What are the Key Takeaways from the Employment Rights Bill?
The long awaited Employment Rights Bill has been published and this, as expected, is a lengthy and at points complicated document.
There are no immediate changes but your business should be aware that the following changes are coming:
- Zero hours workers will be granted greater rights including:
- The right for qualifying workers to be offered guaranteed hours and there will be a duty on employers to make this offer. Whilst a worker can accept or reject the offer, if this is not made a worker may be entitled to compensation.
- Right to reasonable notice of a shift and the right to reasonable notice of cancellation of or change to a shift; and
- A right to payment for cancelled, moved and curtailed shifts
- Flexible working rules and regulations changed only recently in April 2024 but these have been added to and where an employer is refusing to agree to the flexible working request they are required to consider the reasonableness of this refusal and explain why they consider this to be reasonable to the employee.
- The waiting period to receive statutory sick pay (SSP) will be removed and workers will be entitled to SSP from the first day of their absence not the fourth.
- Worker’s entitlements to statutory leave periods will be enhanced including changes to:
- Parental leave – the bill has removed the qualifying period meaning this will be day one right.
- Similarly, the bill has removed the qualifying period for paternity leave making this a day one right.
- The bill has also removed the word “parental” in “parental bereavement leave” replacing this with “bereavement leave” which will cover a bereaved person and therefore make statutory bereavement leave available for all.
- If you’ve been to any of our recent HR Forums you will have heard our Associate Solicitor, Ellie, discussing sexual harassment and the new obligations on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment from occurring in the workplace. As anticipated this obligation been increased and employers will be required to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. Additionally, the requirement to prevent third party harassment occurring in the workplace has been included as a separate duty.
- Rights for employees have been further enhanced and the qualifying period of 2 years before the right not to be unfairly dismissed applies will be removed making this a day 1 right, this is only available where the employee has started work.
- Finally, with regard to the widely reported fire and re-hire tactics, the bill confirms that where an employee does not agree to the variation of contract and are dismissed they will be considered to be automatically unfairly dismissed.
The process now
The above sets out a short overview of the current draft bill which extends to some 158 pages long, it by no means covers all of the changes being proposed. The bill is currently in draft form and will be making its way through the various stages of Parliament over the coming months, which may well lead to various changes to the current draft being made.
We will continue to analyse and monitor the bill as it progresses through Parliament and provides updates when further information is made available.
When do we expect the changes?
In short, we don’t know. It is being reported that we are not expecting these changes to come into force until October 2026 but nothing is confirmed and we will of course keep you updated when we know more.
If you have any other queries related to this or employment law generally, please contact a member of the Employment Law Team who will be happy to assist.
Amy Hallam
Head of Employment
t: 0114 349 6989
e: amy.hallam@brmlaw.co.uk
Ellie Leatherday
Associate
t: 01246 564002
e: ellie.leatherday@brmlaw.co.uk
Jade Taylor
Trainee Solicitor
t: 01246 560587
e: jade.taylor@brmlaw.co.uk
