“All reasonable steps”: what the harassment law changes mean for your business
One word changed in employment law on 1st October 2026, and most employers will not have noticed it happen.
By Paul Mortimer, Head of Marketing and Business Development, Farnworth Rose SolicitorsWith expert commentary from Louise Payne and Micky Marsden, co-founders of JaRo HROn 24th September we ran a live session with Louise Payne and Micky Marsden, the co-founders of JaRo HR, on the employment law changes landing this autumn. Between them they advise Lancashire and West Yorkshire employers through these situations most weeks of the year, so what follows is not a summary of the legislation. It is what two people who handle this work for a living say employers should actually do.
The full recording is below, along with a readable transcript. This write-up pulls out the points that mattered most.
What changed on 1st October 2026
Two things landed on the same date.
• The time limit for bringing an employment tribunal claim doubled from three months to six.
• The duty on employers to prevent sexual harassment rose from taking reasonable steps to taking all reasonable steps, and now extends to harassment by third parties such as customers, clients and patients.
Trade union rights were due to change on 30th October but on the day of the session this was pushed back to January 2027.
Two other changes that had been expected this autumn have already moved: the fire and rehire restrictions and the new tipping requirements are now expected in January 2027 and later respectively.
“That one word of ‘all’ means a lot. They’re basically saying ‘some steps’ is not enough.”
Some steps is no longer enough
Until now, an employer had to take reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment at work. From 1st October the test is all reasonable steps, and as Louise put it in the session, the difference is not academic.
What a tribunal wants to see has shifted from how you handled something after it happened to what you had in place to stop it happening at all. Louise listed what that looks like in practice:
A robust risk assessment, revisited rather than filed
Regular training, not a single session that gets ticked off and forgotten
Clear reporting channels, so people know who to go to
Managers trained to deal with an allegation when it reaches them
A policy that is genuinely current, not one drafted two years ago and left in the handbook
Signage setting out what is and is not acceptable
Micky made the point that these are also the things that let you prove it later. Training certificates, a dated policy, signage on the wall and a completed risk assessment are all evidence. The risk assessment does the most work of the four, because it is the one document that captures every other step in one place.
“Get your training in place, get a robust policy, get the risk assessment. The risk assessment will then identify if there’s anything extra you need to do.”
You are now responsible for your customers' behaviour
This is the change most employers have not heard about, and for anyone in hospitality, retail, care or any business where staff meet the public, it is the significant one.
From 1st October, employers can be held liable for third party sexual harassment. That means clients, customers, patients, contractors and visitors. The expectation is that you anticipate the risk rather than react to it.
Most employers already step in when something happens in front of them. As Micky said during the session, every employer would react. The question now is what you had done before it happened. Examples raised in the session included:
Body cameras, which supermarkets now use routinely and which work precisely because people see them and think twice
A recorded message at the start of a phone call setting out a zero tolerance approach and confirming that staff may end the call
Signage on the walls in hospitality venues
Embedding a policy and process that you can turn to should the time come
A clear escalation route, so a member of staff knows who steps in and what happens next
The awkward version of this question came up in the session, and it is the one that will decide whether businesses actually act. What if the person behaving badly is your biggest client, or the regular who spends a thousand pounds on a bottles of wine every Friday night?
“‘We can’t ban him from the premises.’ Well, actually, you have to. You have to protect your team.”
There is also an added layer of protection for the employee. Under the new rules, an allegation of this kind attracts whistleblowing protection, which means the person raising it gains protection from detriment for having raised it.
The two 25% uplifts, and why they are not the same thing
If a tribunal finds you did not take the preventative steps, compensation can be increased by up to 25%. That covers the training, the policies, the signage, the message on the phones, even a line in your terms and conditions.
This is separate from the existing Acas uplift. Failing to follow the Acas Code of Practice in a disciplinary or grievance process already allows a tribunal to increase an award by up to 25%. They are two different uplifts and they can both be in play in the same case.
Micky's warning here is worth repeating: a business with a genuinely good culture can still fall foul of this. It usually falls down at manager level, where one person who has not been trained undoes everything else.
Five questions to work out whether your business is exposed
We put five questions to Louise and Micky during the session. Work through them and count how many you can honestly answer yes to.
