Are you ready for October’s trade union access rights? If you’ve never had to deal with a trade union, October might change that. From 1 October 2026, every employer in England, Wales and Scotland must give workers a written statement telling them that they have the right to join a trade union. That applies regardless […]
Press Release: October 2026 HR expert warns: Doubled tribunal time limit means that every decision is now claimable As of 1 October 2026, employees now have six months to bring a tribunal claim instead of three. For small business owners still relying on informal processes and patchy documentation, that extra time could prove very costly. […]
Right now, someone in your business is probably pasting client data into ChatGPT. If that data includes anything personal or commercially sensitive, you could be looking at a UK GDPR breach. The ICO doesn’t care that you didn’t know it was happening. Most employees are already using AI tools regularly. ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Grammarly, AI […]
A single tribunal claim can wipe out tens of thousands of pounds and consume months of your time. From January 2027, with the compensation cap being removed, those figures are only going to go up. The vast majority of claims don’t start with a dramatic incident. They start with small things that turn into bigger […]
Ask the wrong question in an interview and you could be facing a discrimination claim before you’ve even picked a candidate. Often these kinds of questions get asked innocently. The interviewer is usually just making conversation. But “I was just being friendly” doesn’t matter under discrimination law. The law judges the effect of a question […]
SOSR stands for “some other substantial reason” and, somewhere along the way, it became a catch-all excuse for employers who want to fire an employee but don’t have a compelling reason why. But, be warned employers. If you choose to use SOSR as your “we’ll work it out later” excuse for a dismissal, a tribunal […]
In October 2026, two separate legal duties around harassment will change. First, the standard for sexual harassment will upgrade from reasonable steps to “all” reasonable steps. This means that, if an employee of yours goes to tribunal over a sexual harassment claim, you need to be able to demonstrate that there were no further steps […]
If a client complains about one of your employees, reacting to please the client without considering your employee’s rights could be a costly mistake. Understandably, you have a commercial relationship to protect. Many business owners over-apologise to the client, pull the employee in for a sharp word and hope it blows over. But, as the […]
If your business breaches basic employee rights, the consequences could be huge. You could be ordered to pay back everything you owe, going back years. A worker can make a tribunal claim without a lawyer. The new Fair Work Agency (FWA) can audit your records, issue financial penalties and name you publicly. And, if your […]
If a tribunal claim lands on your desk, what you do next really matters. You have 28 days to act. And how you act can be the difference between successfully defending the claim and paying a large sum of money you potentially can’t afford. For most small business owners, it’s territory they’ve never been in […]
Dismissing employees is getting much more risky for business owners in the UK. Recent changes in the law mean that you can’t just let someone go and assume that everything will be okay. It’s easier (and therefore more likely) that an employee will claim that they were let go unfairly and the amount they can […]
A practical webinar on how to handle dismissal correctly. New rule changes in UK law mean that firing employees is getting trickier, riskier and potentially a lot more expensive. And small business owners are most at risk. With new laws already in place and more to come, dismissal is not something you can afford to […]
