Why The Employment Rights Act Will Reshape Work For Years To Come

A sweeping reform of workplace law is here, and the practical impact arrives sooner than many expect. We sit down with employment law expert Joanna Sutton to unpack what actually changes, why the politics got so heated, and how employers can prepare without getting lost in legal jargon. The headlines are big: stronger protection during industrial action, statutory sick pay from day one, day one access to paternity and parental leave, and a sharp rise in penalties when collective consultation is mishandled.

We start by tackling the real-world implications of a tribunal system already at capacity and an anticipated rise in claims. Joanna explains why the government’s phased roadmap matters, where uncertainty still sits pending regulations, and how small businesses will feel the compliance burden most. From there, we dig into industrial action: the repeal of minimum service levels and the end of the 12-week protection window. 

April becomes the crunch point. Sick pay shifts to day one and the lower earnings limit disappears, bringing more workers into eligibility and increasing costs for employers that rely on statutory minimums. Family rights also move, with day one access to paternity and parental leave, a change that demands clear manager guidance even if entitlements stay the same. On restructuring, protective awards for collective redundancy failures are set to double, turning process shortcuts into expensive mistakes. And we clarify why sexual harassment complaints will be clearly protected as whistleblowing, reinforcing the need for credible reporting, prompt investigations, and prevention-focused training.

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IMPORTANT INFORMATION: This audio is published by Trish Hewitt of Haylo HR. The information in this video is for general guidance only and, although the presenter believes it was correct at the time it was recorded (January 2026), the law may have changed since then. You should always seek your own legal advice. This advice adheres to employment law within England, Scotland and Wales.

Transcript

Setting The Stage: Why This Act Matters

SPEAKER_01 0:00

So, welcome back to another episode of our podcast. And I've had a few technical issues getting on board, so do bear with me. Today we're going to be talking All Things Employment Rights Act, which I know everyone is very excited about. And I'm delighted to be joined once again by Joanna Sutton from Knock Odds. How are we doing, Joanna?

SPEAKER_02 0:20

I'm good, Trish. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_01 0:22

I'm really good. I'm so excited about this. I've literally been waiting to be able to chat through all of this stuff with you because I've got a lot of questions that I want to ask. Okay, good.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Good. Well, hopefully I'll be able to answer them.

Politics, Controversy, And Tribunal Pressures

SPEAKER_01 0:37

What should we just dive straight into it? I mean, I I think what is really useful whenever you and I talk because it's nice and conversational and it's just easy language and easy to understand. So I feel like this is going to be a good one. Breaking down something that could be quite um complex. So what's the big deal with this new act? I mean, the way I see it, this is probably one of the biggest changes in employment law that I've seen in my whole kind of 20-year career, to be fair. But I don't know if that's me exaggerating. What would you say is the big deal about it?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

No, absolutely, it's a it is a huge deal. And the Labour government themselves say it's a huge deal. You know, they're they're billing it as the biggest upgrade to workers' rights in a generation. And as you say, it's kind of it really is a huge, it's changing pretty much every area of employment law from you know what has been established for a number of years, there's there's changes in respect of pretty much everything. So it is huge. And um, it's also hugely controversial in some ways as well. You know, it's taken an absolute age to get through parliament because uh the Labour government and the Conservative government, as you can imagine, just couldn't agree. Um, and so it's taken a lot longer to get to this point um than we thought it was going to. And unfortunately, there's still quite a lot of uncertainty around some of the areas as well, I think, which is not helpful for businesses. So, yeah, it's it's a huge, a huge deal, and I know it's something that a lot of employers are really worried about.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

I was going to ask you about kind of that back and forth because there was that kind of ping-pong period and um, as you say, uncertainty. So, what would you say is so controversial about the new act?

