October 2026 marks an important shift in the implementation of the Employment Rights Act 2025. For employers, the significance lies not simply in the number of new employment law obligations taking effect, but in where they operate:
- litigation risk
- trade union engagement
- workplace harassment and, by the end of the year
- consultation over tipping practices.
From 1 October 2026, the time limit for bringing most Employment Tribunal claims increases from three months to six months. From 30 October 2026, employers face important new obligations concerning trade union rights and workplace access, alongside strengthened duties to prevent sexual harassment and new protections concerning third-party harassment.
Taken together, these reforms change the risk landscape in a more fundamental way than a conventional policy update might suggest. They increase the importance of what employers can evidence:
- what was communicated
- what risks were identified
- why decisions were taken and
- what preventative action was in place before a dispute arose.
For boards, HR leaders and in-house legal teams, that should be the focus now.
Employment tribunal claims: a longer window changes the evidential risk
From 1 October 2026, the limitation period for most Employment Tribunal claims will increase from three months to six months.
At first sight, extending Employment Tribunal time limits might appear primarily to benefit employees by giving them longer to consider whether to pursue a claim. For employers, however, its significance is evidential.
Combined with Acas early conciliation, which is now 12 weeks since December 2025, the extension to 6 months means considerably more time may pass between the events giving rise to a dispute and an employer receiving a formal Employment Tribunal claim. The resulting risk is:
- fading recollections
- departing witnesses, and
- documents becoming more difficult to locate.
That makes the quality of contemporaneous evidence considerably more important.
A dismissal decision that appears straightforward today may be scrutinised many months later. The same applies to a grievance investigation, redundancy selection, flexible working decision, reasonable adjustment process or disputed pay decision.
Employers should therefore look critically at the records their processes actually produce, rather than simply whether the correct procedure exists. Disciplinary and grievance records, redundancy scoring, reasonable adjustment assessments, flexible working decisions and settlement documentation should explain not only what decision was reached, but why.
Good record-keeping is no longer simply good HR administration. It is an increasingly important part of litigation strategy.
Trade union rights are moving into mainstream HR governance
The Employment Rights Act 2025 also brings material changes to trade union rights from 30 October 2026.
Employers will have a new duty to inform workers of their right to join a trade union. Independent trade unions will also gain a statutory right to access workplaces and engage with workers, physically or virtually, through the new statutory framework.
This matters well beyond businesses with an established history of collective bargaining.
Until now, employers without recognised trade unions may have regarded union engagement as relatively peripheral to day-to-day HR operations. That is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain.
The practical issue is not simply whether an employer complies with a request when one arrives. Businesses should determine in advance:
- who owns a trade union access request
- how it is escalated
- what managers should and should not communicate
- and how a consistent organisational response will be maintained.
That last point is particularly important. An unscripted or defensive response from a local manager can transform what might have been a manageable union engagement issue into a more difficult employee relations problem.
The new trade union rights therefore need to be considered as part of mainstream HR governance, onboarding and workforce communications, rather than as a specialist issue reserved for traditionally unionised sectors.
Sexual harassment: the question will increasingly be what the employer did before the complaint
Employers will be required to take ‘all reasonable steps’ to prevent sexual harassment of their employees. The Act also introduces new protection in relation to harassment by third parties. Government guidance confirms both measures as part of the 30 October reforms.
The distinction between having an anti-harassment policy and being able to demonstrate effective prevention will become increasingly important.
For employers, particularly those whose employees regularly interact with customers, clients, contractors, service users or members of the public, the risk assessment needs to extend beyond conduct between colleagues.
That has obvious implications across hospitality, retail, healthcare and education, but it is equally relevant to professional services, events, property businesses and other organisations whose people work closely with clients and external stakeholders.
A credible preventative framework should therefore extend beyond policy wording. Employers should be considering:
- workplace sexual harassment risk assessments
- training
- reporting arrangements
- manager guidance
- incident records and
- the steps taken in response to known or recurring risks.
Depending on the business, it may also be necessary to examine contractual and operational arrangements governing customers, suppliers, contractors and events.
The strategic question is a relatively simple one:
If a claim arose tomorrow, what evidence could the organisation produce of the steps it had already taken to identify and reduce the risk?
That is a much more demanding test than demonstrating that a policy exists.
Tipping laws: consultation will put transparency under greater scrutiny
Further reforms to tips, gratuities and service charges are expected by the end of 2026. The current timetable includes a requirement for employers to consult workers when developing or reviewing their tipping policy.
For businesses in hospitality, leisure and other sectors where tips or service charges form a meaningful part of remuneration, this should not be treated simply as another consultation exercise.
The greater risk is that consultation exposes longstanding dissatisfaction with:
- how tips are allocated
- whether particular categories of worker or manager are treated differently, and
- how transparent the rationale for those arrangements really is.
Employers should therefore examine tipping policies, tronc arrangements, payroll practices, allocation methodologies and workforce communications before the new consultation requirements take effect.
The important distinction is between a tipping arrangement that is technically documented and one that employees can understand and regard as credible.
Consultation is likely to test that distinction.
The common thread? Evidence before dispute
Although the October 2026 employment law changes concern different areas of the employment relationship, they point employers in broadly the same direction.
- A longer Employment Tribunal limitation period increases the importance of preserving evidence.
- Stronger trade union rights increase the importance of consistency in workforce communications.
- The new sexual harassment and third-party harassment duties increase the importance of demonstrable prevention.
- The forthcoming tipping law reforms increase the emphasis on consultation and transparency.
The practical priority for employers should therefore be to examine not simply whether their policies are legally compliant, but whether their systems will produce the evidence they may later need.
That means reviewing employment documentation and section 1 statements, onboarding materials, staff handbooks, trade union communications, sexual harassment policies and risk assessments, training records, disciplinary and grievance documentation, decision-making templates and tipping policies, where applicable.
There is an important distinction here. The employers best protected against the next phase of the Employment Rights Act 2025 will not necessarily be those with the longest policies or the largest compliance programmes.
They will be those able to demonstrate, contemporaneously and consistently:
- what employees were told
- what risks were identified
- how managers responded
- why decisions were made, and
- what the organisation did before those risks crystallised into litigation or employee relations problems.
As the Employment Rights Act 2025 moves from legislative reform into day-to-day employment practice, the real test for employers will not be whether their policies reflect the new law, but whether their decision-making, evidence and employee relations withstand the scrutiny that follows.
If you wish to discuss how the Employment Rights Act 2025 impacts your business, please contact Dipti Shah, Partner and Head of Employment Law.