1. Can you show on paper what happened after the last concern anyone raised?
Louise's answer: act promptly, follow your disciplinary and grievance procedures, and allocate an investigating officer straight away. The investigation is the meeting that most often gets rushed, particularly when someone is suspended on full pay and there is pressure to resolve it quickly, and it is the one meeting that matters most.
A proper investigation establishes the facts: times, dates, locations, the exact wording used, CCTV, witnesses. It ends in a full written report with findings and recommendations. And it is not only about finding evidence of wrongdoing. It is equally about finding evidence that supports the employee if the allegation does not stand up.
“Too often people come to us and say we had these issues six months ago, and we ask for the documentation and they haven’t got it. At that point, if it’s not written down, it didn’t happen.”
2. Does your harassment policy cover customers, contractors and visitors, or only colleagues?
Micky's view is that most employers who have a policy at all have a very basic one, and it will not cover third parties, customers or suppliers. That is the gap to close first.
3. Has anyone in your business had harassment training in the last twelve months?
Every business will need to do this, whatever its size. Louise noted that JaRo have rolled the training out across their own client base and to their own team, with reviews diarised every six months rather than left to drift.
4. If someone didn't want to raise a concern with their own manager, is there another route they know about?
There needs to be someone independent, named, and senior enough to act, who is not the employee's direct line manager. Often that is the managing director or an operations director.
Micky added a detail most policies miss. If the person you have named has their own direct reports, those people have nowhere to go either. Name a second senior manager in the policy so that everybody in the business has a route that does not run through the person they might need to complain about.
5. Have you ever written down where the risk of harassment sits in your business?
This is the risk assessment. It means looking at each area of the business and asking which practices carry risk, who is carrying them out and who is most exposed. It will look different for every business. In hospitality, where alcohol is involved, the bar area is likely to carry more risk than anywhere else.
Five out of five and you are in reasonable shape. Anything less and you have found your first job.
The first 24 hours after a complaint is key
Act on the day. Louise was blunt about what happens otherwise: people come to JaRo about something that happened months ago, and by then it is too late.
In that first day you are fact finding, not accusing anyone of anything. You have had a complaint and you need to establish whether it happened. Who, what, why and when. Is there CCTV, and are there witnesses?
Two practical points came out of the session that are easy to miss:
CCTV is often only stored for seven to fourteen days. By the time someone gets round to looking, it may be gone.
Speak to witnesses while it is fresh. Interviewing someone about an incident three months old gets you a much weaker account.
Both sides need support, which includes the person the allegation has been made about. Louise and Micky both flagged how much harder that is to manage in a small business where everybody knows everybody.
And they see the consequence of skipping this step regularly: employers who go straight to a disciplinary, only to discover at the hearing that there were two sides to the story and it never warranted disciplinary action in the first place.
Why a six month claim window really means more than a year
The time limit for bringing a claim has doubled from three months to six. The practical effect is bigger than it sounds, and Micky walked through the arithmetic.
Suppose an ex-employee approaches Acas at five months and three weeks. Early conciliation currently runs up to twelve weeks, and JaRo are seeing it take that long. The clock on the claim is paused while that happens. Only then does the employee submit the ET1, the tribunal claim form, and it can take up to two months after that before it reaches the employer.
Add it up and you can be more than a year past the event before you know a claim exists.
Micky also expects the change to increase the number of claims. Someone who would have timed out at three months now has six, which is enough time for a conversation with a friend or a relative to turn into a claim. And more claims entering a system that already takes two to three years to reach a hearing is likely to push that out to three or four.
“If you wait until eight months before you’re putting down your defence, your memory is going to have faded. Your key witnesses could have left the company.”
The fix is unglamorous. Do not wait for a claim to arrive before you start preparing to defend one. If you have been through any process at all, get it documented properly at the time. Records are kept for six years after an employee leaves in any case, so this is not about keeping paperwork longer. It is about the paperwork being worth something when you go back to it.
“We're too small for this”
This is the most common objection JaRo hear, and the answer is short.
“One employee or a thousand employees, every employer will be treated the same.”
As Louise added, they still hear from businesses with five or ten staff who believe they do not need contracts in place. Everybody needs a contract, and all of this applies whether you employ one person or a hundred and ten.
