HR Updates For 2025 | Season 2, Episode 4 | Recruitment and Beyond Podcast

Welcome to the latest episode of Recruitment and Beyond, the podcast that keeps you up to date on the dynamic world of HR and recruitment. Hosted by Ewan Anderson, Marketing Director at Eden Scott, this episode takes a deep dive into the transformative changes coming to HR legislation in 2025 and beyond. With the HR landscape evolving rapidly, staying informed is crucial for businesses aiming to build strong, resilient teams while navigating new compliance challenges. That’s why today’s episode is an essential listen for HR professionals, business leaders, and anyone interested in understanding the practical impacts of upcoming legislation.

Joining Ewan is Hannah Roche, Partner and Head of Employment Law at MBM Commercial. With nearly 14 years of experience advising small and medium-sized businesses on everything from recruitment contracts to employment disputes, Hannah brings a wealth of knowledge to the discussion. As head of MBM’s holistic HR services, she’s uniquely positioned to shed light on what these legislative updates mean for businesses of all sizes.

The conversation begins with an overview of the 2023 Employment Rights Bill, a pivotal piece of legislation designed to improve job security, promote fairness in the workplace, and boost economic growth. Hannah and Ewan explore the broad scope of the bill, which introduces sweeping reforms across unfair dismissal, family leave, flexible working, trade union laws, and much more. While some changes will come into effect in 2025, others will roll out as late as 2026, giving businesses time to prepare.

A key focus of the discussion is the shift toward "day-one rights" for employees, including significant changes to unfair dismissal protections. Hannah breaks down how these reforms are likely to affect recruitment strategies, onboarding processes, and workplace dynamics, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises. She emphasizes the importance of proactive planning, highlighting how enhanced diligence during recruitment and a renewed focus on onboarding and probation processes can help businesses adapt to these changes while maintaining a productive and engaged workforce.

The podcast also delves into new obligations around sexual harassment prevention, including a proactive duty for employers to safeguard employees and an extension of liability to cover harassment by third parties, such as clients or contractors. Hannah outlines practical steps businesses can take, from updating policies to implementing regular, tailored training, to create a safe and inclusive workplace culture.

Throughout the episode, Ewan and Hannah emphasize the need for businesses to stay ahead of these changes, not only to ensure compliance but also to turn potential challenges into opportunities for growth and innovation. With tips on leveraging free resources, engaging senior management, and seeking timely legal advice, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help businesses navigate the road ahead.

As the HR landscape continues to shift, the Recruitment and Beyond podcast is here to guide you through these changes with expert advice and practical strategies. Whether you're an HR professional looking to future-proof your processes or a business leader aiming to foster a thriving workplace culture, this episode is a must-listen.

Stay tuned for an engaging conversation that will equip you with the tools and knowledge you need to tackle the challenges of 2025 and beyond. Don't forget to subscribe to Recruitment and Beyond to stay informed about the latest develo

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Transcript

Ewan (00:05):

Hi, and welcome to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. My name's Ewan Anderson. I'm the marketing director here at Eden Scott. This is your essential guide to navigating the ever-changing world of human resources and recruitment. We chat with industry leading figures to give you the inside track on growing and developing the very best teams. Hi, and welcome back to the Recruitment and Beyond podcast. We are joined today by Hannah Roach from MBM Commercial. Hannah is the partner and head of Employment Law and Holistic hr. Hannah, great to have you with us.

Hannah (00:44):

Thanks, Ewan. Lovely to be here.

Ewan (00:47):

Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about your background at MBM Commercial?

