Three major Employment Rights Act reforms land this October. We asked HR consultants and employment lawyers how you can prepare for them today.
October is a big month for UK employment law, and small businesses lacking a dedicated HR team could be forgiven for feeling caught off guard.
From longer tribunal claim windows to stricter rules on preventing harassment, several significant reforms under the Employment Rights Act are landing in quick succession throughout the month, in what’s being described as the largest overhaul of British employment law in a generation.
Startups.co.uk spoke to HR consultants and employment lawyers directly about what’s actually changing this month, where small businesses are most likely to be caught unprepared, and – crucially – what you can still do to ensure you’re staying compliant as the changes come into force.
Unlike previous waves in employment law reform, three major changes are happening within one month, at the beginning and end of October.
Grace Pariser, founder of HR On Call, puts the scale of it bluntly: “For a business with no HR function running in the background, that’s three separate obligations arriving in the space of four weeks.”
Here are the three main reforms to get your head around:
- 1st of October – The time limit for bringing the majority of Employment Tribunal claims doubles from three to six months.
- 30th of October – Employers must take “all reasonable steps” to prevent sexual harassment. This includes harassment carried out by third parties, such as customers, clients, or contractors.
- 30th of October – Employers must provide workers with a written statement informing them of their right to join a trade union. Also, independent unions gain a statutory right to request access to the workplace, physically or digitally.
How to prepare for longer tribunal windows
This month, the limit for the majority of Employment Tribunal claims, such as discrimination, unfair dismissal, and unlawful wage deductions, increases to six months – bringing standard employment claims in line with existing six-month limits for statutory redundancy pay and equal pay claims.
Jasia Kazmi, an employment lawyer at Witan Solicitors, explains why the extra time matters more than it first appears: “A dispute raised five or six months after the event is naturally harder to respond to well, since memories can fade and people move on, and if the paperwork isn’t there, you may not have the facts you need to respond.”
Pariser adds a starker warning about what’s driving the pressure. With tribunal cases now facing years-long waits to be heard, she recommends that businesses consider legal expenses insurance, explaining there’s “nothing to stop employees or ex-employees from bringing a baseless claim which can cost the employer upwards of £15k.”
However, preparing for this shift can help businesses avoid being caught out months down the line. Juliet Irving, Director of HR Operations at Impact HR, advises that businesses keep “good records of conversations, decisions, performance issues and grievances” so they can “evidence what happened several months down the line”.
By treating documentation as routine, rather than reactive, and ensuring line managers are briefed on what needs to be recorded and when, businesses can build established paper trails and avoid relying on memory.
Third-party harassment: the risk most businesses are missing
From the 30th of October, employers can be held liable for harassment carried out not just by staff, but by customers, clients, and contractors, too. In essence, this means that if your team faces the public, your duty of care no longer stops with your own team.
Irving explains the shift in thinking required to get to grips with this new law. “Employers naturally tend to think about relationships between colleagues, but the new protections can extend to interactions with customers, clients, contractors, service users and members of the public” she tells us.
For businesses in hospitality, retail, healthcare and other customer-facing sectors, that requires a much wider assessment of risk.
So where should businesses start with risk mitigation? Kim Croasdale, founder of specialism consultancy and coaching firm Entela, sets out four practical actions: run a workplace risk assessment focused on public-facing and lone-working roles, put a clear harassment policy in place with a named contact, and train staff and managers on it directly.
Finally, she urges businesses to “update supplier and client contracts, so harassing behaviour is something the business can actually act on”. That last point, she notes, is “most likely to be missed by small businesses.”
What new rights for trade unions mean for businesses
The 30th of October is also bringing fresh obligations around trade unions. From this date, employers will need to give workers a written statement informing them of their right to join a union, while independent unions gain a statutory right to request access to workplaces.
It’s easy to assume the access right is the bigger deal, but according to Grace Pariser, it’s actually the one businesses need to worry about least: “The access right is the one getting the attention, but I’d worry less about that one. Unions aren’t going to let an employer forget it exists; they’re the ones who’ll be asking for it,” she tells us.
The written notice duty is a different story. “Nobody’s chasing that up on an employer’s behalf, which makes it the one most likely to slip through the cracks,” Pariser says – and with the government yet to confirm exactly what the written statement needs to contain, “there’s a lot still to have sorted.”
The experts we spoke to were also quick to clear up a common misconception: access doesn’t mean recognition. As Juliet Irving explains: “Access and recognition are separate things and employees remain free to decide whether they wish to engage with or join a union.” In other words, granting access doesn’t commit the business to recognising the union, or for staff to join it.
Size does offer some protection, too. Irving notes that “the Central Arbitration Committee cannot impose a statutory workplace access agreement where an employer has fewer than 21 workers” – good news for independent cafes, small professional agencies, and local trade businesses. However, she notes, the written notice duty still applies regardless of headcount.
These changes mark a real shift in how much small businesses need to formalise their people processes, but none of it is out of reach. By making small, practical changes today, instead of waiting for the new rules to come into effect in October, you can avoid playing catch-up once they land.
