New Labour landscape: Key changes in the Employment Rights Bill

The UK's Employment Rights Bill represents the most significant shake-up of workplace protections in decades, and our latest podcast breaks down what employers and HR professionals need to know right now.

Andrew Whiteaker, Partner and Stacey Reay, Paralegal in the Employment team, dive into the crucial updates from recent government consultation responses that reveal important modifications to the original proposals. If you've been following the headlines about day one unfair dismissal rights, you'll want to hear the critical details about the differentiated approach and compensation structure that will apply during the initial nine months of employment.

Their conversation explores how collective consultation requirements for redundancies are evolving, with the government walking back from its initial proposal to eliminate the establishment test completely. They break down what this means for multi-site operations and how businesses should prepare for potentially tracking redundancies across their entire organisation.

Zero hours contracts face a complete overhaul, and they examine the three key protections being introduced, along with the confirmation that agency workers will be included, creating significant implications for businesses reliant on flexible staffing models. We also highlight several under the radar changes that haven't received as much attention but could substantially impact workplace practices.

The podcast takes a thoughtful look at the expansion of pay gap reporting beyond gender to include ethnicity and disability, exploring the practical challenges of data collection and the tensions that may arise for multinational organisations, particularly as US-owned businesses face increasing pressure to scale back diversity initiatives while UK legislation moves in the opposite direction.

Whether you're an HR professional, business leader, or employment lawyer, this episode provides insights into current UK employment law and prepare your organisation for compliance.

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Chapters

• 3:00 Unfair Dismissal and Compensation
• 7:28 Zero Hours and Agency Workers
• 20:38 EDI Initiatives and Pay Gap Reporting
• 27:09 The Future of Workplace Protections

Transcript

Andrew Whiteaker: 0:03 

Hello and welcome to the Employment Law Pod. My name's Andy Whittaker. I'm a Partner in the Employment team at Boyes Turner and I'm very pleased to say that today I'm joined by my colleague in the team, Stacey Reay. 

Stacey Reay: 0:13 

Hi Andy. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 0:14 

Hi Stace and, as ever on the Employment Law Pod, we are going to be looking at some live and interesting employment law issues, either from legislation, from case law or just the things that we're seeing in the news or that we're experiencing from feedback from clients over the last few weeks. So, with that in mind, today I'm going to be talking a little bit about the Employment Rights Bill Now, now before you all switch off. I know everyone's been talking about the Employment Rights Bill for quite some time, but there are a couple of things that I wanted to highlight. First of all, some changes to the initial bill that were announced a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of March, and there are also just a few things in the bill as well that I think have slipped under the radar a little bit. There's a few headline splashy things that most people are talking about, but there are some other issues as well that I think are just worth highlighting so that's, that's what I'm going to be talking about. What about you, Stace? 

Stacey Reay: 1:10 

So I'll be following on from the employment rights bill and picking up on a few of the EDI topics that appear throughout it, because obviously that's quite current at the moment with what's happening with the political climate in the US and also the gender pay gap and then pay gaps in the more wider yeah, in a more general sense. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 1:26 

Okay, super well, look, let's get started, then, shall we? 

Stacey Reay: 1:29 

Yeah let’s get into it. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 1:32 

So, let's get into it first subject, employment rights bill. 

And, as I've said, many people have been talking about Labour's employment law plans for several years, when they're in opposition and then when they were first voted in and then following the announcement of the Employment Rights Bill back last October. So there was a lot of content out there about that. But things have moved on a little bit because the government has been consulting on some of the issues and some of the broad principles that they announced back last October and, as a result, some of those consultations are still running, but some have come to a conclusion and that's meant that in the last few weeks the government's responded to some of those consultation exercises and updated a few points in the bill. So, as a result, I was going to sort of pick up a couple of those points. What I'm not going to do is talk in detail about all of the points of the bill because, as I said, most people listening to this, I suspect, have already taken some sort of feedback or some sort of content about the bill itself. So the first thing I was going to mention is about unfair dismissal. 

Now, this is one of the key things. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 2:33 

This is one of the things that's been attracted most of the headlines about the reduction in the qualifying period, referred to sometimes as day one rights. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 2:41 

But we now know that actually, what that really means is you do get protection from unfair dismissal from the commencement of your employment, but there is a different standard that's going to be applied within the initial period of employment and we understand that the government's intention now is that that's going to be a nine month period. So what's new? Well, in the consultation documents that were published earlier this month, the government confirmed that all of that remains the case, but in terms of compensation, there is going to be a different regime. So that means that we understand, we know what the compensation regime looks like for unfair dismissal. At the moment, you've got a year's salary or the £115,000 or so cap that applies in that initial period. You will be protected, or an employee will be protected, but if you are dismissed in that period and the tribunal concludes that it's been an unfair dismissal, you don't have access to the same compensation that you would do if you were dismissed after the end of that nine month initial period. So it's a different compensation regime. What is that regime I hear you asking me, Stace. 

