WRC mediation: how it works, what an agreement is worth, and when to say no

Mediation at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) is a conversation with a referee. A WRC mediator sits between you and your employer and helps you find terms you can both live with, without an adjudicator deciding who was right. It is free, it is voluntary for both sides, and nothing said in it can be used at a hearing later. Roughly speaking, it suits people who want the matter closed on terms they control, and it does not suit people who need a finding, a published decision or a sum fixed by law.

This guide explains how mediation is offered, what happens in the session, what a mediated agreement is and is not, and how to decide. If your complaint is not yet lodged, read the time limit guide first, because mediation only happens after a complaint is in.

How mediation is offered

When you lodge a complaint, the WRC sends it to the employer and asks both of you whether you are willing to try mediation. Both sides have to say yes. If either says no, or does not answer, the complaint goes straight to adjudication and a hearing date follows in due course. The hearing guide covers what that looks like.

Mediation is not available for every kind of complaint and the WRC decides which it offers. Where the complaint involves a single employee and a sum of money, a dismissal or a dispute about treatment, it usually is. You can also ask for it if it has not been offered, and so can the employer.

In 2025 the WRC received 10,559 applications, up 44% on the year before, and the median wait from lodging to a first hearing rose from 133 days in January to 174 days by December. Mediation generally happens sooner than a hearing would, which is one of the reasons employers and employees both take it up.

What happens in the session

A WRC mediator is a trained member of WRC staff, not an adjudicator, and has no power to decide anything. Mediation can take place by phone, by video or in a room at a WRC office. Some mediations are done in a single phone call between the mediator and each side in turn; others are a half-day with both sides present.

The usual shape is:

1. The mediator explains the ground rules. Confidential, without prejudice, voluntary, and either side can leave at any point.
2. Each side says what the dispute is about. You are not giving evidence and nobody is cross-examined. Say what happened and what you want.
3. The mediator moves between you. Most of the work is done in separate rooms or separate calls. The mediator tests each side's position, carries offers back and forth, and points out risks each side may not have weighed.
4. Terms are agreed, or not. If you reach terms, the mediator writes them up in a short agreement that both sides sign the same day. If you do not, the mediator closes the session and the complaint goes on to adjudication.

You can bring a union official, a solicitor or a friend. You do not need to. You can ask for a break to ring someone before you sign anything, and a mediator will give it to you.

What goes into a mediated agreement

The WRC does not publish mediated terms, so nobody can give you a table of "wrc mediation outcomes". What can be said is what the terms usually cover:

• A sum of money. Expressed as a single figure, sometimes broken into wages owed, holiday pay and a compensation element. The split can matter for tax, and a union official or solicitor would check it before you sign.
• A date for payment. Usually within a stated number of days of signing.
• A reference. Often an agreed form of words, attached to the agreement.
• An agreed leaving date or characterisation of the leaving, where the employment has ended or is ending.
• Confidentiality. Both sides agree not to disclose the terms. This is standard and is one reason employers mediate.
• Withdrawal of the complaint, and usually a clause that the agreement settles all claims arising from the employment. Read that clause carefully: it may cover claims you have not thought about yet, such as a redundancy payment or a pension question. The settlement agreements guide explains the same clauses in a private settlement.

The sum is what both sides accept. It is not what an adjudicator would have awarded and it is not a percentage of anything. A realistic view of what the complaint might bring at a hearing, which the decisions guide and the awards register can help you form, is the most useful thing you can carry into the room.

Binding, enforceable, and never published

A mediated agreement signed by both parties is binding under the Workplace Relations Act 2015. If the employer does not pay or does not do what it agreed, the agreement can be enforced through the District Court in the same way as an adjudication decision. You do not have to start again.

The agreement is not published. There is no decision, no ADJ reference and no entry in the WRC's database with your name or the employer's. For many people that is the main attraction: since the Zalewski decision in 2021, adjudication hearings are generally public and decisions are published with the parties named, and a mediated agreement avoids both.

What you give up is a finding. Nobody decides whether a dismissal met the standard in the Act or whether a deduction was permitted. If what you want is for an independent person to say so in writing, mediation will not give you that.

When mediation suits, and when it does not

Mediation tends to suit you where:

• The main thing you want is money, a reference or a clean ending, and you would rather have it in weeks than in months.
• The facts are disputed and a hearing could go either way.
• You are still employed and want to keep working there, or want to leave on agreed terms.
• Privacy matters to you, or to your next job search.
• The sum at stake is modest and the time and stress of a hearing are not worth it to you.

Mediation tends not to suit you where:

• The law is clearly on your side and the figures are not in doubt, so that an adjudicator would be likely to award the full amount: unpaid wages shown on payslips, for example, or holiday pay on leaving.
• You want a public finding, because you believe other employees are affected or because the employer has done this before.
• The employer's offer is far below what the Act would allow and shows no sign of moving.
• You are being pressed to sign a clause you do not understand.

Neither list is a rule and the decision is yours. A union official or a solicitor would ask you what you want to be true in six months and work back from there.

Refusing, leaving, and what the adjudicator never hears

You can refuse mediation outright, and you can leave a session at any point without agreeing anything. Neither counts against you. The adjudicator who later hears your complaint is not told what was said in mediation, what was offered, or that you declined it. The mediator does not report to the adjudicator and the two processes are kept apart by the Act.

Equally, an employer who refuses mediation is not penalised. Do not read a refusal as a sign of confidence; employers refuse for all sorts of reasons, including a preference for a decision they can appeal.

Mediation and the six months

Mediation never affects the time limit, because the complaint is lodged before mediation is offered. The trap is the other way round: an employer who says "let us sort this out between ourselves, there is no need to go to the WRC" while the six months run down. Talks with the employer are not a reason the adjudicator will accept for a late complaint. Lodge first, and tell the employer you are happy to mediate once the complaint is in. A lodged complaint can be withdrawn at any time; a complaint lodged a day late may never be heard.

Signing on the day

Mediated agreements are usually signed at the end of the session, and employers like it that way. Before you sign:

• Read every clause, including the waiver of other claims.
• Check the sum, the date for payment and who pays it.
• Ask how the sum is described, because a payment of wages is taxed as pay and a compensation payment may be treated differently.
• Ask for a break and ring someone if you need to. A mediator will not refuse.
• If a clause is unclear, ask for it to be rewritten, or ask for the session to resume another day.

If you are in a union, your official will go through the agreement with you. If you are not, and the sum is large or the clauses are unusual, a solicitor can review a draft the same day. The solicitor guide explains what that costs and when it is worth it.

Where this leaves you

Mediation goes best for the person who walks in knowing their figures: what they are owed, what a hearing might bring, and what they would accept. The case file builder puts the dates, the sums and the documents in one place so that you can answer the mediator's questions without guessing, and so that, if mediation fails, the same file carries you into the hearing.

If you are in a union, ring them first: union officials sit in WRC mediations regularly and know what employers in your sector tend to agree. How unions work at the WRC. If you are not in a union and you are being asked to sign a waiver of all claims, a solicitor can read it with you before the session rather than after.