The UK Government has unveiled a series of proposed changes to UK employment rights. This includes:
1. Unfair Dismissal Protection from Day One of Employment
(a) Similar to Nordic and other European countries, this protection will be restricted during a statutory probationary period (the exact length of nature of the unfair dismissal threshold during this period is unknown and will be consulted on).
2. Ending Fire & Rehire
(a) Automatic unfair if the principal reason for dismissal is either that the employee refused to agree to a variation of contract, or to enable the employer to recruit another person (or rehire the same employee) under new terms but with substantially the same duties.
(b) There will be a minor exception for companies in severe financial difficulty.
3. Exploitative Zeroes Hour Contract Repeal
(a) For workers on a zero-hour contract (or other X minimum hours contracts), they will receive a guaranteed hours contract reflecting time they have worked previously.
(b) Workers to receive a reasonable notice of a shift, and reasonable notice of a shift cancellation – with more information on this to follow.
4. Protection from Sexual Harassment
(a) Employers must take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment of its staff by third parties.
5. Flexible Working
(a) Employers must now state the grounds for refusing the application and why they consider it reasonable to refuse the application.
6. Paternity, Parental and Bereavement Leave.
(a) These will all be day one rights.
7. Statutory Sick Pay.
(a) Paid from the first day of sickness (it is currently paid from the fourth qualifying day of sickness).
(b) The pay rate will be changed, and linked to a percentage of pay.
Several other rights and changes were also announced in this bill, such as Gender Pay Gap/Menopause Reporting and Collective Redundancy.
The bill also repeals several the previous Government’s trade union reforms and announced a new employment enforcement agency to better police employment legislation compliance.
More information to follow as these rights are detailed in further announcements and consultations.
N2S Thoughts:
Many of these changes were expected, following Labour manifesto promises and announcements to date.
Customers looking to expand to the UK should make sure that their supply partners understand the upcoming proposed changes and how they might impact their workforce/expansion plans.
It will be more important than ever that customers use trusted companies, like N2S, to navigate workforce complexities and remain compliant in the UK and beyond.
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