Recently, our experts took to the virtual stage in a webinar on Navigating Employment Rights in 2025. Hosted by Simon Obee, Head of HR Advisory and Jhecie de Chavez, HR Manager, who answered your burning employment law and compliance questions.
Don’t forget, you can watch the webinar on demand here, but here are some key takeaways from the Q&A.
- New Sexual Harassment duty introduced in late 2024 – We look at how this will affect businesses and what steps needs to be taken to ensure compliance.
- Rights to Work Check changes – Cancelled passports will no longer be accepted as valid proof of the right to work in the UK.
- New year, new finances – From April 2025, a number of changes will take place that affect how you pay and tax employees.
- New Neonatal Care Leave introduced – Putting families first with a brand new type of leave to support families with babies who’ve needed a bit more help after birth.
- Employment Rights Bill – Helping you to understand your compliance commitments.
Sexual Harassment
We kicked off with the new duty to prevent sexual harassment which came into effect in late 2024 through amendments to the Equality Act. However, with all the noise around the introduction of the Employment Rights Bill this topic in particular may have gone slightly under the radar. So our experts decided to recap on how the changes to this will work.
TLDR
For those who don’t speak compliance law, the new duty basically means employers now have to take additional steps to proactively prevent any sexual harassment. So, yes, a little more work in the short term but greater protections for employees in the long term; whilst beneficial for hiring and employee retention.
But let’s dive into the questions our experts didn’t get around to answering during the webinar. They may cover a question you already have, but if not, you can get in touch with our experts to discuss your businesses HR and compliance needs.
Should 1-2-1s and exit interviews specifically ask questions about sexual harassment?
There is no specific requirement for employers to ask employees if they have been sexually harassed in 1:2:1s or exit interviews.
However, it is good practice to engage with employees regularly and create a safe environment for open and sensitive discussions. If employers are not regularly holding 1:2:1s or exit interviews it may be difficult to show compliance with the new positive duty to prevent sexual harassment as how could they be sure that there has been an avenue for an employee to raise a concern?
If there are changes in an employee’s behaviour, reports of potential sexual harassment, or other warning signs, the employer should approach the employee with care and discretion. A one-to-one meeting is often the most appropriate setting for such discussions.
Additionally, where there is reason to believe an employee is leaving due to experiencing sexual harassment, an exit interview may provide an opportunity to understand their concerns and offer support.
How can organisations ensure that the accused is treated fairly when an anonymous report of sexual harassment is made? How can organisations balance the need to protect the reporter’s identity with the right of the accused to defend themselves against potential defamatory accusations?
While employees can submit sexual harassment complaints anonymously, they should be made aware of the limitations of investigating anonymous reports, particularly when limited information is provided, as this may prevent the employer from being able to make any findings on the accusation.
Hero Tip: Employment Hero’s Sexual Harassment Policy, available to customers, includes recommended wording on this issue.
If an anonymous report is submitted by the victim, the employer’s ability to offer direct protection and support may also be restricted.
Where an anonymous report names the alleged perpetrator, any interviews conducted with them should be carefully managed to make sure that the information gathered is accurate, unbiased, and not adversely affected by assumptions of who the complainant was.
Employees accused of sexual harassment, whether through anonymous or named complaints, must be treated fairly. Confidentiality should be maintained, with information shared only with those directly involved in handling the case. Anyone involved in the investigation should be warned about the dangers of jumping to conclusions and the damage that can be caused by gossip and speculation.
If the suspension of the employee is necessary whilst an investigation is carried out, then the employee should generally be on full pay, with the employee’s entitlements, such as allowances and benefits preserved until a finding is made. The employer should make it very clear to the employee that no finding has been made against them, and that being suspended should not be seen in any way to suggest that there will be a finding against them, rather it is just being implemented to ensure the investigation runs as smoothly as possible.
The employee should also have the opportunity to respond and defend the allegations against them and to seek legal or professional advice as required.
How do you assess whether sexual harassment is likely?
Employers should not generally assess the likelihood of sexual harassment based on individuals. Instead, employers should evaluate workplace risk factors and take proactive steps to create a safe and respectful environment.