Hannah (00:52):

Sure. So I have been with MBM Commercial for nearly 14 years, actually, but never a dull moment. As you know, I head up the employment law team. So we advise hundreds and hundreds of clients, the majority of which are small to medium sized businesses, and we advise them in all aspects of employment law. So from the very start when they're taking on new staff and we need contracts of employment where they might need consultancy agreements or that kind of thing all the way up to the end of employment, which sometimes is a happy thing and sometimes is not. So termination of employment, settlement agreements, that kind of thing. And then everything in between. So it might be advising on family friendly rights, maternity, paternity, that kind of thing, discrimination, chippy transfers, disciplinary grievances, all that kind of thing. And we also assist our corporate colleagues because as you know, m BM is mostly a corporate law firm, and we're quite often selling businesses, buying and selling, but mostly selling businesses to bigger businesses. And we advise on what happens to the employees in that sort of scenario.

(02:22):

You mentioned holistic HR before, so that's one of the services we run within the department. So that's a sort of fixed fee annualized helpline if you like. It's an advice service for small businesses that don't tend to have their own hr. So we've got about hundred companies on that service. So aside from that, I'm also a partner, which means that I'm part owner of MBM commercial and obviously I have to have a management role. And my role management role is staff partner. So since I've been doing that role, I've had much more of an insight into how my clients feel when they have to deal with HR issues. Thankfully we have very few HR issues here at bm, but it has really helpful to get it from the other point of view.

Ewan (03:19):

Absolutely.

Hannah (03:19):

So that's been good.

Ewan (03:21):

Very good. So today, I mean, there's lots of changes coming from an HR point of view, isn't there over the next couple of years really, and

(03:29):

Just wanted to get a feel for what that looks like, what's coming down the road, and really just to help people understand what they need to keep an eye out for and how they might adapt their business. So I guess as part of that, there's some changes to the employment rights bill, which was introduced actually in 2023. But as we roll out and we roll out, the changes that come 2025 and 2026 seem to be quite important years. So you want to tell us a little bit about the changes that have come as part of that employments right bill and what we should be looking out for?

Hannah (04:04):

Yeah, sure. So yeah, you're right. The employment rights bill was introduced on the 10th of October last year, and it proposes really very wide ranging changes to employment law. So there's changes to the law around unfair dismissal to the fire and hire practices that some employers operate to collective redundancies. There's some changes there, zero hours contracts. There's also changes to trade union law, sexual harassment or prevention of sexual harassment, third party harassment, which I'll come on to changes to statutory sick pay, flexible working, and to family leave. So as I say, it's really wide ranging.

Ewan (04:57):

There's a lot.

Hannah (04:58):

Yeah, there's a lot. And of course this is because it was part of Labor Party's pledge before the election. It was really going to do a big reform of employment law and the purpose was to boost wages to reduce insecure work and grow the economy. So that's what they've tried to do. There are 28 reforms included in the bill, but as you see, most are not coming in for quite some time. So it's probably 2026, but the majority of the changes will come into force.

Ewan (05:42):

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think one of the ones that you've touched on, and we talked about this before, is the unfair dismissal, the proposed changes that are coming in there. So what sort of thing are we looking out for there in terms of unfair dismissal? What sort of changes are coming down the line?

Hannah (05:57):

Yeah, well, it's probably useful to look at the situation we have at the moment and then compare it to how it's going to be when this particular team change comes in.

(06:11):

So this is, I'd say the most significant change, or at least in relation to the type of clients that we have, being small to medium sized businesses. So at the moment, in order for an employee to make a claim of unfair dismissal at the employment tribunal, they need to have at least two years of continuous service with that employer. Now, of course, there are some exceptions to that. So there's something called automatically unfair dismissal. So if you're dismissed because you're pregnant or you're dismissed because of trade union activity, something like that or whistle blowing, you can still make a claim in those circumstances. But for ordinary, unfair dismissals, so let's say you're dismissed for poor performance or misconduct

(07:02):

Or redundancy, you need to have two year service in order to make a claim, otherwise you're just not eligible to do so. And that has been the situation for really quite a long time now, that two year qualifying period. And what it does of course, is that it gives the employer a reasonable amount of flexibility without facing too much in the way of legal risk. So if things are just not working out for whatever fair reason, and it does still have to be a fair reason, they can park company with the employee and they wouldn't have too much legal risk. There are various other risks, but we won't get into them. And that was the main one. So the employment rights bill's going to change this because what it says is that unfair dismissal is going to become what's known as a day one. So from day one of employment, in theory, at least an employee if they're dismissed, will be able to make an unfair dismissal claim. So that's obviously a huge change and we'll have a number of consequences. So I think one of the consequences really will be that there'll be a lot more in the way of tribunal claims because it just have a lot more people who are eligible to make eligible.

