The publication of the new Employment Rights Bill is set to cause ‘fundamental changes’ for UK employers and employees.

The new bill, set out by the Labour government last week, has delivered on its pre-election promises, and thrown in a couple of surprises into the bargain.

Employment law expert Liam Entwistle, from leading Scottish law firm Wright, Johnston & Mackenzie LLP (WJM), has produced a handy guide to help both employers and employees cut through the jargon and know what to expect.

Parts of the Bill aren’t likely to come into force until next year at the earliest, with most changes likely to start taking effect from 2026.

After sifting through the 158-page document, Liam has laid out the highlights, urging employers to stay ahead of the changes taking effect in the coming months and years.

It is important to note that, on all the points listed below, there is still a good deal of detail yet to be set out by regulation.

Labour deliver on “Day One Rights”

One of the big promises made before Labour set out the Bill related to new ‘day one rights’ for all workers – and they have delivered on this promise.

As expected, on “day one” of employment, employees will have the right to paternity, parental and bereavement leave. There will also be protection against unfair dismissal for all workers from ‘day one.’ The latter will have the biggest impact on employers, however, there is likely to be a probationary period (called “the initial period of employment”) of six to nine months where it is likely to be easier to dismiss.

Fair dismissal will, as usual, be allowed, although we are expecting regulations with further protection for pregnant employees.

There are also a few additions that weren’t headline items in advance of the bill, which may come as a surprise to employers, including:

• A specific obligation on an employer not to permit a third party to harass their employees and take reasonable steps to prevent this.
• A specific new protected disclosure on sexual harassment. If you are bringing your employer’s attention to sexual harassment, which has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur, then that may qualify as a protected disclosure, with whistle-blower protections.
• Changes to collective redundancy consultations. It’s going to be more difficult for larger employers with several places of business to avoid the collective redundancy consultation requirements. Now, all an employer’s places of business will count towards the collective redundancy total. Previously, the regulations only applied if you hit the collective number in each of your places of business.
• Lastly, employers previously had a duty to take reasonable steps to avoid discrimination, but now they’ll have to take ALL reasonable steps – so employers will have to think carefully and not miss anything!

Flexible working requests more difficult to refuse

Any refusal of a flexible working request on the existing statutory grounds has to be reasonable – and employers will have to set out in writing why they say refusal is reasonable. Basically, the Bill means you must now show your working in relation to flexible working refusals.

More protection from fire and re-hire practices

The Bill also proposes changes to fire and re-hire practice across the UK, attempting to prevent less necessary and less ethical attempts to change a worker’s terms and conditions.

The Bill provides that if the reason for a dismissal is that an employer has tried to vary a contract, and the employee did not agree, then that will be automatically unfair.

The employer has a defence they can deploy, if the change to the contract was necessary to significantly reduce current or imminent financial difficulties, and they reasonably needed to make the change, then dismissing for a refusal to accept a change to a contract may be fair.

One-way relationship in zero-hours contracts and shift work set to end

One of the more complicated areas the new Bill tackles is zero-hours contracts and shift work.

The Bill provides that if zero-hours workers (or workers who are contractually entitled to a number of hours at unspecified times) work over a certain number of (as yet unspecified) hours, then they must be offered a “Guaranteed Hours Contract”.

There will be further protections for these workers to prevent dismissal or harassment surrounding the requirement to offer the Guaranteed Hours Contract.

Any provision in a contract which requires a zero-hours worker to work exclusively for one employer will be void.

For shift workers, protection comes in the form of a requirement for reasonable notice of a shift and protection for cancellation of a shift at short notice.

The fine details for all of these provisions still need to be issued.

While these new rules don’t apply to agency workers, specific regulations may be brought in for them.

What’s next and what can you do now?

Some of the things Labour were hinting at aren’t in the bill, but they’re going to come, and are set out in the ”Next Steps” document.

These include the ‘right to switch off’, commitment to end pay discrimination, dealing with the definition of a worker’s status, and a review of parental leave and support for carers. It’s a case of wait and see for these ones.

For now, the best advice is to speak to an employment advisor, find out how you could be affected by what is on its way, and make plans to change practice in areas where you may have problems. This will prepare your business for when all of this becomes law. We have some time which can be put to good use.

For expert employment law advice contact the WJM team at employment@wjm.co.uk