Why 69 Employers Need One Message

Kate 0:38

Picture this, it's Wednesday morning and I'm standing in a room with 69 employers in it. 69. Business owners, managers, people who between them look after thousands of staff. There's coffee that's slightly too hot, a lanyard that won't sit straight, and that lovely low hum of a room full of people who actually make things happen. And I've got a few minutes to say something useful. So I asked myself a simple question while I was ironing a shirt at half six this morning. If I could get one thing across to 69 busy employers before they go back to their desks, what would it be? Not the clever stuff. Not the stuff that makes me sound like I've swallowed a law degree. The one thing that, if they act on it, genuinely protects them. This episode is that answer out loud a day before I say it in the room. Because if you're listening, you're one of my 69 too. Kettle on, let's get into it. The welcome to the hive. Welcome back to Buzzing About HR, the podcast that makes sense of the world of work, one honeycomb of good advice at a time. I'm Kate, your HR Queen Bee, and Hazel, our well-being officer, is on top form today, by which I mean she has inspected my event shoes, found them acceptable, and gone back to sleep. Quality assurance, hive style. This is a slightly different episode. Tomorrow, Wednesday the 19th, I'm speaking at a networking event with a room full of employers, and this week everything we're putting out says the same thing I'll be saying in person.

The 2027 Law Changes Explained

Kate 2:18

The blog, the checklist, the newsletter, all of it. One message, said clearly, in a few places at once. Here's my promise for the next 20 minutes or so. No jargon, no doom, no the sky is falling. Just the readiness message I'm carrying into that room, why it matters right now, and the short list I'd want every one of those 69 people to walk away with. If you run a small business, this is your front row seat. Let's go. The buzz. Let me set the scene properly because the message only makes sense against the backdrop. There's a big change coming to employment law and it has a date on it. From the 1st of January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months. That's a real shift. For years, most employees needed two years' service before they could bring an ordinary unfair dismissal claim. From January, they'll need six months. Now here's the bit that makes people sit up in the room, and it's the bit I'll be leaning on tomorrow. It officially starts on the 1st of January 2027, but because it applies to anyone with six months at service on that date, everyone hired since the 1st of July 2026 is already in the window. Read that again if you need to, because it's the whole thing. The date on the law is January. The date that already matters is July, six months before. If you took someone on this summer, the clock is quietly ticking on them already. And there's a second part that changes the maths entirely. From the same date, the 1st of January 2027, the cap on compensation for unfair dismissal is removed. Gone. No upper limit. For a small business, that's the difference between a known risk and an open-ended one. There's a third while we're here. Fire and rehire, the practice of dismissing someone and offering them their job back on worse terms, becomes automatically unfair from the same date. So that's the backdrop for my 69 employers. More people qualifying sooner, no ceiling on what it can cost, and a practice that used to be a grey area now firmly off the table. It sounds heavy, written down. In the room, I'll say the reassuring truth. None of this ambushes a business that's got its house in order. And getting your house in order is a short doable list. The hive check. Let's do a quick check on the thing people get muddled about, because it changes how urgent this feels. The muddle is this. People hear six

July Matters More Than January

Kate 5:03

months from January 2027 and file it under next year's problem. And I understand why. January is months away. There's a summer to get through, a Christmas, a whole autumn of ordinary work. But the qualifying clock doesn't start in January. It starts on the day you hire someone. So the person you onboard this month, the one who's still in their probation, still bedding in, is building service right now that counts towards that six months. If they're still with you on the 1st of January 2027 and they've got six months in, they qualify on day one of the new rules. Which means that preparation isn't a January job. It's a now job. Not because the law has changed yet it hasn't, but because the people it will cover are already on your payroll, already forming the paper trail that will either protect you or expose you. So when I say to the room, this is a now thing, not a January thing, that's what I mean. The law waits until January. The service that triggers it does not wait for anyone. The sting. Here's the part worth sitting with, gently. The change that catches a small business out is almost never the headline. It's the quiet knock-on. And the quiet knock-on here is what no cap does to an ordinary, honest mistake. Under the old world, an unfair dismissal claim had a ceiling.

