Most of the Employment Rights Act 2025 doesn’t land on HR’s desk first. It lands on a line manager’s, in a probation decision, an absence conversation, a flexible working request, a dismissal that has to hold up to more scrutiny than it used to. Most managers have had no dedicated preparation for any of this.

This piece is the practical companion to the pillar covering the Act as a whole, focused specifically on what changes for a manager’s day-to-day decisions: qualifying periods, sick pay, family leave, flexible working, and dismissal, what’s actually different, and what to do differently starting now.

Explore: Employment Law Changes 2026: HR Guidance on the Employment Rights Act 2025

From 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal protection drops from two years to six months. Multiple employment law firms confirm the mechanics:

• Anyone with six months’ service on that date gains protection immediately
• That means anyone employed on or before 1 July 2026 is already covered by the time the change takes effect
• BCLP explains the statutory minimum notice period, one week, gets added onto an employee’s service for this threshold, so an employee dismissed just short of six months can still cross into protected territory once that week is added

The real cut-off point sits earlier than the calendar suggests.

For managers, this closes the window that used to exist for treating someone’s first two years as a low-risk period. BCLP recommends reviewing probation length now, shorter periods, three to four months, extendable by no more than a month, tend to work better under the new timeline, alongside clear performance standards set from the outset and regular, documented review points.

Two changes to SSP took effect on 6 April 2026, and both shift when a manager’s decisions start carrying payroll consequences:

• Waiting period removed. ACAS confirms SSP is now payable from the first qualifying day of sickness absence, not the fourth.
• Lower Earnings Limit removed. Employees no longer need to earn above a minimum threshold to qualify at all.
• Rate increased. GOV.UK’s own rates and thresholds confirm the SSP weekly rate for 2026-27 is £123.25, or 80% of average weekly earnings, whichever is lower, up from £118.75 the previous year.

For a manager, this means an absence conversation that used to have three days before any pay obligation kicked in now has none. Every day of sickness absence is now a qualifying day from the outset, which puts more weight on getting the return-to-work conversation and documentation right early, rather than treating the first few days as a grace period.

From 6 April 2026, the length-of-service requirement for taking paternity leave and unpaid parental leave was removed. Multiple firms confirm both are now available from an employee’s first day, including during probation.

One distinction matters here, and it’s easy to get wrong: this is a day-one right to take the leave, not to be paid for it. Statutory paternity pay still requires 26 weeks’ continuous service, that qualifying condition hasn’t changed. A new starter can request paternity leave in their first week, but whether they’re paid for it during that leave depends on the separate service requirement.

A new day-one right to unpaid bereavement leave was also introduced, covering a wider category of relatives than the previous parental bereavement leave regime it’s modelled on.

For managers, the practical shift is straightforward: a request for any of these can now come from someone who started days ago, not months ago. Refusing or delaying on the basis of short service is no longer an option, workforce planning around parental and bereavement leave needs to account for this from the point of hire.

It’s easy to assume flexible working became a day-one right under this Act. It didn’t, that change happened separately, in 2024. What the Employment Rights Act 2025 actually changes is narrower, but still significant for how a manager handles a refusal.

Hill Dickinson explains an employer can now only refuse a flexible working request if a specified business ground applies and it’s reasonable for the employer to rely on that ground in the specific circumstances. The list of acceptable business grounds hasn’t changed. What’s new is the second test: citing a valid ground is no longer automatically enough on its own.

New regulations will also set out specific steps an employer must take to consult with an employee before rejecting their request, rather than leaving the process to employer discretion.

For managers, this means a flexible working refusal now needs to show two things, not one: a genuine business ground, and a documented reason why relying on that ground was reasonable given the specific request. A refusal that would have stood up under the old test may not hold up under this one without that second layer of reasoning.

Everything above changes when a right applies. This section is about what happens if a dismissal decision goes wrong once it does.

From the same date the qualifying period drops, 1 January 2027, the cap on unfair dismissal compensation disappears entirely. This series has covered what that means for financial exposure in detail elsewhere. For a manager making the actual decision, the practical consequence is more immediate: a dismissal that used to carry bounded, predictable risk now carries genuinely open-ended risk if the process behind it doesn’t hold up.

That raises the bar on what “fair process” needs to look like at the point of decision, not after a claim is lodged:

• A genuine investigation
• Clear and documented reasoning
• A real opportunity for the employee to respond

All of this needs to happen before the decision is made, not reconstructed afterward to justify it. That standard hasn’t changed. What’s changed is how much it now matters if it isn’t met.

Explore: The Unfair Dismissal Cap: Removed 2027

What Managers Should Actually Be Doing Now

None of the changes above require waiting until their effective dates to start preparing for.

• Review probation length and process. Shorter probation periods with clear performance standards and documented review points, set up before the six-month qualifying period lands on 1 January 2027.
• Update absence procedures. Treat every day of sickness absence as a qualifying day now, not just from 6 April 2026, so payroll and documentation habits are already in place when the change lands.
• Know the day-one family leave rights by name. Paternity leave, unpaid parental leave, and bereavement leave can all be requested by someone in their first week. Know the difference between the right to take leave and the separate qualifying conditions for pay.
• Tighten flexible working refusal documentation. A business ground alone won’t be enough, be ready to document why relying on it was reasonable for the specific request.
• Apply fair dismissal process consistently, regardless of length of service. The financial and reputational cost of getting this wrong is rising well before the cap disappears.

The changes covered here don’t sit with HR alone, they land directly on the decisions line managers make every day. Avado’s HR Compliance for Managers course, presented by employment law specialist Amanda Chadwick, is built specifically for this: six guided learning hours covering the Employment Rights Act 2025 changes, what managers must own versus what sits with HR, and the fair-process judgement that keeps day-to-day decisions defensible.

Explore HR Compliance for Managers and make sure every manager in the business is operating to the same defensible standard!