Day: 2 April 2026
The first stage of the implementation of the Employment Rights Act 2025 is coming into force from 6th April, bringing a significant raft of changes to many aspects of employment. At the ABC, we’ve been looking at how this could affect our member climbing walls.
Here’s a reminder of some of the key changes that could affect you and your teams:
- Day one rights to paternity leave and parental leave. Currently paternity leave rights only apply after 26 weeks, and ordinary or unpaid parental leave only becomes a right after 52 weeks in employment.
- New statutory right to bereaved partners’ paternity leave
- Statutory sick pay will be paid from the first day of illness, instead of the fourth, and the lower earnings limit will be removed.
- Collective redundancy protections are increased with the maximum protective reward for failing to consult in collective redundancy doubling from 90 to 180 days’ pay.
- Sexual harassment will become a ‘qualifying disclosure’ giving protection to whistleblowers.
- Gender pay gap and menopause action plans become voluntary on 6th April but will become mandatory during 2027.
What you should do next
- Review the Guide to Employment Law Changes in the ABC Members Portal for more detail and compare against your own policies, procedures and pay budgets.
- ABC Members get totally free and confidential HR advice from our partners WorkNest. You can contact their solicitors via the hotline in the members’ portal for 1:1 advice.
- Join Worknest for their upcoming webinar, “Employment Rights Act 2025 – your questions answered”, on 16th April 2pm.