(08:29):

And in turn, because there'll be much more litigation, it stands to reason that there'll be many more out of court settlements because a lot of employment claims or the majority really are settled out of court. If there's more litigation, there's likely to be more settlements. So this is the change that's not going to come in until autumn of 2026. That's what we've been told so far. So there's a lot of time for employers to prepare, but part of that will be time for the government to consult on the changes with various stakeholders including business. And when the bill was introduced in October last year, there was quite a lot of commentary from business groups about how this would adversely affect small businesses, not just small businesses, but particularly them. So the theory is that it will lead to less recruitment and less investment in small businesses, whether that's the case remains to be seen, but certainly employers will want to be doing a lot more diligence on candidates before taking them on.

Ewan (09:54):

Yeah,

Hannah (09:56):

Yeah.

Ewan (09:57):

I mean, it definitely seems like that it's going to impact recruitment, isn't it? But I suppose to that end, it's almost going to focus the mind, isn't it? It's going to focus the mind and make sure your processes in terms of recruitment are really sharp because the difficulty of having someone who's not the right fit for the business, it's going to become a real challenge quite quickly. Is there some sort of period they're going to introduce as part of that rather than obviously day one? Is there going to be what I think you put in your notes here and a strategy probation period or initial period?

Hannah (10:28):

Yeah, so the short form the government has used is that this is going to be a day one, but you're right, there is going to be this sort of statutory probationary period, which they call the initial period, or that's what it's called in the bill. So the idea appears to be, and we're very light on detail at the moment, but the idea appears to be that there will be still a relatively straightforward way of dismissing employees still for fair purposes or very reasons during the initial period for certain potentially fair reasons. And this assumes that the employer is going to follow a modified procedure. So that's some sort of something akin to disciplinary procedure, something like that. So the potentially fair reasons, excuse me, I've got one of those January codes. The potentially fair reasons will be lack of capability to do the job or performance misconduct dismissal because of some statutory restriction. So that's, say the situation, if you take somebody on as a driver and then they lose their driver's license, then that's a statutory restriction. They can't carry out the job without the law. So that's a statutory restriction and dismissal for some other substantial reason. That's a sort of catchall reason, but it has to be a really good reason, good, fair reason, which justifies dismissal.

(12:12):

So what we know about the provisions in the bill at the moment is that if an employer decides to dismiss an employee within the initial period of employment, or if the employer gives notice within the period, and the termination date is within three months of the last day of the initial period, assuming that the dismissal is because of one of the potentially fair reasons I've just mentioned, and assuming they've followed this modified procedure details of which we're still waiting for, then they'll not be eligible to make an unfair dismissal claim. So what that really I think means is that you're still going to have this period of time where employers do have flexibility, it's just that there's going to be a few more hoops to jump through to show that they have been fair and reasonable in that kind of situation. So the initial periods mean, that's obviously the crucial question. How long is the initial period?

Ewan (13:21):

Well, yeah,

Hannah (13:23):

So we don't actually have confirmation of that yet, but the word in the street is that it's going to be nine months.

