The Employment Rights Bill Roadmap – How Should Employers Navigate the Route Ahead?

On 1 July 2025, the UK Government published the Employment Rights Bill (ERB) Roadmap. This details the plan for implementing the ERB, which includes key dates for the phased introduction of new legislation and anticipated consultations. The Roadmap sets out how the Government expects to deliver the new set of workers’ rights.  

It isn’t an exaggeration to say the Employment Rights Bill is one of the largest pieces of employment law legislation that we have seen in many years, and possibly ever.

You may have read and heard a lot in broad terms about the changes that are coming down the track. But everything that you have heard so far has no doubt been at a rather high level and certainly would have been vague about the detail and the date of implementation. While we don’t have the detail yet, we are beginning to have some clarity about when these fundamental changes to employment law are going to take effect. The changes will not take effect all at once, but will be implemented in phases.

What kind of consultation has the government promised?

The Government has promised a planned, phased series of consultations on the various strands of employment changes under the ERB from Summer/Autumn 2025 to Winter/early 2026. The consultations cover a wide-ranging span, including seeking views on Day 1 unfair dismissal rights, flexible working, increasing rights for pregnant workers, collective redundancies, tightening tipping laws, and fire and rehire practices. The Government has stated the consultation process will be carried out to determine the most effective way it can carry out its proposed changes in the workplace. It will be engaging with employers, trade unions, workers and other stakeholders.  

Promise to provide guidance and support on ERB

The Government has also stated that it will produce guidance to support its changes, which may include published Government Guidance and Statutory Codes of Practice with involvement from Acas and other partners. The stated intention is to build sufficient time to allow employers, workers, trade unions and other stakeholders (such as Acas) to familiarise themselves with the changes and make adjustments to their own systems. It is recognised, for example, that many employers will need to amend their existing systems, including IT and payroll, to accommodate the new reforms.

See below for key steps employers can take now to help navigate a couple of the most significant changes in employment law that is scheduled to take effect over the next year or two.

Day 1 unfair dismissal rights – the big headline

The Employment Rights Bill removes the requirement of two years of continuous service to qualify for the right to bring a claim of ordinary unfair dismissal, which would apply to most claims of unfair dismissal. There are some exceptions to this, for example, where there are certain ‘automatically unfair’ dismissals, a whistle-blowing dismissal or dismissal based on discriminatory reasons such as childbirth or maternity. Currently there is no legislation around probationary periods. See our article here for more information on qualifying for current unfair dismissal rights.

The Employment Rights Bill is going to remove the two year qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal rights, so that these claims can be made from day one of employment. This will be a huge change for employers and is likely to substantially increase the volume of employment tribunal claims.

There will be a less onerous, light touch process to dismiss employees during an “initial period”. It is likely this will include a meeting with the employee to explain concerns to them, at which the employee would have the right to be accompanied. The light touch (or probationary) process is anticipated to apply where the date of termination is no later than three months from the finish of the initial, probationary period subject to notice having been issued during that period. Also, the reason for dismissal must be for conduct, capability, illegality or some other substantial reason. The lighter process would not apply to redundancy dismissals.  

The ERB confirms that the right to claim unfair dismissal will not apply where an individual has entered into a contract of employment, but has not yet started work. However, there will be exceptions to this, including if the dismissal is automatically unfair, or on the basis of a political affiliation, opinion or a spent conviction.

During the initial period it is anticipated there will be a reduced compensation regime for employees dismissed under the light touch process.  

The Government has said it will consult in depth on this reform. Consultation is due to take place on length of the new statutory probationary period, referred to as the ‘initial period’, along with the compensation that might be awarded during probation. The Government’s preference is for a nine month ‘initial period’. According to the Roadmap, the Government will be consulting about Day 1 unfair dismissal rights during the Summer/Autumn of 2025 and these changes are due to take effect in 2027.

