Employment Rights Act 2025: is your HR team resourced for the changes?

Since the Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent in December 2025, its reforms have been arriving in stages, with changes to trade union law, family leave and statutory sick pay already in force, longer employment tribunal time limits applying from 1 October 2026 and new harassment duties taking effect on 30 October 2026. With a shorter qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims and new restrictions on fire and rehire still to come in January 2027, the question for most employers is no longer whether their policies need reviewing, but whether their HR team has the capacity to keep reviewing them while continuing to run everything else.

In this article, we look at what the reforms mean for your HR function, where the extra workload is likely to fall, and the three main ways to make sure your team is properly resourced to handle it.

What is changing under the Employment Rights Act 2025?

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the most significant overhaul of UK employment law in a generation, and rather than arriving on a single date, it is being phased in across 2026 and 2027. The reforms cover trade union rights, statutory sick pay, family leave, harassment, employment tribunal time limits, unfair dismissal and redundancy procedures, and because several implementation dates have already moved since the Act was passed, simply keeping track of them has become a job in itself.

Here are the key dates HR teams need to know:

Dates are correct at the time of writing in October 2026. For a look at what else HR teams can expect, see People Management’s guide to what HR teams need to know about 2027.

What does the Employment Rights Act mean for your HR team?

For HR teams, the Act creates three ongoing streams of work on top of the day job: updating policies, keeping employees informed and preparing line managers. None of these is a one-off task, because each new phase of the reforms brings another round of reviews, communications and training.

Updating policies and contracts

Policies covering sick leave, family leave, harassment, flexible working and dismissal all need reviewing against the new requirements, along with employment contracts, handbooks and onboarding documents. The new harassment duty shows how far this work can reach, since taking all reasonable steps to prevent harassment means looking again at your risk assessments, reporting routes and training as well as the policy itself.

Keeping employees informed

Employees will want to know what is changing, how it affects them and what your business is doing in response, and some reforms, such as the new duty to tell workers about their right to join a trade union, make communication a legal requirement rather than simply good practice. Clear and timely updates also help to build trust and reduce the number of individual queries landing on HR.

Preparing line managers

Line managers will be the ones applying many of these changes day to day, from handling sickness absence and parental leave requests to responding to harassment complaints and managing new starters through a shorter unfair dismissal qualifying period. Giving them the knowledge and confidence to follow the new processes, and being clear about what you expect of them, reduces the risk of a well-meaning manager making a costly mistake, particularly now that employees have six months rather than three to bring most tribunal claims.

How can you resource your HR team for the Employment Rights Act?

There are three main ways to resource the changes: manage them in-house, work with an HR consultancy, or hire an interim employment law specialist. The right choice depends on the expertise already in your team, how much capacity it has alongside its day-to-day workload, and whether you need support for a few months or on a more permanent basis.

1. Manage the changes in-house

If your team has the expertise and the capacity, sharing the work according to each person’s skills can be an efficient and cost-effective approach. Alternatively, you could treat the reforms as a dedicated project and free up one member of the team to focus on them, provided the rest of the team can absorb their usual workload. The risk is that this relies on your team keeping pace with every update while still delivering everything else, which is a lot to ask of a team that is already stretched, particularly while implementation dates are still shifting.

2. Work with an HR consultancy

Working with an experienced HR consultancy, such as our partner Peninsula Business Services, gives you access to specialist expertise and practical support without adding to your headcount. With flexible services tailored to the needs of your business, a consultancy can review and update your policies, advise on new requirements and support the implementation of the changes. This allows your internal team to stay focused on its core responsibilities, reduces the risk of excessive workloads and burnout, and gives you confidence that you are meeting your legal obligations and avoiding costly mistakes.

3. Hire an interim employment law specialist

Not every HR team will have the expertise or the capacity to manage these changes internally, and while you may have managed to get by until now, continuing to stretch your existing team is rarely the most effective solution. An interim employment law specialist can review the changes made to date, carry out a full audit of your existing policies and procedures, identify any gaps, and advise on and implement the updates needed to ensure compliance. Once that work is complete, your team should be better equipped to manage ongoing requirements, at least until the next round of reforms arrives.

The process may also reveal a wider need within your business. If your HR team spends most of its time on day-to-day operational matters, this could be the right moment to consider hiring a permanent HR Business Partner, who can provide more strategic support and help the business prepare for future change.

Is your HR team ready for what comes next?

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is not a single deadline that HR teams can prepare for and then move on from, but a rolling programme of reform that will run well into 2027, with each new phase bringing more policies to review, more conversations with employees and more support for line managers. For many businesses, the biggest risk is not a lack of awareness of the changes, but a lack of capacity to keep up with them alongside everything else HR is responsible for.

Whether you decide to manage the reforms in-house, bring in an HR consultancy or hire interim or permanent specialist support, the important thing is to make that decision now, while there is still time to get ahead of the January 2027 changes rather than reacting to them.

If you’re considering interim or permanent support for your HR team, Portfolio HR & Reward can help you find the right specialist for your business. Get in touch with our team to talk through your requirements.

Frequently asked questions

When does the Employment Rights Act 2025 come into force?

The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025 and is being phased in across 2026 and 2027. Some changes, including day-one paternity leave and the statutory sick pay reforms, are already in force, while others, such as the shorter qualifying period for unfair dismissal, take effect from January 2027.

What is the new qualifying period for unfair dismissal?

From January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims will be reduced from two years to six months, which means employees will be protected much earlier in their employment.

How long do employees have to bring an employment tribunal claim?

From 1 October 2026, the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims increased from three months to six months, giving employees twice as long to bring a claim after the event in question.

Do employers need extra HR resource for the Employment Rights Act?

Not every employer will, but many HR teams will find it difficult to absorb the extra workload alongside their day-to-day responsibilities. The main options are to redistribute the work in-house, use an HR consultancy, or hire an interim employment law specialist to audit and update your policies.