Ewan (13:32):

Nine months. Yeah. I noticed that from some of the detail and some of the notes and so on, not to get you to go into the minds of those that have drafted these bills, but where's the advantage? What is the purpose of bringing something like this in? Is it very much a focus on, as you touched on at the top employee rights, reducing the lack of certainty around jobs, but also to drive innovation and drive growth? Think is that part of this process? Is that part of why this is

Hannah (14:03):

Introduced? Yeah, I mean, the government has said that the rationale is to give employees more security. And I guess that that's what it will do. I mean, it's a very insecure situation. If you start a new job and you're dismissed within three months, that's going to affect how you lead your life and how you spend your money. So I suppose they want more security for employees, and they are the labor government, that's what they were set up to do. So I guess they were always going to do something like that. And I suppose in turn they think, well, with more job security that will drive growth and you'll get people spending more money because they're more secure in employment that will help the economy. So I guess that's what the rationale is. Yeah,

Ewan (15:00):

And I noticed that. And just to jump ahead slightly, in terms of tribunal time limits, these have changed as well. They, I suppose, is this going to have an impact as well? Because obviously if you're bringing more cases like this, then this is going to have an impact. And if the tribunal time limits, you mentioned that at the start has changed, how will that affect things?

Hannah (15:21):

So that's an interesting interaction because you're right, the tribunal time limits. So that's the time that an employee has between the date of the thing that they're complaining about, which could be a discriminatory act by an employer, or it could be a dismissal by employer. Generally speaking, they have around three months to make a claim like that. There's a number of factors that feed into the exact time limit, but they tend to be pretty strict on that. So that has been for some time considered to be a reasonable period to give the employee to make a claim that they want to do that, but also is balanced against the employer's need for certainty and not having litigation hanging over them. So at the moment, it's around about three months, but the bill is changing the periods at six months. So that's doubling the period. That might be to account for the additional claims that might come in because of the D one, unfair dismissal rights. But again, a change that favors the employee that the whole purpose of the Labor Party is to safeguard the rights of workers. And it certainly does that. So on the one hand, it's not great for employers because it increases that period of uncertainty. You just don't know when a claim might hit. But on the other hand, it does give a longer period in which to settle any dispute out of court.

Ewan (17:09):

Yeah,

Hannah (17:10):

Okay.

Ewan (17:11):

Yeah, I mean, just to quickly jump back to that unfair dismissal piece with your experience in terms of some of these cases that have gone through so far, what sort of things or advice can you give to companies who say, right, well, what do we need to do to almost avoid the situation? And nobody's going to avoid it completely. The purpose of this thing, isn't it? Is that you want to do recruitment, you want to grow, you want to develop your team. Is it a real focus on really understanding the people you want to bring in? Is it sharpening up on your processes? Is it sharpening up on things like job descriptions and so on that can really help avoid the wrong hire, I suppose?

Hannah (17:51):

Yeah, yeah, it's all of those things. I think the job description is an important one because I guess businesses will need to give a lot of thought to what do we need this person to do, or what do we need this job to do?

(18:11):

And is it a straight replacement from the person that used to be in this job, or do we actually need something different? So maybe it's a bit more thought around what's the function of this job and what do we need from the person who's going to do it? So a bit more thought around that. And then a bit of diligence around the candidate, or at least a bit more than possibly happens at the moment. That might be more following up upon references. It might be more stages to interviews. It might be interviews with a number of people within the organization, not just one, all that kind of thing to tell you about that, all about that.

Ewan (18:59):

Well, no, I mean it is interesting. We've produced a report that talks about the employees optimal level of interviews being two. And I envisage that potentially changing as companies do try to future-proof themselves and avoid an increase in litigation, I suppose. So yeah, it'll be interesting balance as we go forward, I guess.

Hannah (19:22):

And then I guess as is the case now, but I think it brings it into sharper focus. It's so important for the employer to do their bit as well. So this person has applied for a job with you, you've taken them on, and then it's really important to get the induction right as well. You want things to go well for both parties, so induction will be important. And having those review meetings and diarizing probation meetings and all that kind of thing.

