Our roadmap gives you a full overview of what comes into effect from April 2026, others in October 2026, and the more structural shifts (zero-hours, flexible working) landing through 2027.

With that timeline in mind, let’s dig into what happens and how you should plan for each of your core priorities.

Day One Rights

The Employment Rights Bill introduces a host of day-one rights, designed to strengthen fairness and job security from the very start of employment. Under the Bill, employees will gain immediate entitlement to several key protections, including access to parental and paternity leave, eligibility for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) from the first day of absence, and the ability to request flexible working without a qualifying period.

ERB has significantly revised its stance on unfair dismissal, abandoning the initial proposal for a “day-one right” and a statutory probation period due to concerns about business impact. Instead, the final compromise will dramatically reduce the qualifying period for an employee to bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim from the current two years to just six months of continuous service.

This means that after half a year of employment, an employee gains this key protection. While the full right to unfair dismissal is no longer a day-one entitlement, the Bill is proceeding with new day-one statutory rights for employees, including immediate entitlement to Paternity Leave, Unpaid Parental Leave, the right to request Flexible Working, and eligibility for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP). Crucially, the plan for a special “lighter-touch” dismissal procedure during a statutory probation has been entirely scrapped, and the Government intends to lift the compensation cap for successful claims, increasing the financial risk to employers.

Actions for Employers

To prepare for the implementation of the ERB, all organisations must take immediate steps to align their HR practices with the new six-month risk window. This requires accelerating performance management processes so that any performance or conduct issues are identified, addressed, and formally documented well before the six-month mark.

You must update your contracts, employee handbooks, and policies to reflect the new day-one entitlements for parental leave and flexible working requests.

Finally, managers need to be thoroughly trained on the reduced six-month threshold and the importance of consistent, defensible documentation for all early employment decisions, ensuring that performance reviews and dismissal processes are robust and non-discriminatory from the moment an employee starts.

Fair Work Agency

The Employment Rights Bill has also established the Fair Work Agency (FWA) – a new national enforcement body scheduled to launch in April 2026. The FWA will consolidate responsibilities that currently sit across several regulators, bringing together oversight of areas such as Statutory Sick Pay, employment contracts, pay compliance, and general workplace protections. It will have broad powers to audit employers, investigate complaints, issue penalties, and compel remedial action where breaches are identified.

For employers, this represents a significant shift in how compliance will be monitored, with more time and resource exerted on procedural practices. Moreover, the FWA will have authority to look directly into on-site operations, and agency labour arrangements to ensure employment standards are upheld throughout the supply chain.

FAQs

Q: Will FWA audits include construction sites physically?
A: Yes, The Bill gives FWA inspectors authority to enter and inspect any business premises to check compliance with employment rights laws. A construction site is classed as a place where business activity occurs – therefore it falls under this definition. An example of the FWA visiting a site may consist of Agency worker mistreatment or Labour exploitation or modern slavery concerns.

Q: What’s the penalty for non-compliance?
A: The FWA can issue remedial orders, fines, and potentially name organisations publicly. Employers should assume that procedural mistakes may no longer be defensible by “wasn’t aware.”

Q: What put’s me as an employer at risk of an audit?
A: There are a couple of red flags the FWA will typically consider that puts you at risk for an audit:

• Poor documentation – weak or inconsistent records of hours worked, pay, benefits (especially holiday pay, SSP) trigger review. 
• Use of agency/subcontract labour without clear flow-down compliance clauses. The FWA will focus on supply-chain arrangements. 
• Industries with high-flexibility labour models (construction, hospitality, logistics, care) — more likely to have irregular contracts or zero-hours arrangements, which are flagged by the Bill. 
• Previous or ongoing complaints to tribunals or HMRC/minimum-wage enforcement bodies — historical non-compliance increases audit risk.

Zero-Hour Contracts Reform

The Employment Rights Bill does not ban zero-hours contracts outright, but it will introduce major restrictions designed to curb what the Labour Government has described as exploitative practices. These changes are expected to have the greatest impact in sectors that rely heavily on flexible and casual labour, such as hospitality, retail, facilities management, logistics and events.

Under the new rules, employers will be required to offer a guaranteed-hours contract to zero-hours or low-hours workers if their actual working pattern regularly exceeds the hours stated in their contract over a defined reference period, anticipated to be twelve weeks. This obligation will also apply to agency workers, with responsibility for making the offer falling primarily on the end hirer rather than the agency itself. A proposed amendment in the House of Lords sought to make this a worker-led right to request guaranteed hours, but it was ultimately rejected — meaning the legal duty will rest squarely on employers to provide minimum hours where patterns of regular work exist.

For employers, the requirement to provide guaranteed hours could limit the flexibility that make zero hour contracts such an attractive hiring approach for organisations. As a result, employers may need to adjust their workforce strategies if zero hours contracts become less attractive.  Construction businesses in particular – where fluctuating demand and project-based hiring are the norm – will face higher administrative demands and potential cost implications if they proceed with zero hour contracts in the future.

FAQs

Q: Do zero-hours roles disappear entirely?
A: No – but the law requires you to convert roles to guaranteed contracts if hours exceed minimums over the reference period.

Q: Can we avoid offering guaranteed hours by artificially limiting hours?
A: Attempts to suppress hours could be challenged as exploitative. The law is meant to disincentivise such activities.

Q: What about agency workers?
A: They’re included. The end hirer (employer) generally becomes responsible for the guaranteed-hours offer.

The Employment Rights Bill represents one of the most wide-reaching shifts to UK employment law in recent decades, redefining how organisations hire, manage, and retain their workforce. It’s already clear that employers will need to adapt their policies, contracts, and management practices ahead of implementation.

At Strategic Resourcing, we’ll continue to monitor the Bill’s progress closely – from parliamentary updates to sector-specific guidance – and will provide practical insights as new details emerge. Our goal is to help employers stay informed, compliant, and commercially prepared as these reforms take shape over the months ahead.