Action for employers to take:

In anticipation of it being harder to dismiss unsatisfactory staff, employers should be taking care particular care with recruitment, to proactively monitor staff during probationary periods and not put off dealing with unsatisfactory hires at an early stage until a later date.

‘Ban’ on ‘exploitative’ zero hours contracts – the other big headline

The Employment Rights Bill does not ban zero hours contracts, which was the Labour Government’s initial stated intention. But, usage will be heavily restricted through the measures that are due to be introduced.

There will be a complex new regime whereby employers will be required to offer a guaranteed hours contract to zero-hours workers after the end of every reference period, if the worker’s hours exceed the minimum hours in their contract of employment. The offer of guaranteed hours would reflect the hours worked during the previous reference period. The reference period is yet to be defined in legislation, but the government anticipates this to be 12 weeks. This requirement will also extend to workers who are employed on a contract with a low number of guaranteed hours. This extension is designed to avoid employers seeking to circumvent the new rules by moving their zero-hours workers on to guaranteed hours contracts with very low guaranteed hours.

There will be exceptions to the restrictions on using zero hours contracts, including where there might be short-term business need that means use of a fixed-term contract may be “reasonable”. The requirement to offer guaranteed hours will not be applicable in certain specific circumstances, including when a worker resigns or has been fairly dismissed. Furthermore, the provisions on zero hours contract use may be disapplied by a collective agreement.

It has been confirmed that these measures will apply to agency workers. The end hirer of an agency worker will be responsible to make a guaranteed hours offer.

Attempting to give workers greater ability to plan their lives, the Government also intends to ensure workers employed on a zero-hours or minimum hours contract (as well as workers who do not have a set working pattern) are given reasonable notice of a shift they are required to work. This will include the time and day of the shift and how many hours will need to be worked. Coupled with this right, those same workers will need to be given reasonable notice of any change to, or cancellation of, a shift. Any worker denied reasonable notice will be entitled to a proportionate level of compensation. Consultation will need to take place on the notice to be given, payments to made and how compensation would be calculated and exceptions to the general rules.

Consultation is expected to take place on the zero hours contract measures in Autumn 2025 with the intention being to implement the changes during 2027.

Action for employers to take:

• Employers should be reviewing their workforce to identify what proportion of them would fall within the scope of these changes and how they would be affected by the proposed changes. Let’s call them the ‘affected workers’.
• Consider the benefits of offering other types of employment to those affected workers.
• Explore how the business would be affected if its affected workers needed to be given guaranteed hours in line with what they have worked over the last 12 weeks.
• Review shift scheduling practices, including how (and with what notice) shift cancellations are made.
• Train managers to ensure compliance with any new regime that is incoming.

Timetable for the key legislative changes under the Employment Rights Bill

There is a host of other wide-ranging legislative reforms that will be affecting employers through the Employment Rights Bill over the next two years or so. 

There will be significant support given to trade unions through new legislation. There will be a new duty for employers to inform workers about their right to join a union and an increased right for trade unions to access the workplace. Some employers may wish to consider giving their staff a voice through an existing or new staff body as an alternative means of liaising between workers and their employer.  

Employers should pay close attention to when each change will take effect and take steps within their organisation in good time to accommodate these changes. For example, that may include training for managers to take into account the measures, including further strengthening of the protections for employees against sexual harassment in the workplace. There may need to be changes to HR and payroll systems to accommodate reforms to statutory sick pay and the complex regime being introduced around zero hours and low hours contracts. Policies and procedures may need to be updated to take account of new rights for staff, including protections for pregnant workers and new mothers, along with bereavement leave.  

See below for our breakdown of key employment rights that are going to be implemented and when. For a full list of the measures and consultations see here, the Government’s implementation roadmap paper. But, do bear in mind that although these are the Government’s stated timelines these could be subject to change.

Employers will have an opportunity to have influence through the consultation processes and should engage where relevant to them. We will continue to update on these reforms as they develop.