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I mean, it's not it's to be expected in a way because the Labour government are always pro-employee and the Conservative government will always be pro-business. And so it when you see a change in government as we have, you know, there's always kind of a bit of a change of the shift of the the power and the and the focus. Um, and so that was to be expected. But this really is kind of a a huge upgrade to those rights, and really I think to reflect kind of a change in working practices that we've had over the last, you know, 10, 20 years. Um, but particularly since COVID, you know, the way that we all work has changed massively, and um really a lot of it is intended to sort of reflect the way that people are working, but also the the government say that one of the their sort of main intentions behind it is to give more security and stability and um really have laws that help grow the economy. Um, so that that's the intention. But yeah, businesses don't like it, and um that's because it it changes a lot of things, it makes it more onerous in a lot of ways for businesses, it increases the risk of claims. Um, and in fact, yesterday there was an impact assessment that the government put out, I don't know if you've seen it, where they've said that they think that uh there's going to be a 17% increase in employment tribunal claims, and that's their own assessment. And you know, if that's kind of the way they're billing it, I think it's probably gonna be quite a lot worse than that.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Unfortunately, I was gonna say 17% seems pretty low to me. You're pretty much changing the way we do everything, and you think there's just gonna be that polar change?

SPEAKER_02 4:04

Absolutely, yeah, it'd be yeah, it's interesting. So uh I think they've said that they think the cost to businesses is gonna be about a billion pounds, um, which you know, they've specifically said actually that it's going to impact smaller businesses more than the larger businesses because of um them having less resources and the additional compliance burden that a lot of these changes will put on. So, yeah, that's I think why it is so controversial and um difficult for businesses and employers have not been looking forward to this coming into force.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

I think I guess for me, one of the concerns I've got is how the tribunal service is going to manage. It's not managing right now. So even if you were to put a 17% increase in, which to me is very I think that's a very um optimistic estimate. Um I still think putting that into the system that we've got now just wouldn't work.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Absolutely. The system at the moment is I think the statistics say that the number of cases in the system has gone back to sort of uh COVID levels, but I mean, then you know, the courts weren't really operating properly because everything was shut down. Um, and I I completely agree the tribunal system is not functioning at the moment. You know, if you issue a case now, it's not going to be heard until at least next year at the earliest. Um, and we have then the ACAS system in place for for early conciliation where you have to notify them before you go to an employment tribunal. They've had a huge increase, I think it's about 25% in the last year of the number of notifications that they're receiving. And in my experience, cases then were being referred for conciliation, and there's a six-week conciliation period, but a conciliator wasn't even being appointed during that period, and so no one was even able to sort of try and resolve the disputes, which has led to an increase in them going to tribunal. So, to try and remedy that, they have just increased the conciliation period, so it's now a 12-week early conciliation period. But even so, the cases that would normally be resolved through that system aren't necessarily being resolved, which is increasing the number that are going to tribunal. Um, and with all of these new rights and new laws coming in as well, that's going to, as we said, um result in a in a big increase in a system that can't cope already.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yeah, which is worrying. Okay. Yes.

Phased Rollout And Ongoing Uncertainty

SPEAKER_02 6:35

I mean, there have been talk of bringing back um employment tribunal fees um towards the end of last year, which a lot of employers got quite excited about. Um, but the government have said no, they're not going to do that. I think all they're doing pretty much is trying to recruit new judges, which takes time. Um, so yeah, it's a difficult one.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

All fun and games.

unknown 6:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 6:58

Well, I suppose the saving grace that we've got though is all of this stuff, whilst it's coming, isn't all going to hit at the same time. So uh I think for me, I I was quite nervous initially when we started to hear about um the the the bill when it was in that form of how are we gonna cope with all of this stuff in one go. But actually they have kind of phased it out, which I think is a good thing. Um, and you know, look, I'm pro-employees having more rights. I think it's just finding that balance to make sure that we haven't got businesses going to be picking up a bill for billions and small businesses being squeezed and all that kind of thing. It's fine for me, it's finding that balance between treating people as they should be treated and making sure that it works economically.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Absolutely, definitely. And I think the government have been quite sensible in that sense, as you say, in kind of staggering, uh bringing these in. There was a lot of uncertainty about, you know, there was all these new rights and it was all going to happen, but no one knew when. And so in the summer, they um issued their roadmap where they've given kind of estimates of when all of these new things are going to be phased in, it's over the next couple of years. Um so that's helpful. Um, but yeah, there's still quite a lot of uncertainty because although now the bill has received royal assent and is now a formal act of parliament, a lot of these changes are then going to have to be brought into law, into legal effect by regulations. And so those those need to be drafted. And the government have said they're going to consult with businesses and you know other bodies about the actual final form of what those regulations should look like. And they've launched a raft of consultations which are ongoing at the moment. But that's what I mean about the uncertainty that there still is, where um, yes, we know the kind of um the headline of what the change is likely to be, but we don't know what it definitely will be. And I think that given the delay and the acts coming in to uh to becoming you know an act of parliament, it may be that some of those times have already slipped and we need we may see that that timeline kind of um revisited um with some delay. The things that are coming in coming in soonest, which we'll go on to talk about, I don't think will be impacted, but there are some quite complicated changes um that still need to be thought through, which we may see pushed a bit further down the line, I think.

