Employment law update: The ERA 2025

About this event

Navigating the Employment Rights Act 2025

The Employment Team at Kitsons Boyce will present a practical guide to navigating the Employment Rights Act 2025

• The End of the Two-Year Buffer: Transitioning to the new six-month qualifying period for unfair dismissal and understanding the "lighter-touch" procedures for the initial period of employment.

• Ending "One-Sided Flexibility": Managing the new duty to offer guaranteed hours contracts to zero-hours and agency workers, alongside providing reasonable notice of shifts and compensation for cancellations.

• Tackling Workplace Culture: Meeting the higher "all reasonable steps" duty to prevent harassment, including new liabilities for third-party conduct by customers or contractors.

• Day-One Rights & Sick Pay: Preparing for immediate eligibility for paternity and parental leave, and the removal of waiting days for Statutory Sick Pay (SSP).

• Fire and Rehire Restrictions: Navigating the new rules that make dismissals for "restricted variations" to pay or hours automatically unfair.

Attendees will leave with the knowledge to enable them to audit their current policies, from probationary processes to scheduling systems, ensuring they are ready before the main changes take place.

Speakers Bios:

Jayme Nichoson:Jayme heads the Employment team at Kitsons Boyce.

She provides commercially-focused, industry-specific advice to employers, working with HR professionals and boards to proactively minimise the risk of litigation. Her clients have ranged from senior executives to multinational corporations.

Jayme also has extensive experience of the employment aspects of corporate transactions including company and business sales and purchases, MBOs and mergers.

As Head of employment law, she is ranked in the Legal 500 2025 as a ‘Leading Partner’ in the region who ”excels at supporting clients in employment matters from a corporate perspective in addition to providing support with litigation”.

Rory Wakeling:

Rory is a Partner at Kitsons Boyce. Acting predominately for businesses, Rory wants to help make them better employers. He has vast experience in acting for individuals in advising on settlement agreements (in groups or otherwise), litigation and negotiating exit packages.

Rory was ranked by the Legal 500 2025, as one of the rising stars in the South West and hailed as “a delight to work with”.

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