Understanding employer responsibilities and workers’ rights

The law sets standards for how you must treat workers. Your own policies can give workers enhanced rights, but you must provide at least the legal minimums.

Pay and working conditions

The law sets out rules on how and what you pay someone, how much rest and paid leave they should get and how you inform them of their conditions and change these.

You must:

• pay at least the National Minimum and National Living Wage
• provide itemised payslips
• give men and women equal pay for equal work
• pass all tips and service charges directly to workers without deductions
• automatically enrol eligible workers into a workplace pension
• only make lawful deductions from wages
• allow a minimum amount of rest during and between shifts
• provide paid annual leave
• allow employees to request flexible working and accept the request unless there’s a genuine business reason not to
• give workers a written statement of their work terms and conditions
• consult and agree with staff before changing the terms in their contracts

Holidays and other absences

You must allow workers time off for certain purposes, even if this causes operational difficulties for your business.

You must:

• provide all workers paid annual leave
• keep records of annual leave and holiday pay
• pay statutory sick pay to all eligible employees
• allow employees time off to deal with emergencies involving dependants
• provide family-related leave, including when a child or baby joins a household, when a dependent dies, when a parent or guardian needs to care for a child
• allow employees time off to help a dependant who needs long-term care
• allow employees time off for public duties, such as jury duty

Health and safety

Health and safety laws set out how you must assess and manage risks to your employees, workers and to anyone else who might use your business premises.

You must:

• carry out risk assessments, including of workers' home offices if they work from home
• carry out fire risk assessments
• provide users with safe working equipment and a safe working environment
• carry out workstation assessments and provide and pay for eye tests if workers use display screen equipment, like computers or smartphones
• provide information and training on health and safety and display a specific health and safety law poster where workers can read it
• protect workers from risks associated with use of display screens, working at height, manual handling, hazardous substances

Fair treatment and discrimination

The law says that you must treat workers and job applicants fairly and protect them from discrimination.

You must:

• not discriminate against workers or job applicants based on protected characteristics, such as age, sex, race, religion, disability and sexual orientation
• prevent workplace harassment and take complaints of harassment seriously
• make reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabled workers or job applicants
• make fair decisions about recruitment, pay, working conditions, promotion, disciplinary action and dismissal
• not treat anyone unfairly because they have highlighted their legal rights or raised a concern

Conduct and capability

If you have concerns about an employee’s performance, the law says you must follow a fair process before you can take any action.

You must:

• follow a fair disciplinary process when dealing with misconduct
• investigate any issues and give the employee a chance to respond
• allow employees to be accompanied to any formal disciplinary meetings
• keep records of any disciplinary or grievance cases you deal with
• make sure your process follows the Acas Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures

Ending employment

Ending someone’s employment is not an easy decision and you must make sure to handle this carefully.

You must:

• follow the correct process if you are making roles in your business redundant
• have a fair and valid reason to dismiss someone if they have worked for you for more than 2 years
• not dismiss someone for certain protected reasons regardless of how long they have worked for you, such as because they are pregnant or they have made a whistleblowing disclosure
• not dismiss anyone for reasons the law says are automatically unfair, regardless of how long they have worked for you, such as if someone is pregnant or a whistleblower
• provide employees with the right amount of notice before ending their employment
• pay final wages and any holiday pay that is owed

The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces changes to many employment rights.

Some of these changes have already been implemented, including:

• rules on trade union activity and strikes
• changes to statutory sick pay, paternity leave and parental leave
• the creation of the Fair Work Agency to enforce employment rights

There are more changes to come, including:

• changes to employers’ requirements to prevent harassment
• new requirements on how businesses handle customer tips
• extended time limits for bringing a claim to an employment tribunal
• changing the law on unfair dismissal to allow employees to claim this after 6 months of employment, rather than 2 years
• preventing employers from firing people then rehiring them on less favourable terms
• preventing unscrupulous fire and rehire for changes to core contract terms
• changes to how zero-hours contracts work

You must keep certain records to comply with tax and employment laws. There are other records that you should keep to protect yourself from legal action by employees or applicants.

Records must be kept secure in line with data protection laws.

Workplace policies protect your business and make sure that everyone has the same expectations and understanding of their rights and responsibilities.

As a minimum, you should have a:

• health and safety policy – this is required by law and must be in writing if you have 5 or more employees
• leave and absence policy covering eligibility, pay and procedures for annual leave, sick leave and family leave
• grievance and disciplinary policy, which must be aligned with the Acas Code of Practice
• flexible working policy, which must be aligned with the Acas Code of Practice