Industrial Action: Stronger Protection From Dismissal

SPEAKER_01 9:16

No, I can agree. Okay, so uh let's kick off with February then. So we know that February 2026 we're going to see some stuff around um industrial action. So, in particular, um, that dismissing somebody for taking part in industrial action will become automatically unfair. So, what's changed in terms of that compared to where we were previously or where we are now, I suppose?

SPEAKER_02 9:37

So I suppose the first thing to mention is that um the government have also repealed the minimum strike, um, the the strike level um legislation. So the minimum service level, sorry, I should say, that um had been implemented by the Conservative government, which was intended to place restrictions on essential services striking. That was repealed with immediate effect when the when the um bill came in, uh sorry, when the act when the bill became an act of parliament. So that was an immediate change. I mean, doesn't affect everybody, but it's certainly a sort of a change that has happened instantly, and that was just because they could reverse the legislation rather than having to draft loads of um complicated regulations. So that was an easy one for for them to do. Um, but yeah, then we've got um these new um changes around industrial action and um automatic unfair dismissal.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Well, by saying industrial action, what exactly do we mean? I mean, that immediately makes me think strikes. Is that what we're talking about?

SPEAKER_02 10:42

Yeah, exactly. So it's strikes. I mean, you you essentially fall into sort of two camps with this. Industrial action is either strikes or action that falls short of a strike, um, which is um stuff like um working to rules, so only doing exactly what your contract says, not working overtime, um, you know, that that kind of thing. So, yeah, that's essentially what industrial action counts as.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

I mean, I might be showing a little bit of ignorance here because I haven't typically worked in environments where there was a lot of industrial action. Do there tend to be lots of instances where employers are letting people go? I suppose what I'm asking is what's the problem that this part of the act is trying to fix?

SPEAKER_02 11:25

So it's quite complicated, but essentially what it meant was that it has always been automatically unfair dismissal if you dismiss an employee for taking part in strikes. But there were some quite complicated timings around it. So you were only protected for 12 weeks from the start of the industrial action. So if the industrial action lasted longer than that, then you kind of were timed out for bringing a claim. So what this is changing is basically saying that there isn't that 12-week period. You are protected throughout the industrial action from either being subjected to a detriment or dismissed. Um, and then that protection continues all the way through the industrial reaction, and then the normal time limit for bringing an employment tribunal claim currently three months would apply at the end of that. So it's essentially meant to sort of broaden the scope so that there isn't just this this 12-week period. I mean, again, some industrial reaction may not carry on for that long, but if you think about things like the doctor strikes and things like that, then yes, they have done. So it's really intended to sort of broaden that protection.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Okay, so it almost feels like tidying up a bit of a loophole that maybe a lot of people wouldn't have at anyway, but yeah, exactly that.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

Yeah.

Sick Pay From Day One And LEL Removal

SPEAKER_01 12:40

Okay. Alrighty, so let's um canter on to April 2026, then. So we've got some quite big things happening in April in terms of this act. So first one is sick pay from day one. Um this feels like a really big shift for small businesses, because if I'm honest, and again, it's only my experience, but where I've worked for larger organisations, generally they'll have sick pay apply from kind of day one anyway. Generally, not always, caveat, caveat. Um but this feels like something that's going to hit smaller businesses more than bigger ones, would you agree?