What to do next
If you have done nothing so far, the order Louise and Micky gave is clear enough to act on this month.
Complete a harassment risk assessment for your business, area by area.
Update your harassment policy so it covers third parties, not only colleagues, and make sure your team know where to find it.
Get your people and your managers trained, and diarise the refresh rather than treating it as done.
Name at least two senior people in the policy that a concern can be raised with, so nobody is stuck reporting to the person they need to complain about.
Review how you document investigations. If your notes run to two lines, that is the gap.
The risk assessment will then tell you whether anything further is needed for your particular business.
Training for your business
JaRo HR run a short sexual harassment training session, typically between 30 minutes and an hour depending on how much discussion it generates, at £[25] per person. It covers what harassment and sexual harassment actually are, how to identify them, how to prevent them and how to respond.
Micky noted that the most common reaction they get during the training is people realising that something they had not thought twice about would count.
This article and the session it came from are general guidance, not advice on your own situation. If you want to talk through where your business stands, call Farnworth Rose on 01282 695400 or get in touch through our contact page.
About the contributors
Louise Payne is co-founder and director of JaRo HR, providing practical HR support to employers across the North West. She advises businesses through investigations, disciplinaries and grievances, including the situations described in this article.
Micky Marsden is co-founder and director of JaRo HR. She works with employers on contracts, policies and the practical detail of employment law changes.
Paul Mortimer is Head of Marketing and Business Development at Farnworth Rose Solicitors and hosted the session.
Farnworth Rose Solicitors is a law firm based in Nelson, Lancashire, advising businesses and private clients across Lancashire and West Yorkshire. Our employment and litigation work is led by Jon Batchelor, Strategic Director.
FURTHER READING, FOR EXTERNAL LINKS
Transcript
Employment Rights Act LIVE Q&A, recorded 24th September 2026. Lightly edited for readability: repetitions, false starts and filler removed, and speaker names corrected. Nothing has been added.Introductions
Paul Afternoon everyone, thanks for joining us. I'm Paul from Farnworth Rose. I'm joined by Louise Payne and Micky Marsden from JaRo HR. How are you doing?
Louise Yeah, thank you.
Paul Quick apologies. Jon Batchelor, Strategic Director at Farnworth Rose, was going to join us but sends his apologies. If you've got any questions you were going to head his way, send them through anyway and I'll make sure he gets them. Drop them in the chat. I'm not the expert. I was only ever going to be host, so it probably makes the questions more interesting coming from me rather than Jon. I'll be asking some things that might seem obvious, but that's the purpose. We're going to look at five questions companies can ask themselves, and generally what's changing and when.
What's changing and when
Paul Micky, before we go into the details, can you walk us through the dates, what's actually changing and when, given it keeps getting pushed back?
Micky Absolutely. Confirmed on the 1st of October we have a change to the tribunal time limit, and we also have the change to harassment law, the all reasonable steps change. We'll go into detail on both.
Paul So that's next week.
Micky Next week, absolutely. It's coming around quickly. And then on the 30th of October, trade union rights are changing as well. We were expecting fire and rehire laws to change in October but that's been pushed back, it looks like that's going to be January 2027 now. And the tipping rules were due to come in in October but that's been pushed back too, so we'll cover that in more detail when we have more information.
Paul What's fire and rehire?
Micky At the moment, if you go through a consultation process, a bit like a restructure scenario, and you need to make a change to something like your shift pattern and your employees say no, then as long as you've done the consultation you can dismiss them on their current terms and rehire them on their new terms, providing notice. The law is going to change to make that almost impossible to do, unless your business is in dire straits and financially would not survive without making that change.
Paul Not the point of this at all, but it's something I've never come across. What kind of industries use it?
Micky A lot of manufacturing. Businesses that change their shift patterns, their rates of pay or their overtime rates use it a lot. They'll go through a consultation process, and you might have 60% of the team saying yes, absolutely, I'm happy to change my shift pattern, and 40% who aren't. It's not a redundancy scenario, so you would dismiss them on their current terms, give them notice, and rehire them on the new terms to allow you to change the shift pattern.
All reasonable steps
Paul Louise, as a manager I read reasonable steps and all reasonable steps and they both sound quite woolly, but surely they mean the same thing. What's actually the difference?
