Three day waiting period abolished so that SSP now payable from the first day of an absence.

Lower earnings limit removed so that the weekly rate of SSP is now the lower of the prescribed weekly rate and 80% of normal weekly earnings.

What should employers do?

Employers will need to update contracts of employment and sickness absence policies.

The right to take paternity leave also becomes a day-one right for eligible employees.

Employees can also now take paternity leave or receive statutory paternity pay following a period of shared parental leave or shared parental pay.

What should employers do?

Employers should update any Paternity Leave Policy.

The right to take unpaid parental leave becomes a day-one right for eligible employees.

What should employers do?

Employers should update any Parental Leave Policy.

An allegation of sexual harassment by a worker will be deemed to be whistleblowing attracting the rights and protections for whistleblowers.

What should employers do?

Employers should update any Whistleblowing Policy and ensure that any individual reporting sexual harassment does not suffer a detriment or is dismissed for having done so.

Increasing maximum protective award to 180 days pay.

Where an employer proposes to make redundant 20 or more employees within 90 days or less a duty arises to consult with appropriate representatives. An Employment Tribunal can make a protective award to compensate employees for any failure to consult in respect of collective redundancies.

During 2027 it is also anticipated that new thresholds for the number of proposed redundancies triggering collective consultation will be announced.

What should employers do?

Employers should consider strengthening collective redundancy consultation procedures, beginning consultation earlier, ensuring representative elections and information-sharing processes are legally compliant, and improving managerial training and oversight.

Currently, statutory trade union ballots, including ballots for industrial action, must be held by post. Ballots for statutory recognition and derecognition of trade unions may be carried out using postal or workplace balloting.

The change would lead to electronic balloting becoming permissible.

What should employers do?

Employers should prepare for trade unions organising ballots more quickly through electronic voting, leading potentially to higher participation and more successful industrial action mandates. Employers should therefore review industrial relations strategies, train managers on lawful conduct during ballots, update recognition and dispute procedures, and prioritise proactive employee engagement.

Recognition and Derecognition balloting – expected 2027

The time limit for bringing proceedings for most types of claims in an employment tribunal will be extended from three months to six months.

Exclusions to this include breach of contract claims, part-time worker claims and fixed-term employee claims, however the Government’s intention appears to be that these claims will also be extended to 6 months in the future.

The ACAS Early Conciliation regime has also been extended from 6 weeks to 12 weeks (from 1st December 2025).

What should employers do?

Improve record-keeping, manager training, and dispute-resolution procedures. Employers may need to retain employment records for longer, ensure decisions are properly documented, and prepare for increased litigation exposure and longer-running disputes.

Employers will be required to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace, including by third parties, and a 25% uplift to compensation will be applied if the employer breaches this requirement.

Currently employers must take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment but the word “all” makes this a much more onerous requirement for employers.

What should employers do?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has recommended employers do the following in preparation for the preventative duty:

• robust risk assessment
• clear policies and procedures
• staff engagement and communication
• multiple reporting mechanisms
• effective training and awareness
• monitoring and evaluation
• tackling third-party harassment

Employers will be required to protect employees from harassment on the grounds of any protected characteristic by a third party in the workplace unless they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent harassment.

A third party could include customers and anyone else who is not a colleague.

What should employers do?

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has recommended employers do the following in preparation:

• carrying out risk assessments for roles exposed to customers, clients, patients, or the public;
• updating anti-harassment policies to expressly cover third parties;
• training staff and managers on recognising and responding to third-party harassment;
• establishing clear reporting and escalation procedures;
• keeping records of incidents and employer responses;
• taking steps against repeat offenders;
• considering warning signage or customer conduct standards;
• appointing a lead person responsible for compliance; and
• creating action plans to prevent harassment and monitoring effectiveness.

Employers will be required to give workers a written statement advising that they have the right to join a trade union, this will usually be in the contract of employment issued at the start of employment. The Government intends to set out other times at which a written statement should be issued but has not yet provided details.

What should employers do?

Update contracts of employment prepare for increased union awareness and organising activity by strengthening employee relations and communication processes.

It will become unlawful to subject a worker to certain detriments with the main purpose being to deter the worker from taking protected industrial action.

A worker will be able to complain to an employment tribunal where such a detriment has been applied.

What should employers do?

Employers could review disciplinary and grievance policies to ensure employees participating in lawful industrial action are not subjected to unlawful detriments. Employers should train managers, document decision-making carefully, and avoid retaliatory treatment linked to strike participation.

