Planning ahead for the new Employment Rights Bill

In this blog I wanted to pick an area which will affect all employers when the new Act that is going through Parliament comes into force.

Sickness absence is a perennial issue that all employers have to manage.

From, likely April 2026, employees will receive Statutory Sick Pay from the very first day they are off work. At the time of writing this they would have to wait three ‘waiting days’ and not get paid until day four. For employers paying statutory sick pay only or perhaps small sums of company sick pay of a few days before employees revert to statutory sick pay, these ‘waiting days’ have acted as a deterrent to misusing sick leave, as the genuinely ill are not paid for short-term absences. This has deterred the odd day for ‘flu’ or a stomach upset. The Employment Rights Bill eliminates the three-day waiting period, removing the deterrent.

The Employment Rights Bill also removes the lower earnings threshold. This means everyone, no matter what hours they work – will now qualify for Statutory Sick Pay if they are sick. This captures more casual and part-time workers who historically may not have earnt enough to qualify. SSP will be calculated at 80% of their normal weekly earnings, subject to a cap of £118.75 which is the current rate of SSP for a week, and which increases each year, so is likely to be a few pounds greater by the time this change comes into force.

The combined effect of these two measures is more people qualifying for sick pay more often. Not only does that have a cost implication but it means you will need to review the measures you take to review absence and manage it.

Time to dust down your sickness absence policies, trigger points and monitoring of absence patterns. Often these are tools we have in our kit bag but aren’t using properly. A time-honoured method that yields the best results for managing absence is the return to work interview, yet often managers haven’t been trained how to do them with confidence.

Let us know if we can help you overhaul what methods you are using to manage sickness by contacting Anna at adenton@refreshinglawltd.co.uk.

Refreshing Law – May 2025