With further updates in legislation coming later in the year, it's an ever changing landscape. Additionally, with a looming general election, and should Labour be elected into Government, they have pledged to strengthen the rights of workers to respond to family emergencies with paid family and carer's leave, and broader flexible working – it's important more than ever for employers to stay on top of these changes.

A recap of the new employment legislation

Holiday pay and entitlement reforms

As of 1 January 2024, changes came into force for calculating holiday pay and entitlement for part-year and irregular hour workers, allowing employers to calculate using the 12.07% method for accruing holiday, and also permitting employers to once again use rolled-up holiday pay.

Carer's Leave Regulations 2024

Many organisations will have unpaid carers in their workforce. Research by Carer's UK suggests that the UK has an ageing population and a shrinking workforce. The numbers of carers in the workplace are only going to grow, and figures suggest that already 1 in 7 people are currently juggling unpaid care and work. On average it can take up to 2 years for an individual to acknowledge that they are a carer.

These new Regulations, which came into force on 6 April 2024, provide employees with the right to take up to one week of statutory unpaid carer's leave in a 12-month period to care for, or arrange care for a 'dependant' who has:

• a physical or mental illness or injury that means they’re expected to need care for more than 3 months;
• a disability (as defined in the Equality Act 2010); and
• care needs because of their old age.

The right to carer's leave is available from day one of employment. Employment rights (like holidays and returning to their job) are protected during carer's leave.

Employees do not need to give evidence of their dependant's care needs.  

Flexible Working Changes

As of 6 April 2024, the regime for flexible working has also changed.  This is also supported by a new ACAS Code of Practice on flexible working requests.

• The right to make a flexible working request is now a Day One of employment right, and there has been increase in the number of requests which can be made in any 12 month period from one to two.
• Employers now have a shortened time period of 2 months to deal with the request (including any appeal).
• Employees do not need to set out, in their written request, what effect the proposed change to their working pattern would have on the organisation's business and how any effect could be dealt with.
• Employees have the right to be consulted by the employer before their employer reaches a decision.

Protection from Redundancy (Pregnancy and Family Leave) Act 2023

As of 6 April 2024, employees on maternity leave, shared parental leave, or adoption leave have an extended protection period in cases of redundancy, meaning that they have the right to be offered a suitable alternative vacancy, if one is available, before being made redundant. This gives employees on these types of leave priority access to redeployment opportunities over other redundant employees. The changes are as follows:

• Employees taking maternity leave (the same is extended to adoption leave), will now benefit from an enhanced protected period which will now begin on the day the employer is notified of the pregnancy and shall continue 18 months following the date of birth.
• Shared parental leave only needs to be taken for 6 consecutive weeks before an employee is eligible for protection for 18 months following the start of the arranged leave.
• In cases of pregnancy loss after 24 weeks, their protected period will end two weeks after the pregnancy ends.

Paternity Leave Regulations

As of 6 April 2024, employees are able to take paternity leave (or adoption) at any point within 12 months of the date of birth or adoption placement date.  Should employees take the full two weeks' leave, they can now split the time into blocks of one week and it does not need to be taken consecutively. The notice requirements have also changed as such requests only require 28 days' notice.

The Workers (Predictable Terms and Conditions) Act 2023

Expected to come into force in September 2024, there will be a new statutory right for workers to request a more predictable working pattern after they have worked for an employer for 26 weeks or more.

This will apply to:

• Workers with unpredictable work patterns.
• Workers on fixed-term contracts of 12 months or less.
• Agency workers.

A request can be made in relation to hours of work, days of work, or the period of engagement. For example, if someone is on a zero hours contract but is typically working 15 hours a week on certain days, after 26 weeks' service they can make a request for a contract which confirms that working pattern.

Duty to prevent sexual harassment

From October 2024, the Worker Protection (Amendment of Equality Act 2010) Act 2023 will strengthen existing protection for workers against sexual harassment. The new law will place a new duty on employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment. To demonstrate reasonable steps, employers should ensure they are implementing or refreshing their harassment policies and reporting procedures, conducting regular training sessions with managers and employees and taking any harassment complaints seriously.

Tribunals will have the power to increase compensation by up to 25% if they find an employer has breached this duty. 

How to navigate these changes.

Awareness of these changes is key:

• Ensure that your policies are up to date with the new legislation and promote these within your organisation. Make sure that your policies afford at least the minimum statutory protection and roll out training where necessary.

• Introduce a system of record-keeping to track entitlement, any leave taken, and even flag periods of extended protection – so that nothing gets missed down the line.

• Make sure that your line managers are up to date with the new regulations and have a good working knowledge of how your business policies deal with the changes.

• Create practices and provisions to safeguard your organisation.

Flexibility will look different in every organisation. For example at DAC Beachcroft, we have Flex Forward - a way of working which gives employees maximum flexibility in how they orchestrate their working day.

What measures are you reasonably able to put in place? Can you make any brief adaptions? Could you introduce home working or a hybrid model?

• Promote flexible working within your organisation, and actively show that you support the expansion of flexible working.

• Be aware of how your organisation appears to an outsider. Can you give flexibility, which supports the employment of those with unpaid caring responsibilities?

• Foster and prioritise a culture which promotes flexibility (as far as your organisation can stretch) and where employees feel that their employer is listening to them and cares.

For example, if we look at the new carer's regulations, an employee does not need to give evidence of their dependant's care needs. A good culture can make all the difference in what an employee chooses to share with you. Being in the know translates to you being able to support the employee in the best way that you can, and importantly decreases your chances of non-compliance.

It won't have escaped your attention that more changes are likely if there's a change in Government, with the Labour Party committing to more day one employment rights (including the right not to be unfairly dismissed), the  abolition of the worker/employee distinction with workers having all the rights currently only granted to employees,  the abolition of zero hours contracts and a commitment to ban employers who breach employment law, such as by paying below the minimum wage, from hiring migrant workers.  2024 has already been busy, and there's a lot more to come.

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