SPEAKER_02 13:13

Yeah, exactly. So, I mean, this is a big change. Um, essentially, at the moment, statutory sick pay is only payable from day four of being away from work. So the first three days are classed as waiting days, where you're waiting to see if the employee comes back to work. And um what this is proposing is from April that that won't apply. And from the very first day of sickness absence, an employee will be entitled to statutory sick pay. So, as you say, for larger employers or people who have enhanced sick pay policy, it doesn't really make any difference. But for those who um who don't and who only pay statutory sick pay, so I don't know, maybe you know, retailers, that kind of thing, or smaller businesses, um, that's going to increase the cost of employees being sick. And it also potentially will increase the number of employees who are off sick. Because currently, if you're thinking, right, well, if I don't go into work, then I'm not gonna get paid. So employees may well be sort of struggling into work when they're feeling unwell when they shouldn't otherwise be going in because they need to be, you know, getting paid for um for them working. Whereas now, if they're gonna get paid for not going into work, then it could increase the sickness absence, genuine sickness absence, but also the um the maybe not so genuine sickness absence. You know, you get into the realms of people taking the Friday and a Monday off to get a longer weekend because they're gonna get paid for it. So the the cynical part of me says that this could result in um increased, well, it will result in increased absence, um, and some of it may not be genuine, which then is going to mean sort of tightening up on absence management processes and things like that to make sure that it's being monitored, tracked, and dealt with if it isn't genuine.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

And making sure that you have an absence management process in the first place, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, some organizations, as you'll know, have that kind of trigger where if you hit a certain amount of sickness absence, then you go into an absent management process, like you use the Bradford score or something like that, which has its um downsides as well. Not a yeah, why not fan of it?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

I just think it complicates the. I mean, I'm not I'm a HR person, I'm not a maths whiz. I find it hard to understand from a mathematical perspective. And also I feel like it just takes away from having those meaningful conversations and makes it all about the number. Like I'm more bothered about what's going on for the person. Yes, clearly, like you know, as you were saying, if there are patents with somebody um and they're taking the mick and it's every every Friday and every Monday, yeah, it great because it shows you those kind of shorter term things. But I kind of want to know what's going on with a person. I think the conversation is more important than the number. And I suppose maybe I've just been a little bit burnt in that I've worked for organisations in the distant past, really, that have focused, in my view, far too heavily on that number and not been thinking about the person. But yeah. My little bad random.

SPEAKER_02 16:22

No, I agree, and I think that it it's a risk from a discrimination point of view as well. You know, if you've just got hard number and that's when it kicks in, you've got an employee with a disability, or you know, say someone's going through cancer treatment or something like that, you know, it's it it just it's yeah, it having a one size fits all doesn't always work. So, but yeah, I think that there would need to be certainly, as you say, having more of those conversations, like a return to work meeting, talking through, you know, what was the reason for the absence, starting to see if there's there's patterns because you know that sickness isn't always necessarily to do with sickness, it may be because there are domestic violence issues at home or you know, caring responsibilities that the employee could actually access some other type of leave that's available within the organisation. So um, yeah, I think I agree it's it's really important to have the conversation and to think about it more from a human perspective rather than you know a process. Um but I think yeah, monitoring it is going to become more important if the absence is increasing.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

I agree. Alrighty. So sticking with April then, we've got paternity and parental leaves becoming day one rights as well. So similar in terms of um sick pay becoming a day one right. What kind of practical difference do you think that makes for new starters? Is that one that people should or employers need to be worried about?

SPEAKER_02 17:47

I was also sorry, just on SSP, just going to mention about the lower earnings limit being removed.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Oh, yes, yes. Sorry, let's go back to that.

Managing Absence: Process Versus People

SPEAKER_02 17:56

Um so also on SSP, um, one of the other changes that's coming in in April is that the lower earnings limit is being removed. So currently an employee is only entitled to statutory sick pay if they meet the limit of um what the government set as that lower earnings limit. I think at the moment it's about£125 as of January 2026. Um so what the government said was actually that means that quite a lot of people, if they are unwell, are just not getting sick pay at all, even after those three waiting days. And so what they are doing is removing that limit and saying that everybody will be entitled to some form of sick pay. If you earn less than£125 a week or whatever the qualifying amount is that they've set, then they're going to pay a percentage. Um employers are going to have to pay a percentage of that. So I think what they're proposing at the moment is 80% of your normal um earnings. So that then again, you're not uh left with no money at all if you if you need to take time off um sick. And I think that that I think the stats are that it's going to um increase the eligibility of statutory sick pay for to mean another 1.3 million people will be entitled to it. So again, additional cost from that perspective for those employers who perhaps haven't had to pay statutory sick pay so far. So yeah, it's uh another big change from that perspective.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

