January 21, 2026 8:14 pm
Published by SKHR
Employment Rights Act 2025 As you will have heard, the Employment Rights Bill is due to become the Employment Rights Act 2025. So what does this mean for employers? Well the biggest change will be that employees will be able to claim unfair dismissal once they have six months’ service. This is likely to take effect from January 2027. Action required: Ensure that your contracts of employment include a probationary period of 6 months and that line managers are reviewing employee performance from 2 months onwards, so that new staff are given a chance to address issues and if they are not meeting the standard of performance required they are given notice before 6 months. Changes due in April 2026: – Paternity leave Currently to take...
January 14, 2026 3:26 pm
Published by SKHR
Is cancer automatically considered a disability and can an employer cover an employee’s period of absence permanently? In Wainwright v Cennox Plc an employee was diagnosied with breast cancer and took a period of sick leave. A colleague was appointed to temporarily cover the employee’s position in her absence. When the temporary cover threatened to leave she was offered the cover role as a permanent position. On their return from sick leave the employee with breast cancer raised a grievance which was not upheld and went on to win her claim for disability discrimination and constructive, unfair dismissal. She was awarded over £1.2M. This case highlights the importance of only making temporary changes when covering the role of an employee who is off sick. As with employees on maternity leave it is best practice to keep in...
September 4, 2025 12:23 pm
Published by SKHR
As you will recall the Government proposed various changes to Employment law under the Employment Rights Bill. Many of these proposed changes are still being debated in Parliament and the House of Lords. However to give you an update I thought it timely to summarise some of the proposed changes and give an indication of the likely implementation dates: April 2026 – Paternity leave: Currently to take paternity leave a parent needs 26 weeks’ service. This will change so that all parents will be eligible for paternity leave from day one of employment. Recommendations: Family friendly policies will need to be updated in due course – Parental leave: Currently to take (unpaid) parental leave a parent needs one year of service. This will change so...
October 21, 2024 5:01 pm
Published by SKHR
So what are the proposed changes to SSP, statutory leave and protection for pregnant employees? Statutory sick pay (SSP) What is the law currently? Currently employees are only entitled to SSP from the fourth day of sickness as long as they meet the lower earnings threshold (currently £123 per week). What is changing? The waiting period for SSP and the lower earnings threshold will be removed and when this is introduced all workers will be entitled to SSP from their first day of illness. Parental leave and paternity leave What is the law currently? Currently male employees needs 26 weeks’ service to take two weeks’ paternity leave within 52 weeks of the birth of a baby. Parents need one years’ service to take...
October 21, 2024 4:58 pm
Published by SKHR
The Employment Rights Bill proposes some changes to Zero Hours contracts and Flexible working. Zero-hours contracts What is the law currently? Zero hours contracts are used for staff where no minimum hours are guaranteed and workers are not obliged to accept any hours offered. What is changing? Employers will be required to offer guaranteed hours to staff on zero hours contracts to reflect the hours they regularly work over a reference period of e.g. 12 weeks. Workers must be given reasonable notice if they are required to work a shift, or if a shift is cancelled or changed. However where work is genuinely temporary there will be no expectations on employers to offer permanent contracts and those staff who wish to remain on zero hours contracts will...
May 29, 2024 11:03 am
Published by SKHR
The Labour Party have recently published a paper entitled ‘Labour’s plans to make work pay’ and we thought it would be useful to summarise some of the changes they plan to introduce within 100 days if they win the election. Banning zero hours contracts Labour plans to ensure that all jobs provide a baseline of security and predictability, banning zero hours contracts and ensuring all employees have the right to have a contract that reflects the number of hours they regularly work, based on a twelve-week reference period. Ending ‘fire and rehire’ Labour plans to reform the law to end the practice of fire and rehire. They want to ensure that workers’ terms and conditions negotiated in good faith can’t be ended under threat of...
November 30, 2022 11:28 am
Published by SKHR
You will have heard that P&O Ferries fired 800 staff with immediate effect in March. Similarly, technology company Meta and social media giant Twitter have laid of thousands of staff in an attempt to significantly reduce costs. It has been reported that Twitter offices were closed overnight and employees found out whether they were to be made redundant by email en masse – seemingly without any consultation – some having already been locked out of company systems in advance of the company email. This type of approach can open up a company extensive liability, as well as negatively impacting their image, reputation and employee relations. Staff with over two years service have the right to claim unfair dismissal in an Employment Tribunal. Considering all options prior to restructuring Ideally all options should be considered prior to proposing redundancies. For example,...
February 23, 2022 12:42 pm
Published by SKHR
The Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme will close on 17 March 2022. Employers will no longer be able to claim back Statutory Sick Pay for their employees’ coronavirus-related absences or self-isolation that occur after 17 March 2022. Employers have until 24 March 2022 to submit any new claims for absence periods up to 17 March 2022, or to amend claims they have already submitted. After that, there is a return to the normal SSP rules, which means employers should revert to paying SSP from the fourth qualifying day their employee is off work regardless of the reason for their sickness absence.
January 5, 2022 11:14 am
Published by SKHR
In light of the rates of covid the Government have made temporary changes to the rules regarding fit notes until 26 January 2022. Previously if an employee was off sick they could self-certificate for up to 7 days after which they required a fit note from a doctor. However in order to relieve the burden on GPs for the next few weeks, employees can now self-certificate sickness for up to 28 days, including non-working days such as weekends and bank holidays and will not require a doctors note. If staff are self-isolating for a covid-related reason they will be eligible to receive SSP from day one. However for all other illnesses SSP applies from day four.
January 20, 2021 3:39 pm
Published by SKHR
If they have not already done so, any EU workers you currently employ who do not have British passports or indefinite leave to remain in the UK, will need to apply to the EU Settlement Scheme. The scheme will grant them either ’settled status’ or ‘pre-settled status’ depending on how long they have lived in the UK at the time they make their application. Those employees with over five years’ continuous residence should receive ‘settled status’ and can remain in the UK permanently and those employees with less than five years’ residence should receive ‘pre-settled status’ enabling them to remain in the UK until they can upgrade to ’settled status. Applications for the Scheme can be made at www.gov.uk/settled-status-eu-citizens-families and it is free to apply. Applications must be made by 30 June 2021. Employees who...
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