News
A sharp set of EAT rulings this week offers timely reminders for HR, legal and in-house teams: wasted-costs threats remain high-risk, fair procedure still rules even in clear capability cases, and tribunals continue to scrutinise documentation, reasoning and process at every stage. Here’s what HR needs to know.
This month’s Employment Appeal Tribunal round-up highlights the practical pitfalls that catch employers and claimants alike — from 48-hour deadline slips, to recurring bias allegations, to how closely tribunals scrutinise warnings, capability processes and even status disputes. Here are the EAT decisions HR teams should know about — and what each one tells us about process, documentation and getting the basics right.
The government is cracking down on so-called “fire and rehire” tactics — where employers dismiss staff who refuse new terms and then offer to rehire them on revised contracts. While this approach has long been controversial, it’s about to become almost impossible to use legally in most circumstances.
Employers are being encouraged to review their family-leave policies as the Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) calls for sweeping reforms to the UK’s parental-leave system. The proposals would significantly enhance rights for fathers and partners, aiming to drive equality, retention, and workplace culture change.
A major reset is underway in how confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) can be used in UK workplaces. From universities to boardrooms, the law is shifting decisively toward transparency around harassment and discrimination — and employers need to start adapting now.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming HR — from recruitment and performance management to workforce planning. But with opportunity comes risk. Employment use cases of AI are increasingly under regulatory scrutiny (the EU AI Act even labels them “high risk”), and tribunals are already seeing cases where automated tools have produced discriminatory or unfair outcomes.
