Lawyers fear new rules to avoid disputes at work could backfire

This has worked reasonably well for disciplinary matters - but minor gripes often proliferated and became formal grievances. So the Employment Bill will scrap the statutory procedures and replace them with a new code of practice.

This is more than just advice on how to behave. Staff with grievances who fail, unreasonably, to comply with the code may have their compensation cut by up to 25%. Similarly, unreasonable non-compliance by bosses may increase an award by the same figure.

So the code of practice is crucial. It sums up common-sense industrial relations practice in 43 straightforward paragraphs. But ministers have not stopped there. The code of practice is supplanted by 74 pages of guidance. Although non-statutory, the guidance is bound to be taken into account by employment tribunals when they decide whether or not a party has behaved reasonably.

Managers will have to be trained in applying the guidance to workplace disputes. Training is likely to be timeconsuming and expensive. It may just be too much for the junior managers and supervisors who deal with low-level grievances at present. Employers will need to keep better records showing how they dealt with similar grievances and disciplinary matters in the past.

"The days when employers and employees sorted out issues over a quiet chat may well be over," said Kate Gater of Berwin Leighton Paisner. "A principlesbased system involving 74 pages of guidance will lead to greater uncertainty than the current three-step procedures. That, in turn, will create more opportunities for parties to litigate."

The code seeks to make employment tribunals a place of last resort. "Employers and employees should do all that they can to resolve disciplinary and grievance issues in the workplace," it says. "Where this is not possible, employers and employees should consider using a third party to help resolve the problem."

That means mediation - a requirement that gater believes will have farreaching implications for employment relations.

Mediation is still fairly rare in the private sector. A fully-trained mediator will charge between £3000 and £4000 a day.

Should an employer really have to pay that much to resolve a dispute between a shop assistant and a supervisor? and is there any role for mediation in disciplinary cases?

What about disclosure of documents, witness statements, a neutral venue, the right to bring a family member or lawyer and all the other conditions normally associated with mediation? "The time and cost of mediation can be extensive and will be inappropriate in most cases," Gater says. "More mediation does not necessarily mean speedier resolution," according to Berwin Leighton Paisner, the main problem with the current statutory grievance procedure is that it is open to abuse by claimants' lawyers. far from reducing this problem, they believe the new guidance will make things worse by offering claimants more grounds for challenge. All employment legislation is intended to improve working relations.

But the more time and money that businesses have to devote to lawyers and human resource managers, the less they will have to spend on the workers.