Everyone’s talking about the new Employment Rights Bill and what it means for business owners and their teams. However, it can be difficult to understand long legal documents, keep up with how they could affect your company, and what you need to do to stay compliant with them. If you’re struggling with this, read on for more details about this new bill.
Coming Into Power
The Employment Rights Bill was read in parliament in October 2024 as part of the wider ‘Make Work Pay’ scheme. However, many of its changes aren’t coming into effect or affecting business owners until 2026, giving you the chance to prepare and make the necessary changes.
Its Aims
The bill aims to modernize the world of employment, end exploitation, and ensure equality. It also aims to increase pay and job security. If you’re worried about these changes, you should speak to The HR Dept in your area. They’ll take you through all the changes and will then be able guide you to a positive future.
The Impact on Redundancies
Currently, there’s a two-year probationary period where employees can be dismissed without reason. This is now set to change, with this probationary period being scrapped to prevent unfair dismissals. Instead, employees will be able to take a dispute to a tribunal as soon as they start working for a company. Instead, in an employee’s initial 9 months, there’ll be a slightly different process for unfair dismissals.
Not only this, but there will be stricter outlines for employment contracts. In the past, employers have regularly forced employees out of a job in order to change their contract or because they refuse to sign a contract with different terms from the ones they accepted when they originally took on the job. When the new law comes into effect, you won’t be able to fire a member of staff only to refill their position or take them back on with different terms. There are also going to be changes to collective redundancy to further protect workers.
The Creation of Equality
Currently, many employers create an unequal workplace and don’t do enough to create an accessible and even playing field for all. The new employment bill will require employers with more than 250 employees to publish data on pay gaps associated with gender, disability, ethnicity, and menopause. This will deter companies from encouraging these pay gaps and will require them to be more proactive about making positive changes. This will also prevent employees from feeling held back or uncomfortable at work, as well as from facing discrimination. Not only this, but they must develop plans to show how they’re working to reduce this inequality and support employees who might be experiencing challenges.
A Clampdown on Harassment
Harassment should never be commonplace at work, and yet 40% of women and 18% of men have experienced sexual harassment in what should be a safe space. The new regulations mean that employers must take reasonable measures to clamp down on harassment, such as taking claims more seriously, developing anti-harassment policies and sharing these with their team members, and having a clear process to work through if a claim arises. Not only this, but there will be further protections for people who make a sexual harassment complaint, and they will now come under whistleblowing.
The Era of Flexible Working
Not only this, but rather than encouraging everyone to work a 9–5 at the office, the government are now checking that employers are allowing employees to benefit from flexible working where possible and create the systems they need to do this. There must now be a specific reason why companies are preventing people from working flexibly.
Protection for Zero Hours
Zero-hours employees have notoriously not had much protection. However, now, employers must give them ample notice of the shifts that are available and that they are working. Not only this, but if they work more than the hours that they’ve taken on for 12 weeks or longer, they have the right to be given a contract or an updated one. This includes agency workers. They must also be paid what they would have earned if their shift is cancelled within hours of them needing to attend the workplace.
Improvements for Pay and Leave
Once the law is enacted, employers must allow all employees to take parental leave (either maternal or paternal) as soon as they start working for a company, and they won’t be able to be dismissed while they are pregnant or if they have just come back from parental leave. Dads can also take parental leave after their baby has been born. If your employees are sick, you must now pay them from the very first day they’re off and regardless of how much they’re earning. Not only this, but the minimum wage is increasing, and you must show that you’re compliant with the rules surrounding holiday pay.
