The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, also known as Acas, aspires to make better the relationships between the company and its workers. In order to achieve this, Acas provides the latest information, autonomous counsel and good quality training, and acts as a mediator to work out problems between employers and employees, thus increasing work performance.

Counsel is given free through their website or by calling their helpline. Specialized services like training, workplace schemes, appeasement and arbitration are some of the things extended to an employer.

Acas envisions to:

Give a reasonable, unbiased as well as expert service
Meet the customer's needs
Entrust themselves to encourage, egalitarianism and diversity.

So, how does Acas help the employers and employees?

Acas helps resolve disagreements between workers, group of workers, their representative and their employers. Claims of employees wherein their legal right was denied by their employer is also part of their job.

Acas Adjudication Plan, an option to employment court hearings, is informal, private and faster with the final decision released immediately after. Unjust dismissal or claims which fall under the flexible working regulations can be settled on this adjudication plan. However, appeal can only be requested in limited circumstances. The panel of arbitrators is selected because of their being neutral, knowledge, skills and job relations understanding. Acas does not employ them but appoint them on a case-to-case basis.

As mediator

Acas relieves the employer and employee of going through legal process. As a mediator, they present a third party to have a resolution for disagreements. They suggest that the situation is better brought to their attention in its first phase rather than when the clash has occurred. Mediation has been beneficial in solving disagreements among employees and their supervisors or managers as well as between employees. Through mediation, an employee's absences from work that resulted in misunderstandings can bring the worker back to his work.

Also through mediation and conflict management trainings, Acas assists the employers and employees to handle the disagreements on their own.

As conciliator

As a substitute to tribunal hearing, Acas helps both the employers and employees to arrive at a resolution as a substitute to a court hearing. Instead of inflicting resolutions, Acas helps by way of settling the differences on their own conditions. Conciliation is almost the same as mediation but is meant to cases involving a complaint filed by an employee against his employer.

Collective Conciliation and Mediation

For this aspect, Acas also helps in solving disagreements between groups of employees (the employees' union) and their employers. Once Acas heard of disagreements, they communicate to both parties to check if they need help. They do not force themselves to both parties since this is voluntary. They act if both parties agreed that this is the way to solve the disagreements.

Collective mediation is offered when conciliation did not succeed and the involved parties are not keen to have arbitration but certainly would like to resolve the issues without having to go to court.

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