Change is coming: are you ready for it?

We’re sitting down with Lauren Pickard to talk about the very real impact the upcoming changes to employment law are going to have. Lauren works for CMP Legal, and is an Employment Law Specialist, Solicitor and Executive Director. CMP focuses on providing straightforward, simple, and honest legal advice in a world that tends toward the opposite. We work closely with Lauren to provide our readers with clear information about upcoming changes in the world of HR and employment law.

In October, the changes outlined by Labour’s manifesto will come into play, predominantly making changes to how employment rights are going to change, and potential changes around equality.

What’s it like, working in employment law when big changes like this occur?

Employment law is an ever-changing landscape and employment lawyers are very much acclimated to that. However, whenever we have an incoming Labour Government, we brace ourselves for big changes across the board! There’s a lot of buzz around the incoming changes, as they’re represent some of the biggest changes the country will have seen in the last fifteen years.

Can you talk us through the changes that are on the horizon, and the things that businesses need to keep in mind when considering the next half year?

Absolutely. There’s a lot of change on the way, but the two Bills of primary interest to employers (and employment lawyers!) are below.

Firstly, we have the Employment Rights Bill, which will be introduced within the first 100 days of Labour coming to power and includes the following:

• A ban on exploitative zero-hours contracts
• A change bringing an end to "fire and rehire”
• Making parental leave, sick pay and unfair dismissal protection available from day one for all workers (subject to probationary periods for new hires)
• Removing the lower earnings limit and the waiting period from the eligibility requirements for Statutory Sick Payments
• Making flexible working the default from day one for all workers
• Making it unlawful to dismiss someone who has had a baby for six months after their return to work (save in limited circumstances)
• Introducing a new single enforcement body, or Fair Work Agency, to strengthen the enforcement of workplace rights
• Establishing a Fair Pay Agreement in the adult social care sector and reinstating the School Support Staff Negotiating Body
• Updating trade union legislation

Secondly, there is the Draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill which will:

• Enshrine in the law the full right to equal pay for ethnic minorities and disabled people; and
• Introduce mandatory ethnicity and disability pay reporting for employers with 250 or more employees.

As you can see, there’s a lot to digest, and employers need to keep an eye on what changes are coming in, and more importantly, when. They should absolutely take legal advice before dismissing any employee once the changes have been introduced. n

Can you tell us more about what is meant by ‘day one employment rights’, and the things that are changing with them?

There are many rights that apply to employees from the first day of employment, such as the right not to suffer discrimination.

However, at present (subject to certain exceptions) employees must have two years of continuous employment service before they are entitled to bring an unfair dismissal claim in the Employment Tribunal. The law on this is changing so that employees will be able to bring unfair dismissal claims from day one of employment.

There are going to be provisions made relating to probationary periods which may give employers some flexibility on this, but they are currently not known.

Labour Is proposing to make it mandatory for businesses with over 250 heads to publish an ‘action plan’ alongside their annual gender pay gap reporting. What’s your opinion on this? Will it have any implications for businesses?

This is an important point for large businesses to pay attention to. The driving force behind it is the idea that the Action plan should be targeted towards the steps the employer will take to reduce any gender gap that exists within the business, which they will have reported on. HR professionals should take advice on the content of any such action plan.

There’s been a lot of talk on news sites and social media of Labour raising the National Minimum Wage to £15/hr. Do you think this is realistic? What kind of impact would it have on businesses?

I suspect the effect that this would have on small businesses would be challenging, to say the least. I imagine any increases up towards that £15 per hour mark would happen slowly, in tranches over time rather than one great hike. Medium to large businesses won’t be insulated from increases like this either, and we’d expect to see recruitment freezes, or reductions to try and fend off rising costs.

What’s your best advice to those who might be worrying, or even panicking, about the upcoming changes? Where can they turn for help?

No need to panic! We’ll find out the details of the bill in October and Sue and I will be holding a free, joint webinar in the Autumn to cover the changes. If you want to attend, contact sue.wallis@sewellwallis.co.uk to be added to our mailing list for the webinar and other updates.

We’re forever grateful to have Lauren in our corner; she’s a font of knowledge and can help guide your business too, if you need it. If you'd like to speak to Lauren about any of the upcoming changes we've discussed above, you can reach out to here directly at lauren.pickard@cmp.legal, or on 01246 956440. You can find out more about CMP Legal here.