Louise That one word of ‘all' means a lot. Currently employers must take steps to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. The new legislation is that you must take all reasonable steps. So they're basically saying some steps is not enough. You need to demonstrate proactive prevention, and it's not just how you handle things after the event. They want to see measures in place to prevent it happening in the first place.
Louise So we're looking at robust risk assessments. Regular training, so not just that they come to training, tick a box and that's it, it's doing the training on a regular basis. Clear reporting channels, so people know who to go to if they need to report an allegation. Managers trained in dealing with these situations. Clear policies again, not just drafting a policy and sticking it in your handbook, but a clear policy that's regularly updated. Signage on what's acceptable and what's not.
Louise And I think the big one is that we're also going to see employers being held liable for third party sexual harassment. So we're talking about your clients, customers, patients. It's quite a big one. As a business you need to anticipate the risk. If you're in hospitality, signage up on your walls, recordings on your telephone systems. How are you going to escalate? If you're in a bar and a customer comes in and sexually harasses one of your bar staff, are you going to refuse entry, are you going to ban them from the premises? Higher risk environments might need to look at body cams. It's all about prevention.
Louise It is also going to become protected under whistleblowing, so employees will gain that added protection. If they make an allegation, it will be protected under whistleblowing. So it's quite a big one, and it's quite scary, isn't it. You can be held liable for the third party.
What proactive actually looks like
Paul It's the third party bit. I remember when you said that back in April's webinar. Pretty much all employers would protect their staff while an incident is happening. So what do we know about being more proactive? We might react, and every employer would react, wouldn't they. But what are the proactive steps?
Micky In supermarkets now a lot of the staff wear body cameras. That's a proactive step to prevent harassment, because people see the body cameras and they think twice about harassing the staff. So if you're in one of those high risk environments, if you're in hospitality, if you're in retail, then maybe introduce body cameras. Obviously have a discussion with your team about that.
Micky It's making sure the training's in place, so that you've trained your team and your managers on how to identify, prevent and respond to any harassment. If you work in more of a call centre environment, it's having a recorded message at the start of the phone call that says we have a zero tolerance approach to harassment of our staff, and our staff are given permission to terminate calls if you commit harassment. It's things like that that are the proactive approach.
Louise It's having new policies too. If you're in hospitality, a customer may be given a warning in the first instance, and if it happens again you actually bar them from the premises.
Paul And it's not just reactive. It's actually knowing that's the rule, and I'm following it, and I know who does what as the owner or manager.
Louise It's the prevention. That's what they want to see, that you are putting all steps in place to prevent, rather than how you handle it afterwards.
Proving it
Paul And then I guess the other big thing is proving that, or demonstrating it as the employer. Is that another new aspect to this?
Micky You want to have all records in place. As Louise said, a robust policy, not one that you drafted two years ago and left in the handbook and never looked at again. One that you're regularly updating, but also one that the staff are aware of, that your team know how to find and how to use. The training, you'll have training certificates for all of your team that have gone on that training. Do you have signage in your business? That's a way you can evidence that you're taking proactive steps.
Micky A really key one is completing the risk assessment, because in the risk assessment you can demonstrate all of the areas you're taking those steps to prevent, within that one document. So the risk assessment is going to be really key.
Paul And is every business the same for this, or does it depend on size?
Micky No. Every industry. One employee or a thousand employees, every employer will be treated the same.
Louise It's keeping your training up to date as well. Not just a tick box exercise, oh well they've all been in the training, file that away and never happen again. It's having that regular training and refreshing people.
Micky And as a business owner or MD, it's having the right attitude towards your team. When you're booking them on that training, don't say this is an exercise, we just have to get through it. You build into that how you feel about the culture and what you want them to get out of it. Because if you're putting it down on your team, oh this is just silly, we're having to do this because it's the law, just go on it and it's fine, then that's how your team will take it. Make sure you're sharing just how important it is that this training is in place.
Paul So just to round off that section, what do the companies that have already got the right culture in place need to do differently? What kind of level do they need to go to?
Micky The absolute basics are your training. Make sure you've got your training in place, make sure you've got a robust policy, and make sure you've got the risk assessment. The risk assessment will then identify if there's anything extra you need to do on top of that. The businesses that have the right culture are already doing these things anyway. Get those in place and then they'll identify if there's anything further.
