Employment Winter Newsletter 2024

2024 saw a change of Government in the UK for the first time since 2010. The new Labour Government had pledged it would "deliver the biggest upgrade to rights at work for a generation". As promised, the Employment Rights Bill heralds major changes to employment laws including in relation to unfair dismissal, zero hours workers, fire and rehire and collective redundancy consultation, with further changes to come.

We have produced a summary of the Bill and what it means for employers. Although most of the changes will not take effect until 2026, there are various steps employers should take to prepare during 2025 (see Coming up in 2025 below).

Whilst the Employment Rights Bill was the big UK employment news of 2024, we had already seen other developments introduced by the previous Government, being:

• A new duty to prevent sexual harassment (see below);
  
  
• The right to request flexible working from day one;
  
  
• A new right to carers' leave;
  
  
• Extended redundancy protection following family leave and more flexible paternity leave rights;
  
  
• Extension of the higher rate of the National Minimum Wage to workers aged 21 or over;
  
  
• Simplification of holiday calculations for zero hours workers;
  
  
• Increased flexibility around TUPE consultation requirements for smaller transfers; and
  
  
• A new Code of Practice providing employer guidance on "fire and rehire", which will change when the restrictions on "fire and rehire" in the Employment Rights Bill are brought in.

We have advised many clients on updating their policies and procedures to reflect these changes, and we are seeing a number of employers reviewing their family leave benefits more widely, with a view to increasing pay during leave generally and improving entitlements for fathers and partners.

As mentioned above, the most significant legal development for employers this year was the new duty to prevent sexual harassment at work, which came into force this October, and requires employers to take various proactive steps to protect their staff. We have worked with many of our clients to carry out risk assessments, update diversity and harassment policies and review speak up procedures. Training is a key part of any harassment prevention strategy, and we have delivered diversity and speak up training for HR, Legal and managers for a wide range of employers in various sectors. 

Both the new duty to prevent sexual harassment, and this year's media coverage of historic harassment allegations at well-known organisations, highlight the focus on employees feeling able to speak up, and ensuring that any concerns are properly investigated. We have advised a number of our clients on updating their "speak up" policies and internal information campaigns, as well as training for managers on handling complaints.

With employees being encouraged to speak up, employers are seeing more issues raised (both recent and historic) which often involve highly sensitive matters or senior individuals (or both). We continue to carry out significant investigations work for our clients, whether advising on the employer's internal investigation, conducting the investigation or instructing an external third party. More information about our employment investigations work can be found here and a link to our investigations checklist can be found here.

Our investigations work often contains a regulatory aspect, for example involving HMRC or UKVI or, most commonly, the FCA in relation to our financial services clients. Workplace culture and diversity is a continuing key focus for the FCA, which this year published a report on non-financial misconduct and action points for firms, including enabling employees to speak up and having effective systems for investigating complaints (our briefing contains more information about the report and action points). The FCA's new diversity and inclusion rules are expected to be published in early 2025 and come into force later in the year.

The economic climate has remained challenging for business this year, and as a result many employers have been carrying out restructuring and redundancy exercises. We have advised on a number of these programmes for our clients, many of which have been pan European or global in nature.

Also on the international front, we have advised clients on a range of other projects including global handbooks and policies, European whistleblowing platforms and processes, and preparation for the forthcoming EU pay transparency rules and new rules on European Works Councils. We have been assisted on these projects by the overseas law firms with whom we work regularly. Employers with EU operations are also preparing for the new Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) which will require businesses to report on pay and other ESG matters from 2025 onwards.

In 2024, we reported in our Employment Update briefings on employment cases covering a variety of topics including discrimination and offensive beliefs, harassment and baldness, disability reasonable adjustments, disability and misconduct, protected conversations, redundancy pooling, whistleblowing and retracting resignations.

Throughout 2024 we have seen a renewed focus on employer and sponsorship compliance. In February 2024 the civil penalties for employers found to be employing illegal workers were tripled, increasing from £20,000 previously to the new maximum rate of £60,000 per illegal worker. The new Labour Government has also made clear its commitment to crackdown on visa abuse and to prevent exploitation. With this in mind, we have assisted clients with compliance health checks and staff training sessions throughout the last 12-months.

Significant changes were also made to the Skilled Worker visa route in April 2024, including an increase to the minimum salary threshold employers need to pay for a sponsored work visa, which increased from £26,200 to £38,700. We also saw a review of the minimum salary levels set under the skilled occupation codes as well as the replacement of the previous 'shortage occupation list' with a new significantly reduced 'Immigration Salary List' of roles which benefit from preferential treatment for visa sponsorship. These changes have significantly impacted the ability of employers in certain sectors to sponsor visas for entry level and regional roles.

The new Government has continued the previous Government's move towards a 'digital by default' border and immigration system. Physical BRP cards are now no longer being issued and they have been replaced with an online record of an individual's immigration status (known as an eVisa). The Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system has been gradually rolled out since November 2023. This is a new universal ‘permission to travel’ which is like the ESTA system in the United States. It has now been extended to all eligible non-European nationals (except British and Irish nationals) who will be travelling on or after 8 January 2025.

• ·    Sarah Baker was promoted to Senior Counsel this year, and James Wells and Hanna Bates-Marten were promoted to Senior Associate.
  
  
• Senior Associate Marianne Parkinson, and Associates River Clarke and Juliet Berg, joined the team this year.
  
  
• Rory Patterson, Daisy Robinson and Charlotte Neilsen all joined the team as newly qualified Associates in September, having completed their training contracts with the firm.
  
  
• This summer we held a seminar on what the general election might mean for employers followed in the autumn by a webinar on "Employment law under Labour" which you can watch here.
  
  
• In November, we were delighted to host the In-house Employment Lawyers Network half day seminar, attended by employment lawyers from a range of organisations, with panel sessions on topics including employment law reforms, diversity reporting, team moves and the role of in-house lawyers.
  
  
• Earlier this year, we produced a podcast series What's ESG got to do with it? discussing ESG-related HR issues. We also looked at AI in employment as part of an AI podcast series by our colleagues in the Technology and Commercial Transactions team.
  
  
• Our business immigration updates included podcasts on the new business visitor rules, the immigration compliance regime and the digitalisation of the UK immigration system.
  
  
• Our international podcast series continued this year, most recently covering Hong Kong and the USA and with further episodes planned next year, beginning with New Zealand.
  
  
• We wrote and contributed to various articles for the HR and national press, including pieces on the recent "quit-tok" phenomenon and how to tackle it, post-election employment law changes, the rise of the supercommuter and (topically) the sober Christmas party trend.
  
  
• Our team was involved in a wide range of pro bono work this year, including advising at employment law clinics and assisting charities including Refugees at Home, GiveOut, Advocates for International Development, Foundervine, Code Your Future, Luminary Bakery and the Women's Sport Trust.
  
  
• Members of the team also assisted with community engagement projects including helping to sort and deliver food for the Felix Project and donating Christmas gifts to the Single Homelessness Project.
  
  
• In May, the team enjoyed an away day in the beautiful Surrey countryside, including a highly competitive spy hunt activity. 
  
  
• Finally, this year saw the arrival of four new babies (for Senior Counsel, Sarah Baker, Senior Associate, Matt Davis, Revenue Controller, Lucy Warner and PA, Esta Lightfoot), who received plenty of excited attention when they came in to visit the team!