Our blog is a hub for HR insights, trends, and expert advice on all things related to HR, recruitment, and workforce management. We’re dedicated to sharing our knowledge, fostering innovation, and providing valuable resources for businesses and HR professionals.
Monthly Bulletin Archive
17th March 2026
The first major implementation milestone for Employment Rights Act 2025 is coming on 6th April 2025. In a piece of legislation running at 289 pages, it is all too easy to get bogged down in the detail. Here is our guide to the changes coming in April that employers need to be acting on now:
There are other ERA 2025 changes coming into force in April 2026 but, for the most part, they do not require any immediate action on the part of HR teams. The maximum protective award in a collective redundancy situation will increase from 90 days to 180 days per employee but the legal requirements for collective consultation remain the same, at least for now. Likewise, there will be changes to the way in which trade unions go about gaining recognition. However, they will not require any proactive changes by the employer – they just change the framework within which the recognition process operates.
With the ERA 2025, it is all too easy to get bogged down in the detail – and, in a 289-page piece of legislation, there is a lot of that. Taking these changes step by step, pausing to consider whether or not they are relevant to your business and what you need to do proactively now to assimilate them into business operations, is a sensible and pragmatic approach.
It is that time of year in the UK where storms are given names, weather forecasters dish out ‘Yellow’ and ‘Amber’ warnings on a sometimes weekly basis, and much of the country is braced for snow. But what happens in the workplace when we have bad weather. Here are some frequently asked questions and our answers to them:
An employee’s obligation to attend work remains in place during bad weather unless their contract states otherwise. However, employers should take a pragmatic approach where travel is genuinely unsafe or impossible. Employers also retain a duty of care and should not encourage attendance where doing so would put employees at a health and safety risk.
Under Employment Rights Act 1996, a worker has the right not to be subject to a detriment for leaving or refusing to attend a workplace, or taking steps to protect themselves in circumstances of danger which the worker reasonably believes to be serious or imminent. This could cover travelling to work if the worker feels it would be dangerous to do so.
Generally, no. If the employee chooses not to attend work and cannot perform their duties remotely, this is usually treated as unpaid leave. That said, many employers exercise discretion by allowing homeworking, annual leave, time off in lieu, or paid leave to maintain employee relations and consistency.
Employees are entitled to a reasonable amount of unpaid time off to deal with unexpected childcare emergencies, such as sudden school closures. This is intended to allow employees to make alternative arrangements rather than provide ongoing childcare. An employer’s policy may provide for such time off to be paid, but this is not a legal entitlement. Employers may also agree to temporary homeworking or the use of annual leave as alternatives where appropriate.
If the employer closes the workplace and the employee is ready and willing to work, the default position is that pay should continue, unless the contract expressly allows otherwise (for example, via a lay-off or short-time working clause). Employers should also consider whether work can be carried out remotely and ensure decisions are applied consistently to minimise employee relations and legal risk.
As monitoring technologies become more sophisticated, regulators are increasingly willing to step in where employers overstep the legal boundaries. The UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has made clear that workplace surveillance must be necessary, proportionate, transparent, and grounded in a lawful basis. When organisations fall short, the consequences can be serious — ranging from regulatory intervention to significant financial and reputational damage.
A recent and highly publicised example is Serco’s use of facial recognition and fingerprint scanning to monitor staff attendance. The company deployed biometric tools across several sites without carrying out a proper Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) and without considering less intrusive alternatives, such as ID cards.
The ICO found multiple breaches, including:
As a result, the ICO ordered Serco to stop using the technology, delete most of the biometric data, and to comply within three months — or face potential fines of up to £17.5 million or 4% of global turnover. The case demonstrates the high regulatory bar for using biometric monitoring and the importance of completing a DPIA before implementation.
Enforcement is not limited to regulatory scrutiny. Employees themselves can take action if monitoring is mishandled. Workers may:
Failure to provide clear privacy information – a common pitfall – can itself trigger a complaint or investigation.
The ICO treats covert surveillance as a last resort, only lawful in exceptional circumstances, typically involving suspected criminal activity. Even then, it must be tightly targeted and time limited. Employers who use covert monitoring without exhausting less intrusive options risk serious regulatory consequences.
The message from recent enforcement activity is clear: monitoring must be proportionate, well-justified, and grounded in a strong governance framework. Employers who embed DPIAs, transparency, and documented decision making into their processes significantly reduce the risk of sanctions – and help maintain trust with their workforce.
Recent case law has clarified how the Equality Act 2010 (EA 2010) applies to sex and gender reassignment in the workplace.
Following the Supreme Court decision in For Women Scotland, the legal definition of “sex” under the EA 2010 is biological sex. This means that, for EA 2010 purposes, a trans woman is legally male, and a trans man is legally female, regardless of whether they hold a Gender Recognition Certificate. Workplace protections relating to sex therefore apply on the basis of biological sex.