When the third party is your best customer
Paul Someone might have an overall good culture, but this is where push comes to shove in a lot of businesses. What if this third party is our biggest client, or in hospitality, that's just Clive who always acts like that?
Louise Yeah, that's what you see a lot, isn't it. But it's got to be across the board, hasn't it.
Micky It's going to be really difficult for businesses. Especially, Clive comes in and spends £1,000 on a bottle of wine every Friday night, we can't ban him from the premises. Well, actually, you have to. You have to protect your team.
The 25% uplift, and the other 25% uplift
Paul I saw something in the notes about a 25% uplift.
Micky There's a 25% uplift on tribunal claims if you are proven not to have taken the preventative steps, which is your training, your policies, your signage, your message on the phones. It might even be where people put a disclaimer on the bottom of the terms and conditions. So if you've not taken those steps and you do end up in tribunal, there could be an automatic 25% uplift, which is separate to the Acas 25% uplift.
Micky Currently, failure to follow the Acas code of practice in a disciplinary or grievance scenario would allow up to a 25% uplift if the claim is won at tribunal. This is separate. So this is a different 25% uplift.
Paul So that's probably more applicable to those without the right culture in place. But even a good culture company could still fall foul of that under the new rules.
Micky It's easily done, especially if you don't train your managers. You can have one manager that just isn't on board, even if you've got a great culture amongst most of your team. If you haven't trained your managers it can easily fall down at a certain step.
Question 1: can you show on paper what happened?
Paul So there are five questions to help people work out whether their business is exposed. If you're watching this you can jot these down, ask yourself, and count how many you can honestly answer yes to. Louise, the first question is, can you show on paper what happened after the last concern anyone raised? How often do people actually do that at the minute, and what documentation needs to be done in future?
Louise After a concern's been raised, it's key that one, you act promptly. Two, you follow your procedures, your disciplinary, your grievance. And the first thing that's really important is that you allocate an investigating officer to deal with the matter, promptly.
Louise We find investigations are often the meeting that's most rushed, especially if somebody's on suspension. You're paying for someone on full pay to be on suspension, clients want things dealing with promptly, and there's a lot of pressure to deal with the matter quickly, so the investigation gets rushed. And this, for me, is the key meeting. It's the fact finding. It's establishing all the facts. Getting all the data, the times, the dates, the location, what exact wording was used, CCTV evidence, witnesses.
Louise But also, one thing that really came up years ago, it's not just about finding evidence to prove guilt. It's also finding evidence that supports the employee, that they didn't do what was alleged. So it's really important that you act promptly but fairly as well. You spend your time getting all the facts and the key points, and a full investigation report is compiled with your findings and your recommendations.
Louise And with what Micky is going to talk about later, the employment tribunal time frame being longer, we're looking at it could be eight months before that claim drops on your desk. This paperwork is key, that it's really full detail and that you've got everything documented and in order.
Paul So as a complete HR layman, tackling that is literally keeping all of it together and keeping it on file, either electronically or physically?
Micky Too often people come to us and say we had these issues six months ago, and we ask for the documentation and they haven't got it. At that point, if it's not written down, it didn't happen. So it's making sure you've got that record, that it's written down somewhere in your files so that we can refer back to it if needed.
Question 2: does your policy cover third parties?
Paul Second question. Does your harassment policy cover customers, contractors and visitors, or only colleagues? Micky, I imagine most people's only covers colleagues or employees at the moment.
Micky They will do. If you're a client of ours it would already cover third parties, but most people, if they've got one in place, it will be very basic and it won't cover things like third parties, customers and suppliers.
Question 3: has anyone had training in the last twelve months?
Paul Louise, has anyone in your business had harassment training in the last 12 months? How often are people doing it at the minute? They're going to have to do it inside every 12 months in future, but what's the norm at the moment?
Louise We've obviously rolled this out and everybody has had the harassment training, so thankfully we've ticked that box. I think we've one more client who's ready to do that now, but they've all been rolled out. We've actually done it ourselves, and they're all pencilled in to be reviewed every six months.
Paul And every company's going to have to do this.
