The Employment Rights Bill 2024: What it means for employers

Employment rights bill UK

The new Employment Rights Bill 2024 represents a significant shift in how businesses manage staff. With changes due to come into effect by 2026, this is effectively a workers’ rights bill, bringing several key improvements to the employment landscape generally in the UK.

Although the general focus is on worker protections, it also provides employers with a vital opportunity to align many workplace and cultural practices with the modern workforce. In this article, we tell you everything you need to know about what’s coming, what you need to do to prepare and what benefits you can expect to see from what we think are some really positive changes.

Table of Contents

So what’s new?

Many of the changes are things that have been discussed or practices and benefits informally applied by more progressive and forward-looking companies for some time. Broadly speaking, they encompass more workers’ rights and protections regarding leave, dismissal, discrimination and flexible working.

The bill is pretty lengthy, and you can get the Employment Rights Bill 2024 fact sheet here, but we’ll run through the top-line changes for you here, grouped by theme.

We always recommend that you consult the appropriate legal and HR advisors to stay ahead and ensure your business is compliant from the outset.

Protections

One of the new protections is from unfair dismissal. We’ve talked before about short-service dismissal, which limits possible claims of unfair dismissal for the first two years of employment. The Bill will remove the unfair dismissal qualifying period, which basically means short-service dismissal – where you don’t have to go through quite the same level of process to let someone go – won’t be an option anymore. It’s likely to be replaced with a statutory probation period of approx. 9 months .

The removal of short-service dismissal will place more pressure on your recruitment and onboarding processes. You’ll really want to get those hiring decisions right the first time and embed new team members in your culture from day one, emphasising the importance of performance frameworks. This is good practice though, and can make your team stronger overall if you rise to the challenge.

In a similar vein, there (should) be no more ‘fire and re-hire’. The Bill adds further limits on when and how an employer is able to ‘fire and rehire’ (or replace) its workforce, with a new framework for ‘collective redundancy consultations’. These reforms open up the opportunity for businesses to manage change more transparently and boost morale.

Other protections include what seems to be the effective banning of zero-hours contracts, as employers must offer guaranteed hours, and revisions to employment discrimination laws. Employers will have a greater duty to protect staff from sexual harassment, and large companies (250+ staff) will have to have an ‘equality action plan’, setting out how they intend to tackle the gender pay gap and support staff through menopause, for example.

Leave eligibility

There are a few bits of news on the leave front. Low-income earners will be eligible for statutory sick pay, meaning they will actually be able to take sick leave in practice, rather than just in theory (or in desperation). This is a big positive, as presenteeism helps no one and is both physically and culturally unhealthy in the workplace.

Bereavement leave will also be extended to cover more people and types of relationships, a welcome recognition of the shift in family dynamics and setups in the modern UK. There are changes to parental leave too, which we’ll explain below.

Now is a great time for employers to review their existing leave policies for legal compliance.Sick pay eligibility, parental leave and bereavement leave are two key area of focus.

Flexible working

This is a biggie. And a goodie! You’ll know by now that Leave Dates are big fans of flexible working as the norm, when the business model/industry allows for it. The new Bill makes flex arrangements available from day one, and staff can request these twice a year. Importantly, these requests won’t just be lip service – there are just eight statutory reasons employers can deny a flexible work request.

All employers will also need to give a written justification for denied requests, so this should be another area of policy worth reviewing. There may be barriers to overcome, so the sooner you start thinking about how this can be done, the better.

As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, flexible employers are (increasingly) attractive employers, so while this may initially be a hassle in some industries, we really think the train is moving irreversibly in this direction. So it’s better to get on board and be ready!

Parental rights

Parental rights are also being strengthened, made a ‘day one’ right. This will mean paternity and unpaid parental leave can be taken straight away, with no minimum employment term. Paternity leave can also be taken after shared parental leave.

Statutory maternity pay will also become a day one right, so if you offer an enhanced maternity package you might want to take a look at the qualifying service period for that and ensure your policy is clear if this will differ from SMP. Pregnant women will also be protected from dismissal during their return to work, or for six months after.

As of 1st July 2025, the UK Government will undertake an 18-month review of the parental leave system, consulting with working parents, employers and expert organisations to understand and craft a system that supports growing families.

So, is it good news?

This legislations does create more obligations for employers in many areas, likely creating a bit of work for already time-poor business owners. However, it also presents us with a chance to adopt modern workplace standards and rethink our cultures. Any business that responds early is in the best position to retain their staff, build a better culture and avoid any unforeseen legal risks.

Good relationships are always based on understanding and respect, and a quest for mutual value creation. While we are yet to see what support will be in place for employers to help them assess and action any changes that might be needed to ensure compliance, but we’ll assume that’s coming in secondary legislation to follow.

Key takeaways

The plan is to ‘get Britain working’ and to ‘make work pay’ through labour market reforms. We think it’s a hugely positive step forward in reshaping the employment landscape and relationships for a new generation. A lot of the headline changes are things we’ve talked about before and that we see in place already with many of our clients.

Explore the ways that this new bill can support your people and culture strategy. This means seeing work as one part of a holistic life and, as employers, doing everything we can to make work a positive force and feature of that person’s life, adding to their wellbeing.

While of course it’s not law until it’s law, and it’s all subject to change until that happens, we think things are looking pretty good and we’re excited to see what the future holds!

The information on this site is general and may not apply to specific circumstances. It should not be considered legal advice. We strive to provide accurate information but cannot guarantee its accuracy. We are not responsible for any losses resulting from reliance on the information on this site.

Abi Angus Leave Dates

Author

Abi is a freelance writer based in Brighton & Hove, UK, writing for businesses about work, life and everything in between.