This issue was considered by an employment tribunal in Hutchinson and others v County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust. The Trust had a policy allowing employees to use single-sex changing rooms based on their self-declared gender identity. A trans woman employee used the female changing rooms, and several female colleagues raised concerns. The Trust refused to change its policy.
The tribunal found the Trust liable for both harassment and indirect sex discrimination.
The requirement for female employees to share changing facilities with a biological male, and the Trust’s failure to respond to their objections, amounted to harassment related to sex and gender reassignment. Importantly, employees do not need to share the protected characteristic themselves to bring a harassment claim – it is enough that the conduct relates to that characteristic.
The tribunal also found indirect sex discrimination. The Trust’s policy of allowing access to single-sex spaces based on gender identity, and prioritising those rights over the rights of women to single-sex facilities, placed women (who were considered more likely to experience distress, fear or humiliation when required to share communal changing facilities with a member of the opposite biological sex) at a particular disadvantage. The Trust could not justify this approach, and the discrimination claim succeeded.
Policies on single-sex spaces must be handled carefully. Allowing access based solely on gender identity, without balancing the rights of others, or considering alternative arrangements, can expose employers to significant legal risk.
Employment status is critical because it determines what rights an individual has. In law, there are three main categories: employees, workers and the genuinely self-employed. Volunteers usually fall outside these categories because they do not work in return for pay.
Status is always decided on the facts, not the label used by the organisation. Tribunals look at how the relationship operates in practice, particularly whether there is a requirement to perform work personally, and whether there is a payment in return – often described as the “wage–work bargain”.
Volunteers will not normally be employees or workers if they carry out activities with no expectation of payment. However, recent case law shows that the position can become more complicated where volunteers receive payments beyond basic expenses.
In Maritime and Coastguard Agency v Groom, the Court of Appeal considered whether a volunteer coastguard qualified as a worker. Although Mr Groom could choose whether to attend callouts, when he did attend, he was subject to instructions and training requirements. Importantly, for certain activities he was entitled to claim a payment for his time, not just expenses.
The Court of Appeal held that, each time Mr Groom carried out a paid activity, a contract arose. During those periods there was a wage–work bargain: he provided work personally and the organisation was obliged to pay. This was enough to create worker status for those activities, even though there was no overall umbrella worker contract.
Calling someone a “volunteer” is not decisive. If volunteers receive payment for their time – even occasionally – they may acquire worker status and associated rights. Volunteer arrangements should be reviewed carefully to ensure they do not unintentionally cross that line.
Paternity leave is a statutory entitlement that allows eligible fathers and partners to take either one or two weeks’ leave following the birth or adoption of a child. The leave must be taken within 52 weeks of the child’s birth or placement for adoption, and is designed to support parents at a critical time for family bonding and adjustment.
Under the current rules, paternity leave is not a day one right. To qualify, an individual must be an employee, give the correct notice, and have been continuously employed by their employer for at least 26 weeks by any day in the “qualifying week”. For birth parents, the qualifying week is the 15th week before the baby is due, although different rules apply in adoption cases. In addition, until now, employees have generally been prevented from taking paternity leave if they have already taken shared parental leave.
From 6 April 2026, the Employment Rights Act 2025 will significantly reform this area by making paternity leave a day one right and allowing employees to take paternity leave even where they have already taken shared parental leave. However, ahead of those wider changes, the Paternity Leave (Bereavement) Act 2024 introduces a targeted and earlier reform for bereaved partners.
With effect from 29 December 2025, the Act removes the 26-week qualifying period where a father or partner’s spouse or partner dies in childbirth, or within the first year following birth or adoption. In these tragic circumstances, the employee will also be entitled to take paternity leave even if they have already taken shared parental leave.
Although this position will ultimately be overtaken by the ERA 2025 reforms in April 2026, until then, bereaved partners sit in a distinct legal category. The change reflects a recognition that, in cases of bereavement, access to paternity leave should not depend on length of service or technical eligibility requirements.
The draft Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave Regulations 2026 were quietly published in early January 2026. If enacted, the Regulations will apply from 6th April 2026.
The Regulations introduce a new right to Bereaved Partner’s Paternity Leave (BPPL).
From 6th April 2026, an employee is entitled to BPPL where:
Only employees (not workers) qualify.
The notice regime depends on when leave is due to start:
Where leave is to start more than eight weeks after bereavement, the notice must also include:
Employees may vary the start date, subject to further notice requirements, which again depend on whether the revised start date falls within or beyond the initial eight-week period following bereavement.
Leave may be cancelled in writing. No notice is required where leave was due to start within eight weeks of bereavement; otherwise, one week’s notice is required.