I guess another one where it feels like we're just tidying up things that probably were a little bit squiff in the first place. Because that always felt just anyway.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yeah, exactly. It makes sense, doesn't it? You know, and again, perhaps that then reflects the changes that there have been in terms of working practices with more zero hours contracts or you know, lower hourly contracts rather than everyone working full time, for example. So I think, yeah, that that's kind of the the policy intent behind it and does make sense, but as with many of these, not popular with employers.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

I have to um apologize to you and the listeners. Um because I'm recording from home today, which I don't normally do, but I thought, you know what, we're gonna give it a go. My dog is in the background and I'm not sure whether or not it came across on the sound, but he just fell over a pair of trainers and made a cacophony of a noise. So apologies if that's come across.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

I didn't hear anything, but I was probably too busy about statutory sick pay.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

So God bless you. Um okay. Anything else on sick pay? Because I'm conscious I moved it along, and actually that was a very important point.

SPEAKER_02 20:28

No, I don't think so. No.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

No. Okay, fab. All right, so parentity parental and paternity leave. So we're sticking with April, that's going to be um day one, right? Do we feel that's a massive, huge shift? Obviously, there were quite um it was quite a lengthy period of time before you had access to those things previously. Um my understanding is that the entitlement that you get isn't changing, it's just that the ability to access it, is that right?

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Yeah, that's exactly right. So at the moment, for paternity leave, you have to be working for the same employer for at least 26 weeks before you can gain the right to take paternity leave, which the statutory is just two weeks, so not huge. Um, from April, that becomes a day one right. So um the employee doesn't have to have that minimum um 26 weeks working for the employer, um, but the pay and everything else, the amount of leave stays exactly the same. And the same with parental leave. Currently, you have to work for an employer for at least a year to be able to access that, and that's going to change to become a day one right. I don't know about you, I don't really see many people taking parental leave. You know, it kind of tends to be that sort of ad hoc um sort of dependence leave if like the school's closed for snow, like it's happening to a lot of people at the moment, or um, you know, there's a childcare emergency, but apart from that, I don't really see much parental leave being taken.

Day One Rights For Paternity And Parental Leave

SPEAKER_01 21:52

No, I mean I suppose I've always got a bit of a beer my bonnet with paternity leave as well. I just don't think it's long enough. I don't think that's long enough to be able to, you know, you've got a whole new human, or in my case, I had twins. We had two new babies and you've got two eggs. It's like get to know your babies, go. Um so I do wonder if that's something that they'll look to address or look at again in the future, because it just doesn't quite sit right in terms of the amount of leave that you get.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, it is actually it's one of the consultations that's ongoing outside of the Employment Rights Act. But in the summer they said the government said they were just going to do a complete review of the whole parental leave system because again, it's outdated and it's not um, you know, it doesn't reflect modern working practices where maybe years ago, you know, a woman wouldn't have been working and everything else, you know, in other European countries like Spain, it's much more balanced, where you know, each parent gets three months off fully paid, and they share the caring responsibilities, which again is helpful from the point of view of the gender pay gap and balancing the the responsibilities between you know between parents. So I think it's something, it's the beginning of perhaps further change that we're going to see, and you know, as you say, probably reflects better modern life and um yeah, would be helpful to many parents out there, I think.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

