Employment law is changing, and employers need to be ready.

Yesterday, I had a brilliant and genuinely insightful experience at Daniel Barnett’s Employment Law Masterclass, exploring some of the significant developments that are going to affect employers, HR teams and employees over the coming months.

There was a lot to take away from the day, but four areas in particular stood out to me.

Probationary rights

Changes around probationary periods are likely to require employers to take a closer look at how they manage new starters, expectations, performance and dismissal during the early stages of employment.

For businesses, it’s not simply about understanding what the new law says — it’s about making sure contracts, policies and day-to-day processes reflect those changes.

Third-party harassment

The workplace doesn’t exist in isolation, and employers need to consider how they protect employees from inappropriate behaviour by third parties, such as customers, clients or other people they interact with as part of their work.

This is an area where having clear policies and procedures is not sufficient. There are a number of steps employers should take to ensure employees, managers and third parties understand their responsibilities, are aware of the organisation’s zero-tolerance approach, know how to report concerns, which can be evidenced should a claim arise.

AI-assisted grievances

One particularly interesting area was looking at how employers should manage AI-assisted grievances.

With employees increasingly using AI to help draft workplace complaints, a grievance can potentially run to many pages and contain a significant amount of additional information, background and commentary. The challenge for the employer is being able to work through that material and identify the substance of the grievance; what has actually happened, what has caused the employee concern, and what they are seeking to have addressed.

It’s therefore important to have a clear and consistent approach to identifying the key issues, ensuring that the employee’s genuine concerns are properly understood and that the grievance is investigated appropriately, rather than becoming lost amongst the volume of AI-generated content.

Trade union recognition and access rights

The position around trade union recognition and access rights is also evolving, with significant changes for employers to be aware of.

In particular, organisations with 21 or more workers will need to understand the new statutory framework around trade union access to the workplace, including physical and digital access, and how they should respond to requests from trade unions.

With these changes coming into effect from January 1st 2027, employers should be considering now what this could mean for their organisation and making sure they have appropriate processes in place.

So, what does this mean for employers?

For me, the biggest takeaway from the Masterclass was that these aren’t changes employers should leave until they come into force.

Some of these developments are coming into effect at the end of October, so now is the time to review your contracts, policies, procedures and management practices and identify where you may need to make changes.

Employment law can be complex, and keeping up with the changes while running a business can feel like a job in itself.

That’s where I can help.