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October 2026 is a milestone in the Government’s implementation of further provisions of the Employment Rights Act 2025 and more to come later in the year with the roll- out of provisions relating to payments of ‘tips’ in December and more significant changes anticipated in January 2027.
As for now, October 2026 brings enhanced Union rights that all employers will need to act on, longer limitation periods for employees to bring Employment Tribunal claims, a far more robust duty to prevent sexual harassment as well as a duty to prevent third–party harassment. These key changes are set out below in more detail together with a review of your probationary periods and on the assumption that no further changes are introduced by the Government in the intervening period. We are still expecting more guidance in a number of the areas that are coming in.
Duty to Inform all Workers of their Trade Union Rights
Building on the provisions introduced in April 2026, this provision was due to come in on 30th October 2026 for employers to inform all their workers of their right to join a trade union, regardless of whether or not they recognise a union. However, the Government has as of 25th September 2026 pushed this back to 1 st January 2027 (https://www.business.gov.uk/campaign/employment-changes/employers/trade-union-reform/ ).
We are waiting for further legislation on this but so far it is stated that this notice should be done via a written statement provided alongside the Section 1 Statement at the outset for new employees from 1st January 2027 onwards and all other existing employees by no later than 5 April 2027and at other prescribed times. The link above provides additional information.
Steps:
- Be ready to update your internal procedures and documentation once further guidance is introduced.
New Rights for Trade Unions to Access All Workplaces
This is likely to have the most significant impact on organisations of all the new provisions taking effect in October 2026, albeit it remains to be seen how much resource the unions have in terms of manpower and time to pursue these new rights at the outset.
Trade unions will have enhanced access rights, including both physical access to workplaces and digital access (such as via email or intranet).
Access requests will include meeting, representing, recruiting and organising workers whether or not they are union members.
Unions and employers have a narrow window to agree the terms of access within a Statutory Framework. Following a written access request from a union, an employer will have 15 working days to respond (though it can be mutually agreed to extend this time). A negotiation period of 25 working days then follows, following which if agreement is not reached either side can make an application to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) within 55 days of the initial request.
The CAC will be able to enforce statutory access agreements and significant financial penalties for breaches.
Employers with fewer than 21 workers across all their workplaces will be exempt.
Employers can decline access where it is reasonable in the circumstances. The current draft of the Code of Practice gives a number of examples including:
- where another independent union is already recognised
- where access would require excessive resource allocation
- where insufficient notice has been given, or
- where the union refuses to comply with the employer’s relevant policies.
Employers should be aware that if they grant access, they must take reasonable steps to facilitate it by arranging for the use of meeting spaces or setting up virtual calls.
However, they are not required to make major structural changes to their workspaces or IT systems to enable this.
New rights will also be introduced for trade union equality representatives, including paid time off for equality-related activities.
In addition, workers taking industrial action will also receive extended protections against detriment.
Steps:
- Ensure you are familiar with the new trade union access rights.
- Consider what access you will be able to provide and on what terms before you receive a request given the short time you have in which to respond.
- Where there is no current union presence consider investing in internal representative bodies, forums or resource groups to reduce the impact of any future increased union activity.
- Some employers are seeking out unions that they wish to partner with to get ahead.
Employment Tribunal Time Limits
As of 1 October 2026 (for England and Wales and 9 November 2026 for Scotland), time limits within which an employee may make a claim to an Employment Tribunal will increase from 3 months to 6 months. This will bring time limits for claims in line with time limits for statutory redundancy and equal pay claims. The purpose of this is to provide employees and employers with more time to resolve disputes internally or through the ACAS Early Conciliation process. With ACAS being severely overstretched, employees and employers in reality have a very short period of time for real conciliation to take place before a claim needs to be lodged. This will also give both parties time to consider the merits of making a claim and also defending a claim.
Steps:
- Whilst an employee has 6 months to lodge a claim, given the current backlogs in the Employment Tribunals and the expected increase in the number of claims that will be pursued, it may be a further few months down the road before claims are processed and sent out to employers.
The extended time limit could adversely affect the ability to defend claims if you have to rely on memory and in circumstances where key employees/ witnesses may no longer be in the organisation.
It is therefore now more critical than ever to ensure all steps, the reasoning for the steps being taken and meetings/ conversations with employees are recorded and placed on personnel files.
- Update record-keeping practices so evidence can be retained for the new extended Employment Tribunal limitation periods.
- Where an employee resigns citing allegations that you were not aware of, you should take immediate steps to collate relevant documents and witness statements to ensure you are in a position to defend any claim as well as addressing a grievance.
- We are often told by organisations that departed employees’ e-mail accounts/ document directories can no longer be accessed which again can adversely affect the ability to defend claims. Therefore, ensure if e-mail accounts/ directories are disabled, that they can still be retrieved if it becomes necessary.
Workplace Sexual Harassment and Third-Party Harassment
From 30 October 2026, employers will now need take ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. This is a change from the current obligation which requires employers to take ‘reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of their employees.
Employers are also obliged not to permit the harassment of their employees by third parties, for example customers, clients, contractors, suppliers, patients, service users, passengers and members of the public.
This will include harassment linked to age, disability, gender reassignment, race, religion or belief, sex and sexual orientation, and therefore it reaches well beyond sexual harassment alone.
Previously only when a complaint was received would an employer take action. This will no longer suffice. It is expected that you would have preventative steps in place from the outset.
A one-off step towards prevention will also not be acceptable. There is a need for continued and ongoing assessments and steps that are specific to each organisation.
Current official guidance already states the need for continued risk assessments, clear policies, reporting routes and training to be given to all staff.
Steps:
- This will differ for each organisation. A detailed and documented risk assessment will need to be undertaken to identify the specific risks within your organisation. Then identify what steps will be required to prevent the risks identified.
- Review relevant policies and ensure they cover the new areas coming into force and how employees can raise concerns in person, in writing and anonymously etc.
- Arrange for staff to attend training that is relevant to your workplace and addresses the risks that have been identified.
- Ensure Managers are also trained to be able to identify issues and steps that they need to take.
- Focus should be given to customer facing and front-line staff especially in sectors such as retail, hospitality, transport, healthcare, and leisure but equally for example receptionists in all sectors and employees that visit customer sites etc.
- Where an incident occurs, you will need to re-assess what steps could have been taken to prevent it and implement them to avoid it in the future.
Probationary Periods
Whilst employers have historically adopted longer probationary periods of initially up to six months with an option to extend, the reforms to unfair dismissal rights being introduced in January 2027 will render these periods no longer viable.
From 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal reduces from two years to six months. The current cap on damages that can be awarded in unfair dismissals will also be removed.
Therefore, it is critical that contractual probationary periods are reviewed in all employment contracts being issued. Each organisation will have to decide the period that is right for their needs. Many are adopting a three- months probationary period with an option to extend for a further month or two which would still allow for any issues to be addressed and assessed before a termination takes place.
If you need help or support with any of the topics covered here, please contact Shiva Shadi at [email protected] or call 0161 832 3304.
