Quick guide to employment law changes
Sick pay, paternity leave, unfair dismissal claims for new hires and giving zero-hour workers the right to a part-time contract: lots of things are in the bumper package of what’s being called the biggest changes to employment law for a generation.
But when is all this happening? Not for 2 years probably, although there are ways to speed up a few things.
Legislation following business consultations means most areas will change in late 2026. There are options available for any government to move more quickly, including smaller changes that don’t need a new law to go through Parliament – for example the proposed change to Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) could happen this way.
And it’s worth considering that if a change is coming, trying to ignore it until the last minute is really not a good idea. Employment Tribunals have frowned on cases before where employers have tried to argue it wasn’t compulsory / unlawful when the incident happened for them.
So here’s a quick guide of what’s happening:
– Unfair dismissal claims can be made from the first day of employment, so completely scrapping the 2-year wait for employment rights
– SSP from the first day of absence, instead of Day 4, and scrapping the minimum earning limit of £123 a week to qualify for SSP
– A statutory right to paid bereavement leave – currently only nice employers offer this
– From Day 1 in a new job: rights to paternity leave and unpaid parental leave, removing the length of service qualifiers
– A statutory probation period (length probably 9 months) during which employers can dismiss someone without following a 3 or 4-step disciplinary process
– Zero-hours contracts: the right to change to guaranteed hours (a part-time contract) after 12 weeks, plus compensation for zero-hour workers whose shifts are cancelled at short notice
– ‘Fire and rehire’ to become automatic grounds for unfair dismissal unless the employer can argue it had absolutely no alternative (eg the business would collapse due to financial problems)
– Stronger protections against dismissal for pregnant women and parents returning after family (including maternity) leave, for 6 months
– Making employers take sexual harassment more seriously: from this month firms have a legal duty to take “all reasonable steps” (the change is adding the word “all”) to protect their people from sexual harassment, including from non-employees – the key change seems to be adding this area to laws around whistleblowing.
Other changes including setting up a Fair Work Agency to enforce employment law, making larger employers have to take action to close any gender pay gap and support employees going through the menopause, a pay agreement for social care workers and parity for outsourced workers with public sector terms and conditions (this might be very relevant for firms and charities taking on work previously carried out in-house by councils, if it involves employees being transferred to them when they win contracts). Plus lots of changes around trade unions including scrapping the minimum service law, simplifying the union recognition process in a workplace and making employers provide new recruits with a written statement about their trade union rights.
Wow, everything’s changing, right? Well don’t get too excited just yet. We have consultations with business first, and then any new laws have to get through Parliament before they take effect … 2 years from now.
Some areas are simpler to change than others. Employers decide whether to pay people who take a short period of sickness absence all the time. Setting up a ‘Fair Work Agency’ could be a huge change, or – if it’s not resourced and backed by the government of the day – a token gesture.
For anyone getting too happy or unhappy about all this: be patient and let’s see the details, as things develop. We’ve had a few major changes before that fizzled out – remember how shared parental leave was going to help fathers spend more time with their new children, only to see a low take-up meant it’s an unused option really.
In the meantime, there’s absolutely nothing to stop employers adopting some of these changes already – going above the minimum required by law might help you attract and keep people, and it would definitely help you adjust to the compulsory changes in 2026.
We’ll update as things develop.
