Recap of recent changes

Duty to prevent sexual harassment

The Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 came into force in October 2024. It imposes a duty on employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of their workers, effectively creating a positive legal obligation on employers to try to stop workplace sexual harassment. Tribunals can increase compensation in sexual harassment claims by up to 25% if they find an employer has breached this duty, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) also has the power to take enforcement action. 

The EHRC has published guidance to assist employers. It explains that what constitutes "reasonable steps" will vary from employer to employer, and stresses that risk assessments are critical to organisations being able to demonstrate that they have discharged their duty. As well as risk assessments, you need to focus on your policies, reporting systems and complaint handling processes, as well as staff engagement and training. You should also monitor and evaluate the effectiveness of the steps you take.

Note also that the ERB includes a proposal to strengthen the preventative duty, to require employers to take "all reasonable steps" to prevent harassment occurring (not just "reasonable" ones). This proposal is expected to come into force during 2026, and will up the stakes in this tricky area.

Neonatal care leave and pay

With effect from 6 April 2025, the Neonatal Care (Leave and Pay) Act 2023 and regulations made under it introduced a new statutory right to neonatal care leave and pay for employees whose baby is receiving or has received at least seven days of continuous, specialist neonatal care. Employees are entitled to a week of leave for each week that their baby spends in neonatal care, up to a maximum of 12 weeks. This is in addition to other types of family leave, and must be taken within 68 weeks of the baby's birth.

While the right to leave applies from day one of employment, statutory neonatal care pay is only available to employees who have at least 26 weeks' service, and earn at least the lower earnings limit (£125 per week) on average.

If your organisation has not already done so, you should introduce a neonatal care leave and pay policy setting out your approach to these rights (including whether you will offer any enhancements to support employees, such as longer neonatal care leave, and/or enhanced pay above the statutory rate). You should also consider training line managers and HR on how to handle requests for neonatal care leave and pay in a sensitive and supportive manner.

What is to come?

Key aspects of the ERB

The ERB is an ambitious piece of legislation, covering a huge range of employment law issues, and its potential impact on employers when it comes into force cannot be understated. Four of the most significant proposals are:

• Making protection from unfair dismissal a "day one" right by repealing the current two years' service requirement that applies to ordinary unfair dismissal claims. To limit the impact on employers, the ERB introduces the concept of an "initial period of employment" (IPE), during which a lower level of protection will apply, and compensation for unfair dismissal will be subject to a lower cap. During the IPE, employers will be able to follow a lighter touch process to dismiss an employee for conduct, capability, illegality, or some other substantial reason (although not redundancy). However, even the lighter touch process will require some investment of management and HR time, and organisations are likely to face more claims from employees alleging they have been unfairly dismissed. The increased risk of hiring may prompt organisations to be more stringent in their recruitment processes to ensure that any new hires are right for the job.

• Making it automatically unfair to dismiss an employee for refusing to agree to a change to their terms and conditions of employment (fire and rehire), or to dismiss an employee and hire another employee on amended terms to carry out the same or substantially the same work (fire and replace). There will be a very narrow exception if you can demonstrate that the change in terms was necessary to alleviate serious financial difficulties that were likely to affect the ability to run the business as a going concern, and could not reasonably have been avoided. Given the extremely narrow nature of the exception, this provision will significantly increase risk where an employer seeks to change employees' terms and conditions and employees are unwilling to agree.

• Requiring employers to offer contracts for a guaranteed number of hours to zero- and low-hours workers, which reflect the number of hours that the worker regularly works during a reference period (expected to be 12 weeks). Offers will have to be made at the end of every reference period, until the worker no longer qualifies as a zero or low hours worker. Employers will also have to provide such workers with reasonable notice of shifts, and of cancellations or changes to scheduled shifts, as well as compensation for cancelling or changing shifts at short notice. Following consultation, the government has amended the ERB to extend these provisions to agency workers. The provisions appear fiendishly complicated, and employers may struggle to comply with them. Failure to comply, or dismissing or subjecting an employee to a detriment in relation to these rights, will give rise to potential tribunal claims. It will be possible for employers to exclude these requirements via collective agreement with a trade union. However, it may be difficult to reach agreement with the union, and this provision does not assist your organisation if you do not recognise a trade union. In practice, these provisions may result in a reduction in the use of zero and low hours contracts.

• Strengthening the role of trade unions by giving them a right of access to workplaces (both physical and digital), requiring employers to provide workers with a written statement informing them of their right to join a trade union, and making it easier for unions to obtain statutory recognition. In combination, these changes may lead to a greater union presence in many workplaces and an increase in the number of employees whose terms are determined by collective bargaining.

Further consultation and regulations are required to determine the details of the above proposals, and the government has confirmed that none of them is expected to take effect before 2026. In the meantime, employers are advised to keep an eye on our ERB tracker, which provides an overview of all of the ERB's key proposals and will be updated to reflect developments as the ERB continues its progress through Parliament.

Equality (Race and Disability) Bill

In the longer term, you will also need to get to grips with a draft Equality (Race and Disability) Bill, which is expected to require employers with 250+ employees to publish ethnicity and disability pay gap reports, and introduce the right to bring equal pay claims on the basis of race and disability. The government is currently consulting and gathering evidence in this area, and a draft Bill is expected during 2025.

What should you do now?

If you haven't already done so, you should take steps to ensure your compliance with those measures that have already come into force. For the duty to prevent sexual harassment, this means conducting or updating risk assessments, ensuring that you have thorough policies and reporting systems in place, and providing appropriate training for all staff. For neonatal care leave and pay, it means implementing a clear policy setting out employees' entitlements, and ensuring that HR and managers are aware and properly equipped to handle requests for leave as they arise.

As for those measures that are still to come, the key to timely compliance will lie in awareness. Keep an eye on the ERB's progress through Parliament (our ERB tracker can help with this), engage with forthcoming government consultations on the various provisions, and make sure that line managers are up to date as and when the provisions take effect in 2026 and beyond.