Governance & Compliance 13: Employment Rights Act reshapes risk and governance

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the most transformative shift in UK employment law in a generation. For boards of organisations with UK employees, there’s a lot to get to grips with. In this episode, host Will Chalk is joined by Ashurst colleagues Crowley Woodford and Ruth Buchanan to unpack what the Employment Rights Act means in practice. Crowley certainly doesn’t sugarcoat the scale of the impact: “It's no exaggeration that the Employment Rights Act is probably the most fundamental change in employment rights since the Thatcher era”. With that in mind, this episode covers a lot of ground in a short space of time. Crowley pinpoints the changes to unfair dismissal as hugely significant, and outlines two changes of particular note for boards. In particular, he says that boards should consider preparing themselves for greater litigation risks when terminating highly paid employees. And he suggests some steps to mitigate these risks. The Act also presents new corporate obligations in relation to sexual harassment. Ruth highlights governance issues for boards, as the compliance bar rises for organisations: “Employers are going to have to take the steps that are going to be specified in the regulations, but also take all other preventative steps that are reasonable in the circumstances.” Ruth suggests steps such as conducting risk assessments, publishing relevant policies and plans, establishing reporting mechanisms, and ensuring robust, proper complaints-handling procedures, etc. And the big changes don’t stop there! In short: this episode is an absolute must-listen for directors of organisations with UK employees. It will be 20 minutes very well spent. To listen to this and subscribe to future episodes in our governance mini-series, search for “Ashurst Legal Outlook” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favourite podcast player. You can also find out more about the full range of Ashurst podcasts at ashurst.com/podcasts. To receive updates and alerts on the issues raised in this podcast mini-series, subscribe to Ashurst’s regular Governance and Compliance Updates. The information provided is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all developments in the law and practice, or to cover all aspects of those referred to. Listeners should take legal advice before applying it to specific issues or transactions. Please note that this episode was recorded before the King's Speech was delivered on 13 May 2026 which, contrary to all predictions, did not contain legislation to take forward disability end ethnicity pay gap reporting legislation.      See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.