Acas have highlighted that the 2011 Workplace Employment Relations Study (see above), found more businesses with five or more employees wanting expert advice with a 29% increase in managers using Acas since the 2004 survey. Last year, the Acas helpline answered almost 925,000 calls on employment issues and the Acas website saw a rise of around 10% in traffic with more than four and a half million visits. Acas also highlight some key points from the report, e.g. three quarters of workplaces changed some aspect of their staffing practices in response to the recession, the most common being a freeze or cut in wages (42%), grievances raised by an employee are down from 38% to 30% and low use of mediation to resolve individual disputes – only 7% of workplaces reported its use.
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