Stacey Reay: 3:48 

Well, I was just thinking what the implications of that would be actually. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 3:57 

Well, and the answer to that, as ever with these things, is we will wait to see. 

So the government's announced that we do. We are going to have a different scheme. It's going to be, um, probably in keeping with the whole lighter touch ethos of that initial period and the processes you need to follow there It's going to be a lesser amount. The compensation is going to be less substantial than it might be outside of the IP, but we wait to see on that. But that's, that's the first new thing that we have seen now. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 4:19 

The second new thing that I want to mention is around collective consultation. Now it's in particular around redundancies. 

So, as matters currently stand, in the event that you're making 20 or more redundancies at an establishment, then the obligation to collectively consult about those redundancies applies, and that's been the case for for a very long time. There was a potential change in the law a few years ago, stemming from some case law, which indicated that actually, when looking at the 20 or more, the establishment test should actually look at the wider organisation and the actual employer, and there was lots of excitement in employment law circles following some cases linked to the Woolworths collapse. But ultimately the courts concluded that no, the establishment did just mean essentially one set of premises or offices, one particular place of work. The implication of it being wider than that was potentially really complicating for employers, because if you're a large employer with lots of sites, all of a sudden you've got to track who's being made redundant in each one of your sites and if you tip over the 20 in a three month period, all of a sudden you could be obliged to collectively consult when you didn't think you would be. 

Stacey Reay: 5:24 

Well, exactly that. And also very hard to manage that for large organisations. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 5:28 

Yeah, not impossible, but an extra burden, an extra responsibility and obligation that hadn't otherwise applied. So in the ERB the government said hey, guess what? We're going to do away with the establishment test and actually we're going to look at the 20 or more redundancies across the company, across the employer. So perhaps, going back to the position that we feared we might be entering into as a result of the Woolworth cases, there's been consultation, lots of stakeholders have fed back and said no, no, no, no, no, surely not, you can't mean this. And, as a result, where we've ended up is that the government has said in the latest response that we are still looking at a 20 or more people at an establishment, or another threshold, so a different threshold involving employees of all the company. But what that threshold may be is as yet unclear. So we could be looking at maybe a percentage of all employees. So maybe if you're looking to make redundant more than 10% of all of your employees across the company, or maybe there will just be a maximum number. So if we're going to be making more than 100 people redundant, or proposing to make more than 100 people redundant across the entire company, even if they're spread out at lots of different establishments, then the obligation may still be triggered. 

Stacey Reay: 6:42 

Seems to me there's going to be a lot of requirements now put on employers to ensure they're complying with this. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 6:53 

Yeah, absolutely, and the message around all of this, I suppose, is for businesses to be aware. But so much of the detail of this is not going to come out until we get secondary legislation. So it's something we need to be aware of, something we need to be planning for, but that we can't have detailed processes in place as yet because we're not quite sure exactly what we're going to have to do. But you're absolutely right that the outcome of the ERB is going to be lots of additional burdens and responsibilities on employers. 

So the next thing I wanted to mention was zero hours workers. 

Stacey Reay: 7:26 

Yes, very topical. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 7:28 

Absolutely, and for many of our clients operating in the leisure and hospitality sector, for example, this is a really hot topic for them because of their reliance upon agency workers. And, as a headline, the three key rights are going to be an obligation on an employer to offer guaranteed hours to those on zero or low hours contracts to reflect the actual hours that they do over a particular reference period. Then a requirement to pay compensation to individuals in the event that you have to notify them of a the need to change or to cancel a shift, that short notice, and then also then a compensation regime available to employees in the event that they do not get notification of a shift being cancelled and as they should have. So those are the headlines. One question that was left hanging previously is what about agency workers? 

Andrew Whiteaker: 8:22 

a valid question. 

 yes, absolutely, because could an employer simply get around all of this by just engaging agency workers instead? Because then of course, they're not the employer of those agency workers. They have a business sat in between them and the worker. Again, this month government has confirmed no, that's not going to work, because agency workers are going to be covered as well. So the obligation to offer the guaranteed hours contract is going to be something that's going to sit with the end user. So it's up to the end user to offer that contract. As far as the compensation payments and the obligation to provide notification of cancellation, that's going to sit with the agency. But this is something that employers are going to have to think about, or companies that use agency workers in this way are going to have to think about, because you're going to want this all covered off on your commercial terms. 