Louise Yeah, every company.
Question 4: is there another route?
Paul If someone didn't want to raise a concern with their own manager, is there another route they know about? If companies can't answer yes to that, what can they do, Micky? What kind of routes do they have to set up?
Micky They need to make sure there is somebody independent and allocated within the company, but who wouldn't necessarily be the employee's direct line manager, that they can reach out to if they need to escalate it. It might be the direct line manager that the employee wants to complain about. So there should be somebody, normally the MD, it could be an ops director, somebody in a senior position who is available to be reported to. And I would say that if that person has direct employees below them, then allocate two people in your policy who would be responsible for that.
Paul Explain that.
Micky Say you have the ops director as the most senior person you can escalate to if you can't go to your line manager, but the ops director has five people that report into them. Make sure you've got another senior manager who is also named in your policy, so that those direct reports of the ops director can go to that other senior manager.
Question 5: have you written down where the risk sits?
Paul And finally, have you as a business ever written down where the risk of harassment sits in your business? Louise, what does writing down the risk mean?
Louise That's carrying out your risk assessment within your business and highlighting where the key areas of risk are. It will be different for every business. Obviously some are higher risk. If you look at hospitality, that's going to be higher risk where alcohol's involved, so it may be more in the bar area that it's a higher risk. That's where your risk assessment will come in. Looking at each area of your business to see which practices we carry out, which areas, who is doing these, and who's at higher risk of allegations of sexual harassment.
Paul So if you're answering yes to all of those, you're in pretty good shape. But if any of those are not in place, there's your first to-do item with the law change.
The first 24 hours
Paul Looking at the first 24 hours after a complaint lands. Say it's Monday morning and someone comes to me with a complaint as a manager. What should I be doing on that first day, and what should I avoid?
Louise It's to act promptly, because we do get some people who will come and tell us about something that happened months ago. It's too late then. So when something is brought to your attention, it's act then. Take those first steps, follow your disciplinary procedure, your grievance procedures, and carry out full investigations. Getting it all documented down, speaking to key witnesses straight away.
Louise We hear people say, oh, CCTV, but by the time they've gone and had a look at it, they may only store it for seven or 14 days. So it's getting all your evidence quickly. And speaking to people while it's fresh in their mind. If you go in to interview somebody about something that happened three months ago, memories fade.
Louise And it's so key. We see investigation notes of two lines. That's not enough. Your investigation should be so thorough. Who said what, who was there, times, dates, exact facts. Because if you do, God forbid, end up in tribunal, it can be years down the line. Remembering who was stood where, who said what, exact times, dates, they're all so crucial.
Paul So it's like a police report.
Louise And when you're in a tribunal it's not a nice place to be, and they will try and trip you up on all those little details.
Micky It's remembering that in those first 24 hours you're fact finding. You're not accusing anyone of anything. You've had this complaint come to you and you need to establish whether it happened or not. So it's the who, what, why, when questions. Is there any evidence? Is there CCTV? Are there witnesses? Making sure you've got all of your ducks in a row in that first 24 hours so you're set up to do a good fact finding investigation.
Louise We've come across people who jump straight to disciplinary and end up with egg on their face because they've not done that investigation. Then when they've got to disciplinary it's turned out there are always two sides to every story, and it's, oh gosh, actually it didn't warrant disciplinary action. That is why investigation is key, because you unearth a lot of information and it can change the spin on things.
Paul You want to make sure you're catching bad behaviour and rooting it out of your business. But it might be the other way, that you actually need all the facts to protect someone.
Micky And also remembering that both sides need support. The person who's made the allegation needs support, but also the employee who has had the allegation raised about them. So it's going in there with a clear head, completely unbiased, knowing that you're able to support both sides.
Paul Which I imagine can be hard, the smaller the business is.
Micky Absolutely.
Six months to bring a claim
Paul Micky, from the 1st of October, people have six months rather than three to bring a claim. Practically, what does that change? Just keeping records longer?
Micky It's not really about keeping records longer, because you need to keep your records for six years anyway after an employee leaves. It's that some people will wait until they get a claim on their doorstep before they start prepping to defend it. If you reasonably believe, or even if you've gone through any process, get it documented as soon as possible. Because if they put a claim in at six months, it's going to be eight months before it lands on your doorstep, realistically even longer.