Ewan (19:54):

And I think that part is so important. Appreciate this is delving into the HR recruitment side of things, but that onboarding I think sometimes is dismissed as a nice to have. We'll do that. We will make sure that happens and tends not to. And it's such an important part of that process, isn't it? Because once people are coming in the door, they want to feel part of the team and they need to. And I think that's a key part of where issues rise, issues come up because people haven't had that full introduction to the company.

Hannah (20:24):

They haven't been integrated as they might been been. And also maybe they just don't have a clear idea of what it's that they're supposed to be doing, which is pretty isolating feeling. So yeah, I think you're right. I think more focus on induction would be really helpful and help that person stay in the job and do well.

Ewan (20:47):

So just to move on slightly, you mentioned there that there might be some changes coming in terms of family leave, what's coming down the tracks for that?

Hannah (20:55):

So there's going to be more day one rights there as well. So this really means that employees will have the right from day one of employment to things like paternity leave. So currently people taking paternity leave have to have at least 26 weeks of continuous service in order to take the leave leave. But when the bill comes into for or when that part of the bill comes into for, that will be a day one. And the reason for that really is to bring paternity leave into alignment with maternity leave and adoption leave, because those things are already day one rights. So it's just to equalize the situation there

Ewan (21:46):

Just to line that up. Okay. Okay. And you also mentioned flexible working requests, I guess, and I guess this is in line with those day one requests as well. Is there a change coming there as well?

Hannah (22:00):

Yeah, there was a small change, but there has already been a slightly bigger change,

Ewan (22:04):

Which

Hannah (22:05):

Some employers may know about and some may have missed. But basically the right is not too flexible working the right is to request flexible working and for that request to be taken seriously and considered by the employer. And since April last year, 2024, that has been a day one. So as soon as their employed employees can make a request to work

Ewan (22:36):

Flexibly,

Hannah (22:38):

So that might be to work part-time hours, it might be to work from home, it might be a job share, something like that. And what's not changing is that the employer can refuse the request if it's for one of a number of prescribed business reasons. So there's a number of reasons, eight or nine reasons that the employer can give for refusing a request. So for example, that could be inability to reorganize the work amongst existing staff, or they might say, if we were to agree to this request, it would've a detrimental impact on the quality of the work that we produce or our performance or to meet customer demand. So those are three of the prescribed reasons, and there's a number more. So that's still the case, but what the bill does is to strengthen the right a bit by introducing a provision that says the employer's refusal of a flexible working request for a prescribed reason has to be reasonable.

Ewan (23:56):

Yes. I noticed this word reasonable in your notes, so I was interested to find out what passes is reasonable.

Hannah (24:04):

Yeah, well, we don't know that yet, but I mean, you would like to think that an employer's refusal to place for working request would already be reasonable,

Ewan (24:16):

And I'm

Hannah (24:16):

Sure the majority are. So the reasonableness, it remains to be seen what that really means. And I guess unless the legislation sets out what is going to be reasonable, it'll be up to the employment tribunal to decide whether an employer has been reasonable. But I guess I suppose what an employer shouldn't be doing is just plucking out these business reasons and saying, don't really fancy you working. We're just going to say, no, you can't. Cause there's going to be a impact on customer demand or whatever. They would probably have to be able to evidence that

(25:01):

And show that that has been a reasonable response. So there is this change there, and it remains to be seen how it will pan out, but it's not a major change. And I think maybe what's more impactful will be not a claim relating to a breach of the flexible working regulations, but a claim relating to discrimination. And the reason for that is quite often flexible working requests are made by women who maybe want to work part-time or work from home, and it might be for childcare purposes, something like that. And so the refusal there might amount to sex discrimination. And equally, if the request is made by somebody with a disability and is unreasonably refused, then that might be a disability discrimination claim. So I think that's the bigger risk. But to be honest, it's always been the bigger risk. So the change here is a small one, but nonetheless, it's worth

Ewan (26:12):

Noting. That's great, thank you. Well, I think we're going to take a little break and we'll be back after this. And so then just moving this on to the changes that are coming down in terms of sexual harassment. Do you want to give us a bit of an overview of those changes?

