The Alternative Remedies Guide

Recession has left many jobless and stressed. The number of unfair dismissal conciliation cases has consequently increased by 22 per cent over the past year, according to employment relations service Acas.

As a part of its annual report which offers a deeper view of UK’s employment situation, Acas has figures to prove that the number of conciliation cases has increased by 18 per cent and they received 78,000 such cases last year form the Employment Tribunal Service. The numbers of unfair dismissal cases had been on a downward trend for the past two years but have increased by 22 per cent over the last year. There were 55,000 such cases reported by Acas this year, which was an increase of 12,000 from last year.

Unemployment related calls have been flooding the Acas helpline. Previously, it used to get about 15,000 calls per week, but the figure has increased by 100 per cent since 2009. Most of these calls are from dismissed persons seeking unfair dismissal advice. To fulfil this growing need, Acas increased its timings to work evenings and even Saturday mornings.

Ed Sweeney, Acas Chair, with regard to these growing problems said that they were proof of the fact that because of the economic recession, the whole environment in companies has been under tremendous workplace stress. The key to good people management is having a sound stress management system in place, CIPD training courses are a valuable source of information, which imparts training to managers in necessary skills in this regard.