Stacey Reay: 9:12 

Oh, definitely. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 9:13 

Yeah, who's going to pay this? Where does the burden sit? Your agency contracts that you have in place? If you tend to use agency staff to fill in and provide you with workers in this sort of way, you're going to need to look again at your terms. 

Stacey Reay: 9:25 

I think that's really important and also I suppose if you know now applying this to agency workers and what constitutes reasonable notice, depending on who's communicating with the employee, you know what, if you give reasonable notice to the agency, does that then stem onto the employee? There's lots of factors here to consider. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 9:41 

Yeah, absolutely so. You're going to want to make sure that you, first of all, you understand what the legislation requires of you, but, secondly, that you've got a process and a system agreed with your agency and there is an understanding as to who's liable, and who's going to? Pay if things go wrong. So there's that. One thing that's disappeared is the right to switch off. 

Stacey Reay: 10:03 

Which is interesting. I was quite surprised by that. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 10:04 

Yeah, I mean, I understand the principle behind it and we know that lots of other countries have introduced a sort of code of practice and and the suggestion was that was probably the route that we were heading to have not a mandated process, instead allowing employers to come to some sort of agreement with their workforce about what that might look like. But over the last couple of weeks it's been sort of confirmed that actually that's not a proposal that's moving forward at the moment. Whether or not that's something to appease some of the concerns about the state of the economy and productivity and that kind of thing, I don't know. That might be a reason behind it, but it's not something that's being taken forward at this time. 

Stacey Reay: 10:38 

No, I think that'll be interesting to see how that plays out, and obviously other countries, such as Australia, have adopted similar policies. So I think, moving forward, I suppose it's really difficult to strike the balance because I think we could all agree we love hybrid working, gives us so much flexibility, but does having a legal right to switch off make a difference to people? I suppose it depends on the company, your employer. Lots of things to consider there, but hopefully it does make an appearance at some point. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 11:09 

Yeah, which is why I think the code of practice is probably the right way forward to allow the employer that understands its own business and how it operates, for them to agree with their own employees how it should work. Of course, nothing stops an employer from introducing some sort of policy or principle around this. 

Stacey Reay: 11:25 

No, definitely not. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 11:25 

It's just something that the government's not going to require of businesses at this time. So, while other things are new, so just on whistleblowing we're going to talk about matters at ED&I in a moment. But one thing's changed as far as the whistleblowing protection is, a complaint of sexual harassment is now specifically going to become a protected disclosure for the purposes of a whistleblowing complaint. And obviously, if you're going to make a whistleblowing complaint, that gives you the right to bring a claim for automatic unfair dismissal if that's the reason that your employment has been terminated, and also compensation limits are removed in the event of a tribunal claim. You've always been able to bring a claim in respect of a complaint that you've alleged a breach of. You know lawful obligations, but there is this question about whether the breach of an individual's contract of employment, for example, represents something that's in the public interest and therefore that they should be allowed to be covered here by saying no. Specifically, if you complain about an act of sexual harassment that is, by definition, a protected disclosure, then that provides that protection and those discussions and arguments don't necessarily have to be considered. 

Stacey Reay: 12:35 

No, I mean, I don't think this is too surprising to see this with the employment rights bill, with the crackdown and implementation of, you know, sexual harassment by third parties that's now being placed on employers. I think it's, you know, really important to have this now, and it'll be interesting to see the real implications of it on employers if and when it happens. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 12:55 

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So a couple of other new things. Well, one new thing, I suppose, and this is around the enforcement and the changes to employment rights enforcement. The change is in respect of bringing tribunal claims. So at the moment they're, broadly speaking, three months to bring a claim, but there are some exceptions to that where it's a six month limitation period. The announcements made this month have indicated there is going to be a change. That's now going to be a sixth month limit to bring employment tribunal claims, which is a which is a change from where we've been in the past. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 13:25 

It's often quite an anxious time for employers when they're not sure whether someone has brought a claim, whether they're going to bring a claim. Also, if the tribunal's administration sometimes can be a little slow with the ACAS pre-claim conciliation process as well, it's sometimes difficult to understand exactly when the deadline might be. This just means that that period of anxiety, potentially for employers, may be dragged out a little further. But also, on a more practical level, you need to think about retaining evidence, retaining documentation, that kind of thing. Because whereas you might have previously thought, well, we're now four months past dismissal and therefore there's not going to be a claim here, Actually, now we might have a potentially longer period and therefore we might need to think more carefully about document retention. 