Hannah (26:33):

Yeah, so obviously, and unfortunately sexual harassment has been in the news an awful lot recently. Some very high profile cases we've heard about, heard about the BBC and the allegations against Greg Wallace, McDonald's, many, many more. So it's part of the national and indeed international dialogue just now. So I think it was something that the government had to do more to address. So this is another one where a change came in last year and another change is coming in via the employment rights bill. So just to recap, because it was only October last year when the change happened, and again, some employers might have been aware of it and perhaps some weren't. But I should say though that it has long been the case that employers have an obligation to their employees to safeguard their employees. And they have, it's long been the case that employers are vicariously liable for the sexual harassment of one of their employees by another. And the only way that they could get out of that liability was to show that they had taken all reasonable steps to prevent it, which is really quite hard thing to do. All reasonable steps is hard to evidence.

(28:18):

So employees, I guess were already fairly well protected, but by the law at least. But now what's happened is since October, there's a proactive duty on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. So it's a sort of forward looking obligation rather than a backward looking obligation if you like. So that might be something like we've carried out qualities training, we've carried out training about what conduct is acceptable and what's not. We've carried out risk assessments and we've looked at areas in our business where perhaps employees are at particular risk of sexual harassment. And then we've identified those risks and then we've thought about what we can do to address them and we've implemented them. So it's that kind of thing. So that new proactive obligation came in October, as I say, and if an employee can show that an employer has failed in that new duty, then the employment can increase. The award that it gives to the employee for being harassed can be increased by up to 25%. Right. And the type of awards, they can be very, very high. So 25% or up to 25% on top can be very significant.

Ewan (30:03):

Absolutely.

Hannah (30:03):

So that's a big deterrent there. And also the equality commission can investigate the employer and can take enforcement action. So that's the other penalty. So as I say, some employers will be all over this and have taken steps already. Others it might be a bit less familiar to 'em, but as I say, that's already coming to forth. But the new employment rights bill will take things a step further. And so what the bill does, it extends the responsibility to cover third parties.

Ewan (30:44):

Right, okay.

Hannah (30:45):

So in other words, when the change takes place, employers will be under a duty to not only take reasonable steps to prevent the harassment of their employees by other employees, but also by third parties. So that would be clients, contractors, visitors to your premises, all that kind of thing. And that relates to all forms of harassment, disability harassment, racial harassment, not just sexual harassment. So that's known as the obligation to prevent third party harassment. So that's obviously going to make things harder for employers. They've clearly, they've got less control over third parties than they do over their own employees, and it makes the financial stakes higher. So yeah, they need to really, it's particularly important and impactful for employers in the hospitality and retail sectors.

Ewan (31:48):

Okay. Yeah,

Hannah (31:49):

Because they're dealing with third parties, public,

Ewan (31:51):

So many different suppliers and so on. Yeah, I mean, that's quite an extension, isn't it? So quite challenging, I would suggest. Is there any practical steps? You mentioned a couple of things there around training and so on. Is there anything else that people should be thinking about if you've not already addressed this at work, then? Is there anything that companies can have a think about?

Hannah (32:14):

Well, it's a bare minimum. They should ensure that they've got the correct kind of policies in place. So workplace policies, equality, diversity, inclusion policy, there should be an anti-bullying and harassment policy, and they might even have a separate standalone sexual harassment or prevention of sexual harassment policy policy. So they need to be put in place if they're not already in place. If they're in place, they need to be reviewed to make sure they're up to date. They're still fit for purpose. And all employers really need to make sure that they're not just words written on the page, that actually employees have seen them have read them and understood them, can ask questions about them and that they follow those policies. So that's the first kind of thing. The second thing, as you've mentioned there, is to ensure that there's regular training in relation to equality in the workplace and preventing discrimination and harassment. And again, that needs to take place regularly, maybe once a year. It needs to be tailored to the organization in question. So there's no point having training with whole load of scenarios that relate to retail if you work in an office

