Labour's Employment Reforms | implications for seasonal workers and zero-hour contracts
As the festive season approaches, it’s crucial to stay updated on the evolving retail landscape, especially when it comes to Labour’s proposed employment law reforms. With changes to day one rights and zero-hour and temporary contracts on the horizon, is your retail business ready for what’s to come in 2025?
Join our upcoming webinar for practical advice and insights on how to manage your workforce effectively during this period and beyond.
7 November, 2.00 pm - 3.00 pm
Over the past few months, a flood of information has emerged regarding the new government’s plans for the workplace, and we understand it can be hard for busy retailers to keep up.
From making unfair dismissal a day one right to banning “exploitative” zero-hour contracts, this webinar will focus on the proposals that are most significant for retailers over the next term, how they could impact your business, and the steps you can take to prepare.
Hosted by WorkNest’s Employment Law Adviser and Solicitor, Kimberly Moss, this free one-hour session will explore:
What's on the agenda?
- Zero-hour contracts: Zero-hour contracts are common in the retail industry. Currently, these contracts can leave workers without guaranteed hours, leading to financial instability. Labour has pledged to address their use by providing workers with more predictable schedules, the right to request fixed hours, and enhanced rights to compensation in the event a shift is cancelled.
- Temporary contracts: The retail sector typically experiences an increase in temporary contracts over the festive period to meet seasonal demand. Labour’s plans include measures to ensure seasonal workers receive fair treatment, including better pay, access to benefits, and protections against exploitation.
- Day one rights: Labour is planning to expand the rights available to employees from day one of employment, including various leave entitlements and flexible working. It’s also proposing to scrap the two-year qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims, enabling employees to challenge dismissals from their first day of employment.
- National Minimum Wage: We’ll explore Labour’s plans to set the National Minimum Wage around cost of living and remove discriminatory age bands.
- Statutory Sick Pay (SSP): The planned changes to the SSP rules, including removing the three-day ‘waiting period’ before it is payable, means employees would qualify for sick pay from their first day of absence instead of the fourth. With this in mind, we’ll provide a general overview of how to correctly manage absences to limit these costs.
Have a question for our host?
If you have a specific query that you would like our host to answer, submit it when signing up using the form – we’ll address as many as we can at the end of the session.
Register for free webinar
Managing Sickness Absence
Employee absence is the biggest non-recoverable cost to your organisation, making absence management an essential skill for managers. Whether dealing with short intermittent absence or long-term incapacity, this course will help you to address issues effectively and strike the right balance between the needs of the organisation and your duty of care to employees.
Webinar review
“Having attended a few WorkNest webinars, I am always impressed with the no-nonsense, well-balanced guidance they provide. Their advice gives me confidence to deal with situations that may arise in an appropriate way and the fact that they follow up with answers to all the questions posed during the webinar is an added bonus.”
Mary Greig, Scaled Solutions
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