Hiring the right person for your role is what everyone aims for, but ensuring compliance is equally important. It’s important that you, your HR team, and your business keep up with Employment Law updates.
In October 2024, we hosted an Everything Changes in Employment Law – a seminar for our clients to hear from Laura McKenna, an Employment Lawyer at McKee Campbell Morrison, where she discussed the key developments employers should be aware of. While the seminar focused on changes taking effect from 2024 onwards to strengthen workers’ rights, the lessons learnt apply to any future changes in employment law.
The biggest takeaway? Preparation is everything. You hear it all the time—prepare for the interview, prepare for onboarding—but preparation begins even earlier. In this blog, we’ve outlined some of the key lessons from the seminar, complete with practical tips to keep you compliant
1. Keep Informed
Understanding the direction of employment law changes allows you to be proactive when planning recruitment and reviewing contracts and policies.
Follow employment law firms, government bodies and employment lawyers (we highly recommend Laura!) and use tools like Google Alerts to monitor changes in real-time.
By making this an ongoing practice, you’ll avoid surprises and have more time to plan for the necessary adjustments.
2. Review what you have in place
Take the time to review your current contracts, disciplinary procedures, probationary periods, and policies—from sickness absence to dismissal. Employment law changes often affect key aspects of contracts and policies, such as working hours, dismissal procedures, and health and safety standards.
Ask yourself, are they compliant with current laws? What changes could you make to future-proof them? For example, is there talk of a four-day workweek or new gender pay gap regulations? Proactively updating your policies can save you from making multiple revisions later.
3. Invest in training
Not following correct procedures is no excuse for non-compliance, and having the proper policies in place isn’t enough if your managers don’t know how to implement them properly. Make sure that all levels of management are trained in compliance with the latest employment law updates.
Proper training not only reduces the risk of legal challenges but also promotes a fair and consistent approach across your business.
4. Fine-tune your recruitment
Recruitment is about more than just finding the right person. Getting your recruitment process right the first time will save you time and money. Employment law affects everything from the questions you ask in an interview to how you handle background checks and references.
Invest in each step—get to know your candidates, thoroughly check references, carry out the correct pre-employment checks and ask the right (non-discriminatory) questions during interviews.
If you’d like to dive deeper into how these changes could impact your recruitment and what we can do to help ensure compliance, book a time with the team for a consultation using the form below.