Some examples of situations where the risks of sexual harassment is heightened are where there is:
- A significant gender imbalance, particularly when one gender/person holds more power over another e.g. managerial position working with a junior employee
- Workplace isolation – employees often working alone or in small teams, particularly in areas that are not well-monitored, especially late-night shifts, remote work locations, or off-site meetings.
- Events where there is alcohol involved such as work events and socials
What are all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment? What does that mean, and what does that cover?
The Employment Rights Bill proposes that the current statutory defence of an employer taking “reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment will be amended to an employer taking “all reasonable steps”.
There is no guidance yet on the practical difference between the terms, although clearly taking all reasonable steps is more onerous to demonstrate than just taking reasonable steps.
The Equality & Human Rights Commission’s (EHRC) guidance for employers provides examples of the steps employers can take to prevent sexual harassment. However, as every business operates differently and has its own processes, there is no single approach that applies to all organisations. Employers should remain conscious and proactive in identifying and implementing measures that are most relevant to their workplace.
Right to Work Check Changes. Check.
All employers are required to check that each of their employees has rights to work in the UK. The government is moving to a 100% digital checking regime for foreign nationals and has published new guidance here.
So what does this mean for you?
Essentially, you need to ensure that all your employees have the right to work in the UK, which is usually done during the hiring and onboarding process. But this change means a cancelled passport cannot be used as a valid right to work check documentation. Ensure all foreign national employees have a UKVI account to access their eVisa as their proof of right to work in the UK.
What is the difference between an expired British passport and a cancelled one? How would we check the difference?
An expired British (or Irish) passport can still be used as a valid form of checking an employee’s nationality for confirming they have work rights, whilst a cancelled passport cannot be.
A cancelled passport would generally be identified by certain pages having been “clipped” by the relevant immigration authority see further guidance here. (“A clipped passport is a cancelled document (identified by the corners of certain pages in the passport being cut/removed) and therefore is not acceptable proof of right to work.”)
New Financial Year Changes. New Year, New Finances.
As with each new financial year, we see a wave of changes to how employees are taxed and paid, with this year being no different. From Minimum and National Living Wage changes, to National Insurance Contributions and statutory pay rate changes coming into effect from April 2025.
Our experts walk you through the changes in our webinar, but here are some questions they were asked.
Has small employer’s relief increased to 8.5%?
Effective from the 6th of April 2025, small employers relief will increase to 8.5% meaning employers can reclaim up to 108.5% of statutory pay costs paid to employees for the following family-related leave types:
- Maternity Pay
- Paternity Pay
- Adoption Pay
- Shared Parental Pay
- Parental Bereavement Pay
- Neonatal Care Pay
If an employee is on the National Living Wage or National Minimum Wage but their pension and contributions make them dip below this, do we need to make further changes to their hourly rate to accommodate this?
Compliance with the National Living Wage and the National Minimum Wage is assessed on an employee’s earnings after pension contributions have been taken out. Therefore if an employee’s pension contribution would push them below the minimum prescribed by law, the employer will have breached their obligations.
For further information on what is and isn’t included in minimum wage calculations, visit the gov website.
Neonatal Care Leave. Putting Families First.
The new Neonatal Care Leave is being introduced from the 6th of April 2025 to support employees who have newly born babies that require prolonged hospital treatment.
TLDR
A significant change that is set to affect both employers and employees, but in a nutshell, this brand new type of leave will help support parents of babies who require a little more help at birth who have had to have a longer stay at hospital. This will have a huge impact on new parents who have a new bundle of joy to focus on looking after–not worrying about covering their bills. Nice.
Do parents have to provide proof of neonatal care?
Currently, the government has not provided specific guidance on the specific documents required by employees when wishing to take neonatal care leave. To alleviate the pressure on employees who are on neonatal care leave, employers may consider requesting supporting documents on an as-needed basis.
For now, employees can self-certify and only need to share to their employer:
- The date of birth of the child
- Relation to baby
- Confirm they are eligible for NCL (Medical care in hospital, Ongoing medical care following discharge, Palliative or end of life care)
- That the leave will be used for caring for the baby
- Start date of neonatal care leave
- Leave end date or duration of leave (if known)
Employment Rights Bill. Compliance Understood.
