Day One Rights and Probation: A Practical Guide for HR Professionals and Line Managers

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Day One Rights and Probation: A Practical Guide for HR Professionals and Line Managers

  • Publish Date: about 19 hours ago
  • Author:by Jacqui Kemp

Why It Matters

How often have you had to unpick a poor hiring decision after someone has been with your organisation for over a year? When talking to the manager you find out they’ve always had niggling doubts, but just wanted things to work out, so they gave more and more leeway. Until finally, resentment has built within the team and now they need to let someone go. Luckily, the individual concerned has less than 2 years’ service, so you can take them through a shorter process than your regular capability procedure.

Well, the new Employment Rights Bill will put paid to that!

Now, more than ever, managers need to be use robust recruitment practices, and they need to manage probation periods proactively, with a clear understanding of what success looks like, and how to support the individual to achieve it.

What’s Changing?

The box below provides a comparison of the current rights a new employee has from day one versus the new position as proposed under the Employment Rights Bill.

Key Employment Rights: Current vs. New Position

Area

Current Position (Pre-Bill)

New Position (Post-Bill)

Unfair Dismissal Protection

Employees must have 2 years’ continuous service to claim unfair dismissal.

Protection from unfair dismissal from day one (with a statutory probation period: currently proposed to be nine months, but this could change).

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP)

SSP entitlement starts after 3 waiting days; lower earnings limit (of £125 per week on average) applies.

SSP available from day one; lower earnings limit removed.

Parental, Paternity & Bereavement Leave

Qualifying period (usually 26 weeks) before entitlement.

Entitlement from day one of employment.

Flexible Working

Employees can request flexible working after 26 weeks’ service; employer can refuse.

People can request flexible working from day one. Employers will have eight specific reasons to justify refusal.

Pregnancy & Maternity Protections

Some protections, but weaker for those returning from leave.

Stronger protections for pregnant employees and those returning from family leave.

Zero-Hours Contracts

No right to request guaranteed hours; no compensation for cancelled shifts.

Right to request guaranteed hours after regular patterns; compensation for cancellations.

Fire and Rehire

Permitted with consultation; often used to change terms and conditions.

Banned except in extreme circumstances, where the employer can prove they are in financial difficulty, likely to affect their viability.

Harassment Prevention

Employer must respond to complaints; no proactive duty.

New proactive duty to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. This has been in place since October 2024.

What This Means in Practice

Employees who join before the new law comes into force will not be disadvantaged: 

As soon as the new law is implemented, all employees’ rights will be upgraded to match the new standards. They will not have to wait two years for unfair dismissal protection or 26 weeks for statutory leave; the new day-one rights will apply to them as well as to new starters.

So now is the time to act and prepare for these changes to apply to all current staff, not just those hired after the new law takes effect.

How Can Employers Prepare?

Even though most reforms will not take effect until 2026, reviewing current practice and updating policies, processes and training will support your people strategy, and keep you ahead of the game.

Here are the key steps employers should be engaging in:

1. Stay Informed and Monitor Progress

  • Stay updated on implementation timelines and details of each reform on gov.uk.

  • Sign up for legal updates: your local Chambers of Commerce or your local employment lawyer are good places to start.

2. Audit Your Policies and HR Documentation

  • Review HR documentation including contracts of employment, employee handbooks and policies to identify areas that will need amending to comply with the new Day One Employment rights (e.g. day one unfair dismissal, flexible working policy, leave entitlements).

  • Ensure documentation is clear, consistent, and reflects the anticipated changes.

3. Update HR and Finance Systems

  • Prepare HR and payroll systems for changes to Statutory Sick Pay, leave entitlements, and other statutory payments.

  • Ensure systems can accommodate new rights and eligibility criteria.

4. Engage and Consult with Your Workforce

  • Communicate upcoming changes to employees and seek their input on how reforms may affect their roles and working practices.

  • Collaborate with trade unions and employee representatives where relevant.

5. Audit Worker Status and Employment Practices

  • Review the status of all workers (employees, workers, contractors) to ensure correct treatment going forward.

6. Scenario Planning and Impact Assessment

  • Conduct impact assessments to understand how each reform may affect your business, from recruitment and onboarding to performance management and exit processes.

  • Use scenario planning and financial forecasting to prepare for potential cost and resource implications e.g. are the changes to zero-hours contracts likely to cause an additional administrative burden to the business (e.g. in the Hospitality sector?) Would that support an argument for an additional Compliance Officer role in HR?

7. Review and Strengthen Anti-Harassment and Diversity Policies – if this has not already happened

  • Carry out risk assessments to identify and mitigate the risk of third-party harassment.

  • Update training and reporting procedures to meet the new standards.

8. Train HR, Recruitment Teams and Line Managers

  • Provide training for HR, anyone involved in the recruitment process and line managers on the upcoming changes, especially around recruitment, managing probation and handling flexible working requests.

How We Can Help You

Our new training programme: From Recruitment to Retention: Robust Recruitment and Probation Management Strategies supports you to upskill your managers, building their confidence in hiring the right people and taking their new team members to success.

Working with you we provide programmes of training to ensure managers understand your relevant policies, their responsibilities and build their skills to confidently manage their teams within the legislation.

Let’s connect on LinkedIn…

www.linkedin.com/in/jacquikemp1