost of workplace conflict, estimated at over £28.5 billion a year. According to the independent Economic Impact Assessment, the delivery of Acas services produces £12 of benefit to the UK economy for every £1 invested in Acas.
Improving workplace relations
We are on track to deliver against almost all of our ambitions in the Acas 2021 to 2025 strategy, which were identified to maximise our impact on working life.
These were:
- Grow our reach – we are now reaching twice as many small and medium-sized businesses, and twice as many employees
- Resolve disputes more quickly and effectively – we are resolving more than 3 out of every 4 disputes before they reach a costly employment tribunal
- Forge consensus on issues around the future of work – we have used our convening power to predict and respond to challenges in the world of work and tackle the big issues
- Embrace difference, increase inclusion, create fairness – we have changed our services and ways of working to ensure they are inclusive and accessible to all who need them
Acas advice to businesses to improve organisational health
But in the year ahead, there is more we can do to invest in organisational health – which leads inextricably to enhanced performance. There are 3 questions any organisation can ask itself:
- How well do we rally around our purpose and strategy?
- How well do we execute our day-to-day operations and our strategy?
- How well do we innovate and renew ourselves to meet stakeholder needs?
Understanding what’s good for business and good for employees lies at the heart of both effective employment relations and our social partnership approach at Acas. In the coming months, Acas will be offering a proposition on what social factors employers can measure to understand their impact on the workforce, their customers and the local and broader community; and what that means for their ability to grow and mitigate risk.
The new Labour government has committed to kickstart economic growth, with good jobs and greater levels of productivity in every part of the country. We stand ready to make a real difference, to make working life better for all, using our insights to make work pay, inform the new industrial strategy and support the government’s plans for growth.