There are many proposed changes within the Employment Rights Bill and not surprisingly, HR professionals have a lot of questions around the changes and the impact on them and their teams. Don’t sweat it, Employment Hero’s got you covered.
Get your free copy of our ‘Understanding HR and Employment Law’ factsheet here.
When is the new statutory probation period for unfair dismissal likely to come into force?
The government has indicated that the changes to unfair dismissal rules will not come into force until Autumn 2026.
Once the statutory probation comes into effect, and presuming it is set at 9 months, does that mean if an employer wanted to dismiss an employee at say 3 months, the employee would be able to say “you can’t dismiss me yet because I’m entitled to a 9 month probationary period”? So will employees be able to hold employers at ransom for that 9 month probationary period?
No. There will be no rule that means an employee cannot be fairly dismissed until the end of the probationary period.
Is making employees feel pushed out of their jobs considered unfair dismissal?
If an employee resigns due to “feeling pushed out of their jobs” by the employer, this will sometimes be found to be a “constructive dismissal” on the part of the employer. In other words, it is found that the employer forced the employee to resign, so it should be treated the same as if the employer dismissed the employee. .
As of now, employees can generally only raise constructive dismissal as part of an unfair dismissal claim once they reach two years of continuous employment. Once the Employment Rights Bill takes effect, employees will be able to raise unfair or constructive dismissal claims from day one of employment.
If we offer a zero hours contract for an individual who is only going to work over the summer, and they will be working less than 12 weeks, can we still offer a true zero hours contract?
At the moment this would be perfectly possible, if the Employment Rights Bill changes go through as proposed, then it appears that there would be a “reference period” over which a worker’s hours will need to be assessed and then they must be offered guaranteed hours that reflect the hours worked in the reference period.
We don’t know how long the reference period will be set at yet, but there is a suggestion it will be 12 weeks.
If an employee works for a lesser period than the reference period then there will be no obligation to provide them with guaranteed hours thereafter. Therefore a fixed-term zero hours contract (with no obligation to provide guaranteed hours thereafter) would seem to be possible so long as the employment ends before the end of the reference period.
With zero hour contracts, guaranteed hours will never be able to drop if you have to guarantee the same as the previous 12 weeks?
That’s right. Once the obligation to provide guaranteed hours is engaged, the employer will have to offer at least that number of hours going forward.
However the obligation to provide guaranteed hours will only arise where an employee has been engaged for a set period of time (still to be set by regulations). Very short engagements will not count.
Where an obligation is for an employer with 250+ employees, does that include all workers, e.g, those on zero hours contracts?
This can vary depending on the obligation in question. In the webinar we were talking specifically about gender pay gap reporting obligations which apply to employers with 250 or more employees.
Under those obligations the relevant test is whether they have 250 employees on the “snapshot” date of the 5 April.
Whether or not a casual or zero-hours worker counts towards the 250 threshold will depend on the type of contract they are engaged on.
For example, a casual worker will count towards the headcount if they are engaged on an “umbrella contract” under which they are employed for an ongoing basis and have to accept any shift allocated to them, even though they may have not been given any assignments on the 5th of April.
However, a worker who is engaged on a contract where there is no obligation for them to be given, or accept, any shifts, will only be counted if they were actually working on an assignment on 5 April.
We have someone who really only works very occasionally, during school holidays, so mostly the 12 hour calculation would usually be zero. How should we handle this situation?
Currently such an arrangement is completely lawful. However under the proposals in the Employment Rights Bill employees working on zero hours contracts will be required to be provided guaranteed hours of work, based on a previous reference period. The reference period is yet to be set, but there has been suggestions that it will be 12 weeks.
There is also likely to be a minimum hourly threshold (still yet to be determined) which will mean that employees doing very few hours will not be caught by the new regulations.
For employees who are caught by the new obligation to be provided guaranteed hours, a question arises as to how the guaranteed number of hours will work if they are working variable hours week to week. This too will be set out in regulations but it might be calculated, for example, on the average number of hours worked per week over the reference period.