Return dates can also be varied in writing. Notice ranges from one week to eight weeks, depending on how far the original return date fell from the bereavement date.
If an employee would have been entitled to BPPL but the child has also died (or has been returned following adoption), they may still take up to eight weeks’ unpaid BPPL in the 52-week eligibility window, provided they had not already taken BPPL before the child’s death.
During BPPL:
HR policies should be updated (or created) ahead of April 2026 to reflect the new BPPL entitlement. Many employers will already be preparing to amend paternity leave policies to reflect the Employment Rights Act 2025 move to a day one right.
When an employee is found to have been unfairly dismissed, compensation usually has two parts:
Tribunals can reduce compensation where the employee’s own conduct is relevant. This is known as contributory fault. A basic award can be reduced where it is just and equitable to do so, even if the conduct did not directly cause the dismissal. A compensatory award can also be reduced, but only where the employee’s conduct actually caused or contributed to the dismissal.
These principles were considered by the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) in Kesheva v Secure Frontline Services. Ms Kesheva, a door supervisor, left work mid-shift after an argument with a colleague. She was dismissed for gross misconduct without any investigation or proper procedure.
The employment tribunal found the dismissal was unfair but reduced both the basic and compensatory awards by 100%, on the basis that Ms Kesheva had committed gross misconduct by failing to contact her employer after leaving.
The EAT overturned that decision. Based on the tribunal’s own findings of fact, Ms Kesheva had informed her team leader that she was leaving, and there was no policy requiring her to make further contact by phone. Even if there had been, her actions would not have amounted to gross misconduct. The EAT ruled that a 100% reduction was not justified and sent the case back to a new tribunal to reconsider compensation.
Even where an employee has behaved poorly, tribunals must assess contributory fault carefully and proportionately.
Most changes under the Employment Rights Act 2025 will take effect in 2026 and 2027. However, a first set of trade union reforms will come into force on 18 February 2026, two months after Royal Assent. These changes largely reverse measures introduced by the Trade Union Act 2016 and strengthen unions’ ability to take industrial action.
The key changes include:
Employers in unionised environments should expect less warning of industrial action, longer-running strike mandates, and fewer opportunities to challenge ballots on technical grounds. Planning, engagement with unions, and contingency arrangements will be more important than ever.
Every so often, an employment law case comes along that reminds us that real life is far stranger than any training scenario. Enter Duffy v LNER, a recent case that achieved the rare feat of being reported both in the legal press and by people who normally only read the news for football scores and weather warnings.
Mr Duffy worked in train hospitality for London North Eastern Railway. His dismissal for gross misconduct hinged on a simple but unforgettable allegation: he removed two sausage rolls from a bin, reheated them, and served them to first-class passengers. Not discounted sausage rolls. Not “about to be thrown away” sausage rolls. Actual bin sausage rolls.
When challenged, Mr Duffy explained that he had merely been going “above and beyond” for customers. Many employers encourage staff to exceed expectations. Few, one suspects, had this particular interpretation in mind.
Unsurprisingly, LNER took the view that serving reheated bin food breached food safety rules and might do terrible things to both passengers and brand reputation. Mr Duffy was dismissed and brought claims for unfair dismissal and discrimination arising from disability, arguing that his actions were linked to depression.
The tribunal was not persuaded. On unfair dismissal, the focus was not whether the tribunal itself would have reached for the dismissal letter, but whether LNER had acted reasonably. It had investigated thoroughly, reviewed CCTV footage, gathered witness evidence and listened to Mr Duffy’s explanation. Having concluded that he had indeed served bin food to customers, dismissal for gross misconduct comfortably sat within the range of reasonable responses.
The discrimination claim fared no better. Although Mr Duffy did have anxiety and depression, the tribunal did not accept that these conditions caused him to retrieve sausage rolls from a bin and serve them to paying customers. There was no sufficient causal link between disability and conduct. Even if there had been, protecting customer safety and avoiding national headlines about “railway bin cuisine” would have been strong grounds for justification.
For HR professionals, the lesson is reassuringly dull beneath the absurd facts. Follow a fair process, investigate properly, and apply common sense. Going “above and beyond” is admirable. Just maybe not when a bin is involved.
Here to Help, Not Replace Experts:
The information contained in this blog presented for general informational purposes only. While we strive to provide accurate and up-to-date content, legal and HR practices can evolve rapidly. This blog is not a substitute for professional advice.
For specific questions or concerns regarding your unique situation, we highly recommend taking professional advice and booking a consultation with a Sapphire HR Consultant. Our consultants are experts in the field and can provide tailored guidance to address your specific needs.
We aim to work truly in partnership with our client organisations and to develop a high-quality, competent HR Service for all clients, the HR Provider that they can rely on and who gets to understand the culture and vision of your business.
