Employment law overhaul sparks warning from Kendal expert

Helen Russell, lead HR consultant and solicitor at Harrison Drury, said the new Employment Rights Act 2025 will have a major impact on employers, particularly when it comes to the responsibilities of line managers.

Ms Russell said: "You can have the best HR team, staff contracts and employee handbooks in the world, but if the person dealing with the initial report of an issue from an employee doesn’t take the right steps and deal with it properly, that’s where problems are likely to occur."

The Employment Rights Act 2025, described as the biggest shake-up of employment law in three decades, began being implemented in February.

From April, employees will be entitled to a number of ‘day one rights’ like statutory sick leave, paternity and parental leave entitlements.

The most substantial changes will take effect from October and will continue rolling out into 2027.

From October, employers will be required to take "all reasonable steps" to prevent sexual harassment, including the prevention of harassment by third parties. 

This means employers could be liable for failing to do enough to protect employees from harassment by customers, suppliers and the public.

Ms Russell said: "Employers should concentrate on better management of absences, more considered and robust recruitment and selection, rigorous management of employee probations, and dealing better with complaints from employees."

From January 2027, further major changes will take effect.

These include giving employees the right to claim unfair dismissal after just six months of service, instead of the current two years.

Limitations will also be placed on employers’ ability to ‘fire and rehire’ staff.

Ms Russell said: "To prevent issues, employers should concentrate on better management of absences, more considered and robust recruitment and selection, rigorous management of employee probations and dealing better with complaints from employees.

"It makes ‘good hygiene’ in line manager practices critical for businesses and effective management can help the organisations to deal with issues before they become problematic and contentious.

"Almost no matter what the issue is, my initial recommendation is make no assumptions, talk to employees, deal with issues proactively and document how you’ve done this.

"Taking those first steps often dictates how the case pans out, but opportunities are too often missed."

Harrison Drury has introduced support for businesses looking to navigate the changes being introduced under the Employment Rights Act.

The support includes Employment Rights Act briefings, audits and action plans designed to support employers, as well as line manager training workshops.