For the changes to redundancy consultation, what if we have various employing entities in the parent business? Does this mean we need to count redundancies across all entities?
No. The law currently requires employers to consult where they are proposing 20 or more redundancies at one establishment, meaning one particular workplace such as a shop, factory, etc.
The proposal in the Employment Rights Bill that obligation to consult will arise where there are 20 or more proposed redundancies across all establishments, will not, as we understand it, group parent and subsidiary companies together for this purpose.
Is there anything in the Bill that will stop a Temping Agency from offering a Contract for Services ie no guaranteed hours
A “contract for services” (as opposed to a “contract of service”) is generally understood to be a contract for engaging an independent contractor / freelancer i.e. someone who is running their own business not someone who is a worker or employee.
The provisions in the Bill re: guaranteed hours will apply to workers and employees, not to contractors or freelancers.
Increasing the time to make an employment tribunal claim from 3 months to 6months, is it effective as of this month?
This is only a recent addition to the Employment Rights Bill which is proposed to take place in 2026. The exact effective date has not been announced yet.
Is there a “live” ERB timeline of changes that is up to date/regularly updated?
Regular updates on the Employment Right Bills can be found on the government website.
What is reasonable notice for a shift change?
The requirement to provide reasonable notice of a shift change as set out in the Employment Rights Bill will be further detailed in regulations, we do not have the details yet, but we expect the legislation will be set up so that what is reasonable is dependent on the exact circumstances of the case. For example, in an emergency situation it might well be reasonable to provide no notice or very little notice at all.
What has been removed from the Bill around employers publishing details of the support they provide to employees regarding menopause and menstrual issues?
The Bill currently proposes that employers with 250+ employees must publish action plans detailing the support they provide to employees going through the menopause.
An amendment was tabled to amend the Bill so that there would also be an obligation on such employers to provide details of the support they provide to employees who are suffering from menstrual issues, however this amendment has been withdrawn.
Miscellaneous
As your Employment Partner, we’re always happy to lend a helping hand and some of the questions received weren’t on the agenda. Not to worry – our experts are on it!
Flexible working – how can it work in an appointment based healthcare business?
The law regarding flexible working requests – both currently and under the changes proposed by the Employment Rights Bill – operates so that employers can refuse flexible working requests where they have good reasons to.
In a business where there is a genuine business need for employees to see clients face to face (such as in a healthcare business where the clients need to be physically examined, etc) then it should not be problematic for a business to refuse a flexible working request for an employee to work from home, for example.
Flexible working needs to work for both the employee and the employer, and we would always recommend that if an employer cannot facilitate a flexible working request from an employee it would be best practice for the employer to consider whether there is an alternative arrangement that they could suggest to the employee.
For example, in a situation where an employee has requested to work from home 100% of the time and this will not be practical as they need to see clients face to face in the employer’s premises, could the employer allow the employee to perform the admin-related tasks associated with their role from home, even if the majority of their tasks need to be done onsite.
We have the benefit of free meals while on duty. We are looking to change or end this. It’s not in the contract but is on a list of staff benefits and has been for over 2 years. Can we change this as long as we give notice? How much notice?
The answer to this is really going to depend on the exact circumstances of your case and exactly what has been communicated to employees.
Sometimes it is possible for something to be a contractual right even though it is not stated in the written contract due to a verbal agreement or something being implied into the contract through the actions of the parties over time.
We would encourage you to seek our further advice regarding this. One option might be for you to consult and agree with employees that you will be making this change – perhaps at the same time as you are proposing to implement another benefit instead, e.g. implementing an annual pay rise.
Would it be possible to cover the rights to carry over holiday leave?
Generally speaking employees have a right to carry over holiday leave where they have not been able to take it in the year because they are on another form of statutory leave (eg sick leave) or if their employer has not allowed them to take it in the year.
In other circumstances employers do not have to let employees carry the leave over, although many employers have a policy of allowing employees to do so, or to at the least carry over a certain number of days / weeks. Please contact us for further information.
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