Stacey Reay: 14:10 

I think one of the things I'm taking from our conversation at least, is that employees now need to be a lot more organised across a wider range of areas now to protect themselves. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 14:19 

I think that's right. There is going to be additional burdens on employers as far as whether it be administrative matters to deal with things like this or the redundancy issues that we spoke about, or just being being mindful that employees just have. We're going to have greater rights and they need to be clued up, and both HR and, obviously, managers need to understand what their obligations are yeah, absolutely. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 14:41 

And then the implications of these, of the new laws as well yeah, absolutely, look a couple of things that have maybe just slipped under of the new laws as well that I just wanted to highlight. The first thing is around TUPE, which everyone is always really excited to hear about. 

Everyone's favourite topic. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 14:55 

Absolutely. But one thing that has slipped under the radar, I think, because I haven't seen that much commentary about it is in respect of public sector workers. So it's always been the case that there's been some protections provided to people being transferred out of the public sector into a private sector employer, and there's expectations about how the public sector employer will protect its employees when they move into the private sector, ensuring access to pension schemes, that kind of thing. But what the ERB suggests is that we are going that there's going to be additional burden now to avoid two-tier workforces. So not only are those individuals transferring out from the public sector going to have their rights protected, so that employers are not able to change or remove or vary the rights that they have, that they derive from working in the public sector. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 15:45 

The suggestion is that also those private sector employees who are going to be working alongside the public sector employees must have no less favorable rights than their colleagues that they're working alongside. Right, yes, and exactly how that's going to work is going to be interesting and again, as ever, I sound like I'm on repeat here. We don't necessarily have the detail of that, but that's actually quite a big change for those sort of service provision companies that take people out of the public sector, the expectation that has previously been. Well, it's a bit of a pain. We've got this cohort of individuals that have enhanced rights or enhanced benefits, but we can just sort of ring fence them and we're entitled to employ people working alongside them, but on different and potentially less favourable terms. Actually, there may now be an obligation to match the terms that those public sector employees have brought with them, so that's potentially quite a big one that is quite big yeah, and the other thing that I was going to mention around is maternity returners yes 

Andrew Whiteaker: 16:42 

because we that we have for the last period of time had enhanced protection from individuals returning from maternity leave as far as redundancy is concerned. So it was traditionally the case, or has been for many years the case, that you have enhanced rights when you're on maternity leave or I should say, some sort of parental leave. If you're at risk of redundancy, you get essentially sort of first dibs on any vacancies that may appear. And that's, over the last few years, been extended out to cover the six months after you return from your maternity leave. So essentially 18 months from the expected week of childbirth. But the proposal under the ERB is that actually that protection is going to be expanded more widely than simply redundancy. So actually it's in respect to any kind of dismissal, so almost a moratorium on dismissing individuals returning from parental leave or maternity leave or adoption leave, something like that, for that 18 months after the expected week of childbirth or placement if it's an adoption situation. So that's quite a big one actually it's quite a bit. 

Stacey Reay: 17:47 

It's also a good chunk of time 18 months as well yeah, I mean you would expect potentially. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 17:52 

You've got 12 months worth of maternity leave or absence or comparable leave period of absence then it's the six months after that. But nonetheless, this is yeah, this is reflecting practices in other European jurisdictions where you do have these additional protections, but the perception is by the government and, I think, backed up by a lot of data, is that retention rates of people returning from maternity leave is just appalling and people often do fall out of their roles for whatever reason, either upon the expected return or shortly thereafter. So this is a wrong that the government is attempting to right. 

Stacey Reay: 18:24 

Well, again, it will be interesting to see the implications of it because, as you say, the data at the moment suggests one thing I think it'd be interesting to look at this in a few years' time and see how the data has changed regarding retention. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 18:38 

Yeah, absolutely Well. 

