The new draft ACAS Code: is workplace conflict resolution shifting from process to judgement?

Tim Archer was a great first boss in the law and a wonderful man. Early on, he taught me something that never quite sat right with me: "Remember Matt, employment law isn't about doing the right thing. It's about having the right meetings." I was idealistic, he was experienced and pragmatic.

For a long time, he had a point. Employment law rewards process – did you investigate, did the right paperwork reach the right senior person, was the appeal considered?

Reading the new draft ACAS Code, I thought of Tim and wondered if the heretics may finally have been given some access to the rulebook.

What the new draft Code would actually change

Most workplace policies already say some version of "if possible, raise it informally." In practice, that has usually been more aspiration than expectation. It's the sort of thing that's easy to provide for and hard to act on when there's someone real involved. Particularly one who's upsetting you.

The draft Code reads differently. It uses the words employer and worker concerns rather than allegations, grievances and disciplinary matters. It puts real weight on resolution before escalation, and it looks set to move informal resolution from something aspirational in a policy document to something expected in practice.

In the world this draft Code proposes, knowing how to run a grievance won't be enough. Tim's "right meetings" may now need to include conversations aimed at stopping a grievance happening in the first place.

This isn't happening in isolation: sexual harassment, non-financial misconduct and AI

• The draft Code lands alongside other shifts pulling in a similar direction:
• The duty to prevent sexual harassment is moving to "all reasonable steps"; waiting for a complaint to happen and responding to it well is no longer enough; employers need to be assessing risks and taking proportionate steps from October 2026. Including for third-party harassment – by clients or suppliers.

The FCA's non-financial misconduct guidance places real weight on judgement, not just process. Managers are expected to recognise potentially harmful behaviour and act before it becomes something more serious.

Across employment law and regulation, the question is shifting. It's no longer simply whether you followed the process once a problem emerged. It's whether you recognised the risk early enough to act on it – and whether you had the judgement, and took part in conversations aimed at stopping the thing becoming a bigger problem in the first place.

And, of course, this is happening against a backdrop of AI changing the speed at which issues are escalating and the detail they go involve – [link to existing AI grievances blog] goes into this in more detail.

From HR capability to organisational capability

None of this is really new territory for us. We always wanted our mediation and early resolution work to be something our investigation and training teams could suggest to clients: "Surely there's an easier way of doing this?"

In 2008/9 we launched early resolution and were involved in some detailed work with clients to establish in-house early resolution capability. I think the lesson we learned at that time was partly that a financial crisis is a major distraction. And also, that something that must feel independent can't sit with HR alone.

Facilitated conversations, mediation skills, conflict coaching – they all work best when the people accessing and benefitting from them experience the support as independent. I do think the support can be provided internally though. By experienced, credible leaders from other parts of the business.

Of course, everyone is thinking "but they are too busy; why would they want to get involved?" My answer is simple: "because the CEO (or Unit Head or whoever) is a passionate advocate who wants to develop their senior people and sees this as an obvious way to do it."

After all the skills involved are the skills of good leadership more broadly: listening without judgement, suspending judgement, understanding interests and needs, exploring creatively, creating trust, helping people think clearly when emotions are running high.

Building these capabilities across a business, not just within HR, is what could turn the draft Code's ambition into something that actually happens day to day.

What this means for you

If your harassment and dignity-at-work policies still lead with "raise a grievance," this is worth revisiting before October 2026, not after. A few questions worth asking internally now:

• Do your people actually know how to raise something informally, or does the policy just say they can?
• Do your managers know what they could be noticing and how to have those early conversations; do they default to escalation because it feels safer than handling it themselves?
• If the FCA or a tribunal asked what you did before a complaint was formalised, what could you point to?
• Where does responsibility for early resolution sit in your organisation – and is it credible to the people who'd need to use it?

None of this replaces formal process. It sits in front of it.

Where AI can't help

AI is disrupting most things right now. But it consistently struggles with one thing: the complexity of human emotion. Disappointment, anger, embarrassment, fear, damaged trust, misunderstanding – workplace problems don't always come down to these, but they almost always contain them.

Back to wonderful Tim: process still matters. Formal processes will always have a place surely. But the real shift, for organisations that want to get ahead of this, is less about knowing how to run the right meetings and more about building the capability to have the right conversations.

If any of this has raised questions about where responsibility for early resolution sits in your organisation, or whether your managers have the skills and confidence to have these conversations, we'd be glad to talk it through.

Get in touch to find out more about our resolution and workplace behaviour training – or explore how we help organisations build this capability at every level.

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