The UK Employment Rights Act: A Compliance Survival Guide for Shift-Based Employers

The "New Deal" is now law. If you rely on hourly or shift-based staff, spreadsheets won’t cut it anymore. Here is how technology keeps you safe.

The UK employment landscape has officially shifted. The government’s Employment Rights Act 2025 (formerly the "New Deal for Working People") has rewritten the rules governing the relationship between employers and employees.

While these changes affect every business, the impact is not spread evenly. If your company operates with standard, salaried 9-to-5 roles, this is largely an HR policy update. However, if your business relies on dynamic workforces - hourly staff, shift workers, temporary labor, or zero-hours contracts - this represents a major operational overhaul.

Reliance on manual processes, disjointed spreadsheets, and WhatsApp groups to manage shift workers is no longer sustainable under this stricter regulatory scrutiny. The only way to navigate these changes efficiently is by leveraging purpose-built workforce management technology.

Here is a look at the critical elements of the new Act for shift-based employers, and how specialized tools like Ubeya help you prepare.
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1. Tackling the "Zero-Hours" Challenge

The Act commits to ending "exploitative" zero-hours contracts. Workers now have a right to a contract that reflects their average hours worked over a 12-week reference period, plus compensation for cancelled shifts.

• The Operational Headache: If you manage a pool of 300 casual staff, manually calculating the rolling 12-week average for everyone is a massive drain. Furthermore, tracking exactly when a shift was cancelled - to prove if compensation is due - is now vital for payroll.
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• How Tech Helps: You need a system that does the math for you.
  
  • Automated Reference Periods: Ubeya tracks every hour historically. You can pull instant reports for the 12-week reference period to see exactly who qualifies for a guaranteed contract.
  • Cancellation Logs: Ubeya creates an audit trail of exactly when a shift was cancelled and when the worker was notified, ensuring you pay statutory compensation accurately without disputes.

2. The New "Probation" Reality (Unfair Dismissal)

The Act has reduced the qualifying period for unfair dismissal protection from two years to just six months.

• The Operational Headache: The margin for error in hiring has shrunk drastically. You no longer have two years to assess a worker's fit. You have a strict 6-month "statutory probation" window. If you fail to document poor performance or attendance within that window, dismissing an unsuitable worker becomes significantly harder and riskier.
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• How Tech Helps:
  
  • Probation Alerts: Ubeya allows you to track tenure. The platform can auto-alert you when a worker is at "Month 5," prompting a strict "Keep or Release" review before full protections kick in.
  • Performance Evidence: Managers can leave digital notes (e.g., "No Show," "Late") on shifts in the app, building the evidence trail you need to dismiss fairly during the probation period.

3. Sick Pay & Family Protections from Day One

Statutory Sick Pay (SSP) is now a Day One right (the 3-day waiting period is abolished), and protections for Paternity, Parental, and Bereavement leave also apply immediately.

• The Operational Headache: For high-volume shift employers, the volume of sickness claims will skyrocket. Every single day of absence now has a financial implication. Manual rosters often fail to account for complex family leave, leading to scheduling errors that could be legally deemed "detrimental treatment."
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• How Tech Helps:
  
  • Instant Absence Coding: When a worker reports sickness via the Ubeya app, it is instantly logged as "Sick Leave" rather than generic time off, ensuring payroll data is accurate immediately.
  • Smart Rostering: Ubeya can automatically filter out staff on family leave when you build a schedule, preventing the legal risk of accidentally scheduling a parent who is on protected leave.

4. Ending "Fire and Rehire"

The Act makes dismissing employees for refusing to agree to a contract variation (e.g., changing shift patterns or pay) automatically unfair.

• The Operational Headache: You can no longer force through changes to terms. You must prove you consulted properly and obtained genuine agreement.
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• How Tech Helps:
  
  • Consent Tracking: If you propose a new contract, Ubeya allows you to push it to the worker's app. The system provides a digital timestamp proving the worker read and signed it willingly, protecting you from claims of coercion.

Conclusion

The Employment Rights Act is coming. While implementation will be staggered throughout 2026, the administrative burden of complying manually will be immense.

By adopting dedicated workforce management tools now, you don't just ensure compliance; you turn a regulatory challenge into an opportunity to streamline your operations and protect your business.