Segueing on to the part that you want to talk about, stace in a moment, one of the other changes that we've seen in the ERB, or the government's legislative proposals, is around pay gap reporting. Yes, and so we have seen a proposal that, in addition to the gender pay gap reporting that employers currently are obliged to undertake, there will in the future, be an obligation to provide reporting on both ethnicity and also disability pay gap reporting. Now, just to give a brief anecdote, we I was having a conversation with a client, a USA client, earlier on this week about their gender pay gap report that they've produced, because it's that time of year, isn't it? I know you're doing a lot of them at the moment I am at the moment. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 19:21 

Yes, and we were making proposals or recommendations or suggestions about how they might want to put some additional data in there or maybe beef up the sections around what they're doing to try and reduce the gap, and the pushback that we received was well, we just don't want to be seen to be doing that right now. Because of who we are and because of the political climate in the US, we don't want to be seen to be emphasising this sort of initiative too much and we're, frankly, just want to put in the bare minimum that we can get away with to avoid pushback on the other side of the Atlantic. 

Stacey Reay: 19:53 

Well, I think this is again. It's very topical at the moment. Of course, you can't switch on the news without seeing such things and obviously this is not a political podcast but I think these are very real implications on both employers and employees. And equally, I suppose a lot of US companies are withdrawing DEI policies for various reasons and I suppose things to consider are probably why that is in the UK and what the implications are on UK businesses. But equally, for employees who fall under the EDI umbrella, which obviously is very, very, very broad, how that makes the employees actually feel when companies start to withdraw these things. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 20:34 

Yeah, absolutely. Well, look, should we take a quick break and then we'll come back and carry on with this. 

Stacey Reay: 20:38 

Perfect. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 20:43 

Okay, so before the break Stace, we were starting to talk a bit about pay gap reporting and some of the changes that we're seeing introduced by the government and also some of the issues around ED&I more generally the changes that we're seeing and that's reflected in the current political climate as well. 

Stacey Reay: 20:59 

Yeah, definitely, I think, with pay gaps generally. Obviously, the Employment Rights Bill has touched on things such as disability pay gaps and race pay gaps, which will be picked up with the Equality, Race and Disability Bill. I suppose one of the problems and this also comes across with there's also a sexual orientation pay gap, which the pension regulator and Stonewall have reported on, but I think one of the problems with the wider pay gap within itself is I do think there is one, of course, but it's also the data surrounding that and how companies get data that actually accurately reflects their employees. I know here at Boyes Turner, looking at our EDI survey that we send out and something I've looked at as champion of the prior group there is a lot of people who will put NA for a lot of things or just generally don't respond, and while, of course, everyone's entitled to do that, you do then have to think how that data itself will impact on the pay gaps. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 21:58 

Yeah, absolutely, and there's many things that people will prefer that will take the view that actually they do want to keep private for whatever personal reason that may be. 

Stacey Reay: 22:07 

Definitely, and then that's a very valid point as well. What business is it of the companies? However, it then will skew this data, and it's something that I think you know. Companies are trying to fix the gender pay gap. I think that's not expected to be fixed for several generations I think the statistic would be my great-granddaughter, which is quite a good length of time but with the sexual orientation pay gap, latest statistics was there was about a 12% pay gap in favour of heterosexual employees, and so it'll be interesting, I think, to see what the government does do around this and why the EDI, because I think there was a lot of topics added in the Employment Rights Bill that are probably relatively new. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 22:47 

And so, yeah, I think the point you make about data is really important, Stace, because you know, talking about the the pay gap around sexuality or sexual orientation, then the difficulty you have there is that it may be that there are many younger individuals in a particular workplace who are either they are, they have a different sexuality and they're not heterosexual and they're more willing to be, and they're more willing to be open about that, yes, and if they are of a younger cohort, they might be starting out on their careers and their pay may be less or or a lower sum, whereas you have an older cohort of gen, xers or whoever it might be. It could be that there are fewer people who are non-heterosexual in that cohort, or even those who are not heterosexual may be less willing to disclose that information. So the data you get might not necessarily give you a particularly good answer as to what that pay gap looks like, both because of the age and where they are as far as seniority is concerned, but also in terms of who's actually going to disclose that information. 

Stacey Reay: 23:42 

No, definitely, and I think that that exact point resonates across disability and race pay gap reporting as well. So I think you know we have to recognise there is one the data would suggest the data would agree with that. It's just, I suppose, from a business perspective, about is the data accurate and there's not really a way to find that out without invading people's privacies. But it's certainly something to think about and how we bring everyone along to an equal standard. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 24:04 

Yeah, and then another factor that is at play here and again, dealing, I mentioned before the break, about US organizations, you know, we know that there is greater pressure being placed on those organizations to effectively defund or discontinue ED&I initiatives. If we are, in the next few years, going to be asking employers in the UK of a certain size to be collecting this sort of data to enable them to accurately report, how does that work with US-owned businesses who are no doubt going to be having pressure placed on them to not recover and not invade people's privacy and ask them that sort of information because it's irrelevant and they shouldn't be asking in the first place? 

