Dionne Dury Joins Acas Roundtable Discussing 5 Year Strategy
Dionne Dury Joins Acas Roundtable Discussing 5 Year Strategy
Dionne Dury, Chair of the CMC Workplace Mediation Group, was asked to take part in an ACAS roundtable on the organisation’s five year strategy last week. “It was a pleasure to share views, on behalf of the CMC’s workplace and employment group, on what we can do to support ACAS in what can only be described as a truly exciting time for both dispute resolution and employment law!”, reports Dionne after attending the meeting.
BY DIONNE DURY
It was a pleasure to be invited by Kate Nowicki, Director of Dispute Resolution at ACAS, to be part of a roundtable discussion to consider ACAS’ five year strategy and share views, on behalf of the CMC’s workplace and employment group, on what we can do to support ACAS in what can only be described as a truly exciting time for both dispute resolution and employment law! Alongside other key stakeholders from the TUC, CIPD, Law Society, UNISON, MOJ, the judiciary, to name just a few, the future of workplace relations, alongside developing trends which we are seeing as a result of economic, technological and social changes, were considered.
Against the changing landscape of labour’s Make Work Pay Agenda discussions were focused on key challenges that ACAS face to embed good employee relations and prevent conflict from escalating. Having long been a strong advocate for upskilling line managers and creating conflict positive organisations by the use of early conflict resolution practices such as mediation, it was refreshing to hear shared views around the importance of this and moving away from grievance led cultures to more resolution based ones. Everyone was agreed that with a new government and changes already happening in the civil courts on the back of the Churchill v Merthyr Tydfill case, this is the time for a clean slate and to rethink how organisations approach dispute resolution. One can only say watch this space for further developments!
Dionne Dury is Chair of the CMC’s Workplace Mediation Working Group. She is an accredited workplace mediator with a background in employment law and has over 11 years’ experience working as an employment lawyer advising businesses and employees on a wide range of workplace disputes. In 2016, she became Director of South-West based business, Resolution at Work. She is now Module Leader for Employment Law at the University of East Anglia and the Law School’s Director of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.