Trade unions and employers can enter into “access agreements” for union officials to access an employer’s workforce for certain purposes (organising industrial action is excluded).

There will be a process for the union to request access and for the employer to respond.

An application to determine a union’s access may be made to the Central Arbitration Committee by the union if the employer fails to respond to its request or by either party where negotiations are unsuccessful.

What should employers do?

If applicable, employers should update workplace access and industrial relations procedures. Employers should establish clear protocols for handling access requests.

Where an employee takes reasonable time off to carry out trade union duties the employer will be required to also provide, “such accommodation and other facilities for carrying out the duties or undergoing the training….as is reasonable in all the circumstances…”

What should employers do?

If applicable, employers should review and expand the facilities, accommodation, and resources provided to trade union representatives, including meeting space, communication access, and time-off arrangements. Employers should review procedures and train managers on trade union rights.

Currently an employee must accrue two years’ service with an employer to gain the right to claim unfair dismissal.

This will be significantly reduced to just six months service widening considerably the number of employees able to claim unfair dismissal.

Any employee hired from 1st July 2026 will benefit from the changes – provided they remain employed during January 2027.

The qualifying period for employees to request written reasons for dismissal will also be reduced from two years to six months.

The cap on compensatory awards for unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal claim will also be removed.

What should employers do?

Focus on stronger probation management, better recruitment, and stricter procedural fairness from day-one of employment.

Key risk: The combination of a shorter qualifying period and increased or uncapped compensatory awards significantly increases tribunal exposure, meaning HR processes must become more disciplined, documented, and legally robust at an earlier stage in the employment relationship.

Currently, where an employer proposes changing the terms of an employee’s contract, but the employee refuses, the employee may be dismissed before and re-offered employment on the new terms, hence this is known as “fire and re-hire.”

The new laws will make a dismissal automatically unfair dismissal to fire and rehire where the proposed change relates to certain core employment terms including:

• Reductions to pay
• Changes to working hours
• Reduction in holiday entitlement
• Changes to pensions
• Specified shift pattern changes

Employers could defend a change by demonstrating that the dismissal was to eliminate or significantly reduce any financial difficulties affecting the employer’s ability to carry on the business and could not reasonably have been avoided. In practice establishing this defence will be difficult.

What should employers do?

For core terms, employers should move away from fire-and-rehire as a routine restructuring tool and treat it as an exceptional measure only justified by strong business necessity. The tightening of the law means tribunals will focus heavily on whether genuine agreement was sought, whether alternatives were explored, and whether dismissal was truly a last resort.

A new requirement will be introduced that an employer can only refuse a flexible working request if reasonable to do so on the basis of a statutory ground such as the burden of additional costs.

What should employers do?

Employers should move from treating flexible working refusals as a procedural exercise to treating them as decisions that must be actively justified. They will need clearer evidence, structured reasoning, and documented consideration of alternatives to demonstrate that any refusal is reasonable.

Employers will be required to offer those on zero hours contract guaranteed hours reflecting the hours regularly worked over a reference period.

It will be automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for accepting or rejecting the guaranteed hours offered. Likewise a worker will have a remedy if they suffer a detriment for this reason.

Employers will be required to give those on zero hours or low hours contracts reasonable notice of shifts.

Workers will be entitled to compensation if a shift is cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice.

What should employers do?

If applicable, the key preparation is to audit current usage, convert “regular” work into guaranteed-hours arrangements if an offer is accepted, and update contracts and scheduling practices to reflect greater statutory stability and predictability requirements.

Currently the right to two weeks’ paid bereavement leave only applies due to the death of a child (including a stillbirth after 24 weeks pregnancy). This will be extended to also apply to the loss of a wider group of persons, including pregnancy loss before 24 weeks.

What should employers do?

Update bereavement leave policies to reflect broader statutory entitlements, ensure managers apply them consistently and sensitively, and adjust HR systems and workforce planning to manage more frequent and potentially longer periods of short-notice absence.

Large employers (those with 250 or more employees) will be required to detail actions to reduce gender inequality.

Although expected to come into force in April 2027, further information is required.

What should employers do?

Large employers should prepare for equality action plans by building strong workforce data systems, identifying inequality patterns, and implementing structured, time-bound measures to address them. The key shift is from passive compliance with gender equality to proactive, evidence-led management of workforce gender disparities, with clear governance and measurable outcomes.