Micky So if you wait until eight months before you're putting down your defence to that claim, your memory is going to have faded. You're not going to have remembered key information. If you have all of your evidence right from the very beginning, when an allegation was raised or an investigation was done or a disciplinary or a grievance, and it's good information and good records, then you don't have to worry when it hits your doorstep at eight or nine months.
Louise Key witnesses could have left the company, gone to work elsewhere. It's too late then, isn't it, when that claim drops and you're trying to scurry around doing an investigation.
Micky I think the biggest impact we're going to see with this change is that at the moment the employee has three months to bring the claim. By extending it to six months, we're going to see more claims coming through. Employees might, after four months, decide now I want to bring a claim. Or they might have spoken to a cousin or a friend they don't see very regularly, and they're five months in and that friend says you should bring a claim against that employer, and that goes around in their mind and they put that claim in. So those people that might have timed out on the three months now have six months.
Micky What that also means is a knock-on effect. At the moment most tribunal claims take two to three years before you sit in front of the judge. We envisage with this change that's going to get pushed back even further, so it might be three to four years. And just think about how memory fades in that time, and how your key witnesses might have left the business.
Paul And what kind of claims does this window apply to?
Micky All claims. Unfair dismissal, constructive dismissal, any protected characteristic claim, that's all now going to have six months. At the moment the limit is three months, that's going to change to six months.
Micky The thing to be aware of here is that at the moment the limit is three months, but once they go to Acas it pauses it. So they go to Acas and Acas do their twelve weeks of conciliation, but your claim period has been paused before you have to put in your ET1, which is your claim form as an employee that you put into the tribunal. So really it's six months plus the twelve weeks of conciliation with Acas.
Micky So if they go at five months and three weeks, and then Acas enter into early conciliation for twelve weeks, which we are seeing it take at the moment, we're already at nine months before they've even submitted an ET1. Once they've submitted the ET1 to the tribunal, you might not see that on your doorstep for up to two months. So you could be over a year before you're aware that claim is coming through.
Louise I think what they're looking at, they're trying to help, because there will be some employees who will have suffered horrific treatment and may for the first three months not be in a position to even consider bringing a claim, whether through mental health or illness. I suppose they're trying to protect those people, who with a little bit longer would then be in a position to think clearly and get advice.
Micky Unfortunately the infrastructure is just not in place in the tribunal system to support it.
Paul And you're putting more cases into the queue.
January 2027, and whether size matters
Paul The other date change as part of this wave is January 2027 and the probation changes, but you explained last time how that is in effect already, because anybody you hired in July and anybody you've got on your books now is covered.
Paul And lastly, the general question, are we too small for this to apply to us, is probably what a lot of businesses might be thinking. Ten or 15 staff, is this really aimed at them? I think the answer's yes, isn't it.
Micky Yeah. If you've got one employee, it's aimed at you.
Louise We still hear sometimes, oh, I've only got 10 employees, or five, we don't need a contract. Everybody needs a contract, and all this applies to everybody, whether you're one employee or 110.
Training, and close
Paul So a lot of this comes down to getting your paperwork and your policies and your training all in order, which you can help with. We've focused at least half of this session on the sexual harassment laws changing. Can you tell us about the session you run to help people with that?
Micky We deliver a training session. It's a relatively short session, between 30 minutes and an hour depending on the participation, and we charge £25 per person. What that does is enable the employee and the managers to identify, prevent and respond to any claim or complaint. Obviously the biggest thing there is prevent. It teaches people what sexual harassment and harassment is within the business, because a lot of people will say, I didn't see that as harassment, I didn't think that would be harassment. That's the biggest reaction we get during our training. So it's educating people on what it is, how to identify it, and then how to prevent it and how to respond to it.
Paul And if you're interested in that, get in touch through JaRo's website or our own. We'll put the links below. Thank you Louise and Micky, we've covered a lot there. I know there's a lot more finer detail within all that. So if anyone's got any questions, either add them as a comment or send them back if you're watching this on catch up. We'll send the summary to all of you registered, and if you've got any questions, send them through, and that includes joining the training session. Thanks Louise, thanks Micky.
Louise Thank you very much.