Stacey Reay: 24:51 

No, I think you're very right to bring up that point regarding you know UK businesses, but also if you know you have offices in other countries, especially in the US at the moment, and how a rollback of DEI initiatives when there isn't really any pressure on any UK company to do so, and how that looks to employees, as you said, I think you know we could. 

Stacey Reay: 25:11 

Most people would agree that the younger generations are more open, more you know, are looking for companies who do support EDI initiatives and want to work for companies who do support them and support the wider EDI initiatives. So I think it's going to be a really tough balancing act and hopefully, as more people come through and workplaces become more open and are willing to show their support behind these EDI initiatives, the data might catch itself up. I would hope that, you know. I mean we ourselves here have our Pride Progress flag, which is very prominent, and I would hope that would make other colleagues maybe who haven't been so open before, to feel like actually, you know this is a safe space and hopefully that will continue to roll on. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 25:53 

Yeah, and I think it's a really valid point that you make as well about the fact that you know, when we do our research and also research more generally, that you read from time to time that individuals are motivated not necessarily exclusively by pay, but actually about you know the sort of employer that they're going to work for. You know their commitment to these sort of initiatives ESG as well, you know just being a more welcoming and open environment. That's not the case for everybody, but we do know from the data that we collect that many people put a very high value on that. 

Stacey Reay: 26:25 

Definitely, definitely. So I do think it'll be interesting and I suppose the Employment Rights Bill has introduced quite a wide breadth of topics and I feel like it's going quite a long way to try and correct some wrongs that maybe employees have been feeling. So it'll be really interesting to see what policies are introduced because of it and what protections are put in place to support everyone in the workforce. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 26:47 

Sure, okay. So with the potential reduction or rollback or defunding of some ED&I initiatives off the back of the current political climate or changes, primarily in the US, how do you see or suspect that may impact upon employees in the workplace? And also, maybe the sort of work that comes through arrives in our inboxes as well and what we have to work with? 

Stacey Reay: 27:10 

I think that's really interesting because, as we see day to day, there are a lot of claims that are brought in where a person feels that they've been wronged or discriminated against and it I suppose on the face of that already, it's quite interesting to see when a person feels that they've been wronged, versus when the law says they've been wronged. So I think that in itself is is food for thought, because you could follow a handbook perfectly, but an employee still might feel wronged. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 27:34 

Yeah and an individual might bring a claim, maybe because they're trying it on a little bit and maybe they're referring to a protected characteristic to try and give them an angle. But also it could be that they genuinely feel that they've been treated less favourably because of whatever that particular characteristic may be. Even if the evidence doesn't support that, that doesn't mean that they don't genuinely feel it. 

Stacey Reay: 27:56 

No, exactly, and I think that is one of the one of the tricky things about employment law and in its nature because you're dealing with people and how really a lot of the time either how they were treated or then how that treatment made them yeah how they feel, yeah, definitely but I do think, with you know, the potential rollback or withdrawing of edi initiatives. 

Stacey Reay: 28:13 

It's important to think about how the employees will feel and it could be seen that workplaces feel less safe and that you can't be yourself at work or you can't bring your whole self to work, and the implications of that I think you know. Statistically, we do see that people who feel they can bring their whole selves to work and their authentic selves are more productive in the workplace. So I think you know, to wrap up our edi talk we've ended up doing, I think with you know, these potential rollbacks. It's will be how the employee feels versus the intention of the employer, and that in itself could lead to more claims being brought forward yeah, absolutely. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 28:49 

So. I mean, look, we may be engaged in a degree of catastrophizing here. Stace we may be, we may be, but we're just, you know, we're feeling it on the wind a little bit that there are, there are some pressure on businesses to maybe take the focus off these sort of initiatives and it may have those consequences of individuals, even if they're not being treated less favorably, just feeling that they are, and and and maybe feeling, as you say, less, less secure and safe in the workplace yeah, definitely okay, well, look, I think that probably just about wraps us up for today, so thank you. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 29:18 

You so much for your time, Stace. 

Stacey Reay: 29:19 

No, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. 

Andrew Whiteaker: 29:21 

So all that remains to be said is thanks for listening to the Employment Law Pod. If you're interested in checking out any more episodes in this series, then please go to the Boyes Turner website, or, alternatively, you can subscribe wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thanks again and goodbye.