There are two recognized ways of resolving disputes before and during legal procedures outside the courts. The first one is mediation, which is a voluntary form of resolving a dispute in the workplace. The purpose of mediation is to maintain and restore workplace relationships and help the involved parties to continue working together and move forward. The primary advantages of mediation are that it can save both the employer and the employee time and are less stressful than courts, tribunals, and formal company procedures. The possible disadvantages of mediation are that it does not always ensure that employers’ or employees’ legal rights are protected and that a mediator is an outside party, which means that they may not be aware of all of the pertinent issues. The role of ACAS in performing the mediation process is that the organization helps the involved parties to find the solution to the problem effectively. The representative of ACAS discusses the dispute with both sides separately and collectively, analyzes their claims, and helps them to reach an agreement.
Conciliation is similar to mediation; during this process, a conciliator helps the involved parties to resolve the dispute. Conciliation is different from mediation in a way that the conciliator should provide the parties with a settlement proposal that they may implement voluntarily. Like mediation, conciliation can also save the company’s time; its two main advantages are that it offers a clear proposal and is confidential. However, its disadvantages are that it does not offer a guaranteed resolution and that it does not consider potential power imbalances among involved parties. The role of ACAS, in this case, is to address the available options, encourage the use of the company’s internal procedures, and discuss the proposals parties may have.