I mean, this stuff is our bread and butter. So you and I I know we were both quite excited when these things are happening, just to see all of the changes that were coming in. But it does feel, you know, we're only a few minutes into the podcast. There's so much stuff coming. And for those businesses that don't have HR support or aren't able to afford legal support, this feels like a lot and stuff that they can easily fall foul of.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Absolutely, it is a lot, you know, even stuff like this, like the the paternity leave and things, you know, HR may know about it, but managers won't necessarily know about it. So you've got people on the ground where you know the guys are saying, okay, I want to have paternity leave, and they go, Oh no, you're not entitled to that. And they could be turning down leave requests or you know, for any of the rest of this stuff, sick leave, anything. Um, so I mean, yeah, staying up to date with what these changes are is really, really important. And ideally, training um your workforce about it as well so that they they're aware of it. But yeah, it's huge. And that's why I think, as we said at the beginning, the the cost and the compliance burden for smaller businesses is going to be so much worse because you know, huge companies have been planning for this for ever since it was announced, and they've probably got a whole task force, you know, updating policies and procedures and contracts and um, you know, smaller businesses, it may not even be on their radar.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Alrighty. Still we're still sticking with April. April feels like a big, a big mob in terms of this.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Stuff always changes in employment law, and it's normally like April and October, but April normally tends to get kind of the the bulk of it is when we see normally stuff like statutory pay rates change, so like when sick pay goes up or maternity pay and things like that. But yeah, it's a bumper April this year.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah, definitely. All righty. So April again, we've got um protective awards doubling for redundancy. So and so it's a case of if redundancy processes are mishandled, then the protective award doubles. For people who don't know what that means, can you explain that in kind of plain English?

Collective Redundancy: Protective Awards Double

SPEAKER_02 25:27

I will try. So um protective awards are basically they apply where um there are mass redundancies, and so that is essentially where an employer is looking to um make at least 20 or more employees redundant, it then triggers a particular type of redundancy consultation process that they have to follow, known as collective consultation, where you have to elect representatives and consult with them, and there's a minimum time that you need to go through the process. So normally 30 days for where there's less than 100 um redundancies proposed, 45 days if it's more than that. You have to go through this process. Essentially, what the protective award is if you don't follow the required process, it's the compensation that an employment tribunal can award. And currently it is 90 days a day uncapped per employee if an employer fails to follow the consultation requirements. Um, and so what's being proposed from April is that that will double. So it will become compensation of a maximum of 180 days uncapped per employee if you don't follow the consultation requirements properly. Um and most compensation in employment tribunal claims is intended to be compensation in the sense of uh making sure that the employees are put back in the position that they would have been had the thing not happened. So if you're unfairly dismissed and you lose out on three months worth of wages, you get three months of compensation. Um, but this is unusually for employment tribunal compensation meant to be like a penalty to uh to stop people from you know breaking the breaking the law essentially. So it's not saying that an employee is necessarily going to lose out on 180 days pay, um, but it's a penalty to try and encourage um compliance um with with the rules. And really that's on the back of kind of big high-profile employers not following the rules. So uh the PO Ferry case um back in, I think it was 2022, where they decided that they wanted to just employ agency workers who were going to be cheaper than their staff, and so they just announced to everyone they were being made redundant, didn't follow any process at all. Um, because it I think they viewed it as cheaper to do it that way. They knew what the protective award was, and they just decided we want to go through with this and we want to get it done quickly, so we're just gonna disregard the law. So you can see then why doubling it and making it even more um of a penalty, that's the intention behind it, I think.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

I suppose I'm I'm always frustrated by things like that, because at the end of the day, when you're making redundancies, you're dealing with people, and those people have got families and lives and feelings and emotions. So to just be like, I'm just gonna disregard the law and do whatever I want, like that not okay. Um but you've also got people at the end of the process, and I just think people forget that businesses at the moment, before AI takes over, um, run with people, right? So we need to treat them with respect, even in those times where it's really crappy and you know we're having to make redundancies and make changes. Again, I'm on the soapbox again, aren't I?

SPEAKER_02 28:57

No, I agree. I mean, I think that with redundancy, and you know, I see it from advising businesses and individuals, it's a really difficult time for both sides. But normally, if you go through the consultation process properly and you explain the reasons why the business is having to do these things and you talk about the alternatives and you, you know, you have that dialogue with an employee, by the end of the process, they understand, you know, why and they've accepted it. Whereas, you know, just doing it this way, you know, without any dialogue, completely blindsights the employees and it makes them feel much more aggrieved about it, which is much more likely to lead to a claim anyway.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. But hopefully things like this are going to deter people from being PO fairies.

SPEAKER_02 29:46

Absolutely. And I think that in reality, you know, a lot of employers don't breach this requirement. You know, they um they follow the required law. Um, you know, they normally take legal advice when they know that there's quite a lot of redundancies or restructuring to do, and they they follow the process. So hopefully it's not something that's going to affect a lot of um employers. It really is just there to deter people from not following the rule.