Uncapped Compensation And The Real Risk

Kate 6:34

You could estimate your worst case. It was a bad day, but a knowable one. From January 2027, that ceiling is gone. The compensation for unfair dismissal is uncapped, so a dismissal that goes wrong, a probation you ended clumsily, a difficult conversation you had without notes is no longer a capped risk. It's an open one. Now, I'm not telling you that to frighten you. Fear is a terrible planning tool. I'm telling you because it changes what getting it right is worth. In the old world, a slightly wonky process might cost you within a known range. In the new world, the value of a clean, fair, well-recorded process goes up, because the downside of a messy one has no lid on it. And this is where the boring stuff earns its keep. Good contracts. A handbook people have actually read. A probation process that's a real process, not a date in the diary that quietly passes. Managers who write things down at the time, not from memory three months later. None of that is glamorous. All of it is what stands between you and an uncapped bad day. That's the sting, and it's also the reassurance. The protection was always good practice. The law just made good practice worth more. The waggle dance. So what am I actually telling the room? Here's the readiness message, the short version I'd want on the back of every one of those sixty-nine hands. It comes down to four things, and I'll say them slowly because they're the spine of the whole week. Contracts. Are they current? Are they signed? Do they say what you'd want them to say if it ever got tested? A contract you issued in 2019 and never looked at again is a liability with a nice font. Handbook. Not whether you own one, but whether

The Four Foundations To Fix Now

Kate 8:33

it's alive. Read, followed, up to date with where the law is going. A handbook nobody's opened is evidence of intent, not of practice. Probation process. A real one. Check-ins, honest feedback, a decision made on purpose before the period ends or written down. Probation is the single best moment to part ways cleanly if it isn't working, and with the qualifying period dropping, it matters more than it ever has. Manager documentation. The habit of writing things down at the time. The note after the difficult chat. The record of the informal warning. The dates, the facts, the fair steps. This is the one that's a habit, not a document. And habits take longer to build, which is exactly why I'm banging on about it. In August and not December. That's the list. Contracts. Four things. If those four are solid, you are in genuinely good shape for what's coming. And here's how I'll close it in the room, because you can't fix what you can't see. The fastest way to find out where you stand is our HR Health Check. It's free, it takes about five to seven minutes, and it gives you an instant red, amber, green picture, plus a report in your inbox. The red flags are the ones that bite in January. You'll find it at kateunderwoodhoar.co.uk slash HR-health-check. If you want the whole road mapped out when each change lands and what's already live, the Employment Rights Act timeline tool on the same site lays it all out. The swarm Mythbuster Parade. Let's clear up four things I know I'll hear in that room tomorrow because I hear them every time. Myth one. The rule changed on the first of july twenty twenty six, so I've missed the boat. No. The rule changes on the first of january twenty twenty seven. July only matters because it's six months before. Nobody's missed anything. You've got time, which

Four Common Myths Debunked

Kate 10:53

is exactly why we're doing this now. Myth two. We're too small for this to matter. There's no magic small business exemption that makes unfair dismissal go away. If anything, smaller teams feel a bad claim more sharply because there's less slack to absorb it, and now there's no cap to limit it either. Myth three. My people are happy, so I don't need the paperwork. Happy is wonderful, and I'm delighted for you. But claims rarely come from your happy people on a good day. They come at the end when something has gone wrong, and on that day the only thing that speaks for you is what you wrote down at the time. Myth 4. I'll sort it in the new year when the law's actually live. By the new year, the people the law covers have been building service for months on your watch with whatever record you did or didn't keep. January is when it bites. August is when you get ahead of it. And by the way, there's more landing in October, before we even reach January, which brings me to your action list. The honeycomb, your quick action list. Here's your list of six things to take away from today, the same six I'll leave in the room tomorrow. One, pull your contract template and read it as if you were a nervous new starter. Is it current? Is it signed? Would it hold up? 2. Open your handbook and ask the honest question. Has anyone actually read this? And is it up to date with where the law is heading? 3. Look at your probation process. Is it a real process with check-ins and a deliberate decision or just a date that passes? 4. Check your manager

Six Actions Plus October Warning

Kate 12:43

documentation habit. Are people writing things down at the time or reconstructing them later? Fix the habit now because it takes the longest to bed in. 5. Keep one eye on October. There's more coming before January. Employers will need to take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. A new third-party harassment duty arrives and tribunal time limits double from three months to six. It's on the timeline tool if you want the detail. 6. Take the free HR health check at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk slash hr-health dash check so you know your red amber green before the law moves. Five minutes now beats a scramble in January. Flying the hive. So that's what I'm telling a room of 69 employers this week. Not a lecture. A short, honest readiness list and a reason to act on it while it's calm. The changes are real. The 1st of January 2027 is real. The uncapped compensation is real and the people it covers are already on your payroll. But real and unmanageable are not the same thing. Four solid foundations and a five-minute check and you meet January standing up. If you'd like a hand working out which of the four needs you first, that's exactly what we're here for. Head to kateunderwoodhr.co.uk or drop us a line at buzz at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk. No pressure, no jargon, just a proper conversation. And if you're one of my 69 tomorrow, come and say hello. I don't bite, neither does Hazel, unless you've got a biscuit. Until next time, keep buzzing, look after your people and get your house in order while it's quiet. Kettle on.