(33:42):

And different kinds of businesses will have different pinch points if you like, different risk factors. Yeah. So I mentioned hospitality, there's issues there. There's a lot of contact with the general public. There might also be consumption of alcohol, but in professional services firms, they've got different kind of risks. There's more power dynamics because there's a very hierarchical traditional structure to most of these kinds of organizations. But the other thing is the culture has to be right. It's really a cultural matter. And I suppose culture often comes from the top, doesn't it? So it's the person who's responsible for HR in an organization. They should be really trying to talk to those senior management, getting buy-in that this is something that we need to take seriously and we want to ensure that we have a release safe and enjoyable work environment for everybody.

Ewan (34:54):

Yeah. Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. The leadership side of things is so important to drive those cultures and to ensure that people feel safe at work, especially as you mentioned there, I wasn't even thinking about if you're working in hospitality, alcohol is involved as well. There's a whole raft of opportunities. And I suppose it's just mean taking reasonable steps to make sure that your employees are safe at all times is, it can be challenging, but I think if you are seen to make sure that you're doing everything you can, and it comes from leadership and actually you're doing all that you can to make sure that happens. And it's not entirely easy when there's scenarios where you're out and about and in different places and so on. But I think if you've taken every opportunity, then I think you're going in the right direction, shall would say.

Hannah (35:41):

Yes, absolutely. And you see you a lot of pain in the long run.

Ewan (35:45):

Yes, yes, yes. No, absolutely. Well, I mean, thank you very much for that. I think there's, there's a lot of changes that are coming down the road, particularly around that day one, right? I think it is the day one, right? Changes that are really going to have an impact. And a lot of these things, while they aren't going to take place until 2026, it's about making sure that you're getting ready and that you're preparing yourself and just staying ahead of the game. Obviously, as you mentioned, some of the detail hasn't really come out yet, but actually speaking to the team at MBM or checking it, I would no doubt there'll be blogs and content on there just to keep people up to date and abreast of all the changes. Is there three top tips I guess you could give us and give our listeners just to help them steer, steer the right path?

Hannah (36:32):

Yeah, well sign up for legal updates. That might be with us. We're going to be running training sessions as we know a bit more detail. So if you're the person in your organization responsible for hr, there's so much in the way of resource out there and a lot of it is free. So make use of that, make sure that you're ahead of the game. As you say, start talking to senior management now about these changes. Because I think if you're a senior manager, but your focus is not HR and you're maybe on the sales side or whatever it is, this might not be your top focus, but it's going to have an impact on budgets. It's going to have an impact on recruitment plans and just the general mindset of the employer. So start a dialogue about it now. And really the third thing is, and you probably think, oh, well you would say this, but the third thing, when the changes do come into force, it's worth taking legal advice before taking action with regard to employees, because it could be a 10 minute phone call that saves you a world of pain afterwards.

Ewan (37:55):

Yes, absolutely.

Hannah (37:56):

That will do the trick.

Ewan (37:57):

Absolutely.

Hannah (38:00):

When these changes are so far reaching and so unfamiliar, it's worth taking a little bit of legal advice to make sure that you don't end up in employment tribunal.

Ewan (38:14):

No problem. Well, thank you again, Hannah. It is a great discussion today. I really enjoyed that and some great insight for our listeners as well. So thank you very much for your time and we will hopefully catch up soon.

Hannah (38:25):

Thanks, Yun. Thanks for having me.

Ewan (38:32):

Thanks for listening to Recruitment and Beyond podcast. Hopefully there was plenty of insight for you to take back to your teams, so don't forget to subscribe and never miss an episode. And if you can leave us a review, we really appreciate all the feedback and support we get. It makes a massive difference.