SPEAKER_01 30:15

Yeah, I suppose it's just frustrating that there needs to be a deterrent.

SPEAKER_02 30:19

Absolutely, yeah.

Sexual Harassment Complaints As Whistleblowing

SPEAKER_01 30:20

But then that's me. Alrighty, last one for April then. So we're into sexual harassment and whistleblowing protection. Um, so this change is around um sexual harassment complaints now attracting whistleblowing protection. So, why is that kind of legally significant for people?

SPEAKER_02 30:39

I mean, from a very um sort of technical employment law point of view, I don't think this is a huge change. I think that actually if you were complaining about sexual harassment at the moment, or you know, before this change comes in in April, um, you'd be protected as a whistleblower anyway, because essentially for that, you have to make what's called a qualifying disclosure. So it has to be something within a sort of a range of categories, one of which is a breach of a legal obligation or a criminal offence, which you know, normally if a sexual harassment has happened, it would fall under that anyway. So I think that from an impact point of view, this doesn't actually really change anything in terms of those people would have been whistleblowers anyway and would have been protected. But what it does do is kind of um make that clear to everybody who's not like me getting involved in the technicalities of what a qualifying disclosure is. So it really is this is all part of the government's um, you know, uh agenda to really um get harassment higher higher up the agenda, um, where they want to make it clear that this is not going to be tolerated anymore, and there is enhanced protection, there's other things that we'll go on to talk about that that um are coming in as part of that. So, really, I think it is just intended to sort of signpost it and to make it clear that if you make a complaint about sexual harassment and you are then treated badly as a result of that, or you are dismissed, you will have additional legal protection as a whistleblower so that people have the certainty of knowing that they can speak out about these kind of things. So I think that that that's the intention behind it.

What To Do Now And What’s Next

SPEAKER_01 32:23

We've hit the half an hour, Mark, although I know it's been fun, so it hasn't really felt like that. So I think and we've kind of pretty much come to the end of the April side of things. So it's probably a nice point to um pause and then perhaps have a part two, which covers everything from kind of October onwards. Is there anything else that you think is useful for people to know about you know from here to April before we do that?

SPEAKER_02 32:45

No, I mean I think what I would say is just um keep a at the moment, these are the things that these are the timings that we're expecting, right? And there are regulations that are going to come into force, and there's probably more guidance that will be announced. And you know, some of these big changes, there will be lots of um additional work with ACAS and other organizations that will provide further information. So I would just say just keep a close eye on what's happening. I'm sure that if anything um changes further, you and I will probably jump on another podcast to chat it through anyway. But um, you know, I I think that these are big changes. There are things that employers should be doing now to prepare for them. So looking at policies and procedures and contracts and things like that, um, and just really sort of mapping out how is this going to impact us, looking at budgets and and those kind of things as well. So that's my um my recommendation. These things are not going to go away. Um, and certainly these things that are in March for April are, you know, now just a couple of months away. So yeah, now is the time to start thinking about them and not burying your head in the sand anymore, I think.

SPEAKER_01 34:00

Yeah, and I think, you know, what my the best piece of advice I can give is if you're stuck and if you're not sure, then get some advice because I think the worst that could happen is you don't understand, you do something wrong, then you're dealing with the stress of employment tribunals will drag on and on when actually the most useful thing, and whilst sometimes that stuff costs money, actually, probably better to get a bit of peace of mind and get it right first time than struggle through and get something wrong, would be my general piece of advice for the universe.

SPEAKER_02 34:27

Definitely, because it's so much easier to you know to follow a process that you're advised to to follow or do the things that you know is recommended rather than try and fix it after the event. Um, so yeah, I'd completely agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 34:43

Thank you. I always appreciate you giving me your time, and you were very gracious and let me like blather on for 15 minutes before we started recording. So thank you very much for that. Thank you for your time and your brain because I know this stuff is going to be crucial to some people out there to try and understand what's going on. So thank you. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

No problem, thank you for having me. It's always um a pleasure to chat this stuff through and also see your take on it from an HR perspective. So thank you. You're always welcome.