Many of the changes introduced by the Employment Rights Act 2025 (ERA 2025) are now in place, already drastically changing the legal obligations and processes HR departments and employers must apply to their workers and business practices. However, there is more to come.
The latest change came on 1 October 2026: the ERA 2025 change to tribunal time limits. Employers need to understand and be ready for the change, and people professionals can take the lead to put in place robust processes (or tighten up existing ones) to facilitate the resolution of workplace issues early and at an informal level where possible and appropriate.
This will not only help organisations reduce the time and cost burden of lengthy tribunal processes, but putting these steps can improve workplace culture, with benefits for productivity and performance. There are also key steps organisations can take in terms of information and evidence gathering if issues can’t be resolved and a tribunal claim is received.
How is the ERA 2025 impacting on tribunals – and employers?
The impact of the ERA 2025 on tribunals is two-fold. Procedural changes to time limits and compensation, alongside an expansion in employee and worker rights, are making tribunal claims more likely – despite the significant issues faced by the tribunal system itself. These changes also increase pressures on employers to update processes and procedures and tackle workplace culture, while at the same time putting safeguards in place if things do go wrong.
Procedurally, from 1 October the ERA 2025 doubles the time limit employees or former employees have to bring their claims to the tribunal from three to six months.
This change should not be seen in isolation from other key changes being made by the ERA 2025. The protective award (the remedy a tribunal can award when an employer fails to meet its collective redundancy consultation obligations, requiring the employer to pay remuneration to employees) doubled from 90 to 180 days’ pay in April 2026.
From 1 January 2027, the ERA 2025 will reduce the qualifying service required to bring a claim for unfair dismissal from two years to just six months, with immediate effect: employees who started work on 1 July 2026 will be able to bring a claim straight away. The ERA 2025 also removes the existing cap on compensatory awards for unfair dismissal from that date. Separately, but worth noting, Acas are consulting on a revised draft Code of Practice on discipline and grievance matters.
Alongside these procedural changes, individual rights are expanding. There have already been significant changes to SSP and family friendly rights. From 30 October 2026, employers have wider obligations to protect their staff from harassment, and 2027 will see additional rights coming in across a range of areas including contracts (with changes to zero and low hour arrangements), flexible working and new bereavement leave rights, and a further expansion of trace union rights.
Additionally, the new Fair Work Agency will be able to bring proceedings in the employment tribunal on a worker’s behalf – and to offer legal advice and assistance to someone in a dispute under employment or trade union law. It remains to be seen the impact this will have.
Addressing the time limit extension from a practical perspective
The extension of the time limit to bring a claim in the Employment Tribunal will mean claims may be brought quite a long time after an employee has been dismissed, or after an incident has occurred. This could make it much harder for employers to produce relevant evidence to support the actions they took, and to defend the claim. The managers or witnesses involved may have moved on; policies and/or systems may have been updated. Even if all the relevant personnel are still in the organisation, memories fade quickly.
To respond proactively to these changes, HR teams should consider:
- Auditing historic grievance and disciplinary matters to identify any particular areas of risk, and prioritising areas of concern
- Reviewing all policies and identifying areas where updates are required, with associated training for managers and communications to staff
- Putting in place a policy review protocol with a function for ‘version control’ to allow those handling a tribunal claim to understand which policies were in place at the time the issue arose
- Reviewing data retention protocols to ensure that when this change comes into force, they can be updated to allow for the retention of relevant information for a longer period of time
- Reminding managers and others involved in discipline and grievance matters to make and retain (in a way that complies with data protection rules) clear and detailed notes recording dates and times of conversations, what was discussed, and any actions, as well as follow up conversations
- Reviewing exit processes to include exit interview questions which might flag any unresolved issues with staff who are leaving, offering an opportunity for resolution if these concerns have not already been flagged.
As always, the more thoroughly HR teams can prepare for the changes, the smoother the transition will be for businesses, and the less negative impact the changes will have on productivity and performance across organisations.
Acting early to resolve employment disputes
However, as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure, and the same can be said when it comes to workplace concerns with the potential to escalate into tribunals.
By the time an employment dispute reaches the formal stage of a tribunal claim, there will already have been considerable impacts for both employers and individuals. By then, the employment relationship is typically broken beyond repair and the organisation stands to lose valuable staff. If a claim goes all the way to tribunal, it can have a significant impact on employee health and wellbeing throughout the organisation, and on the employer in terms of resources, management time needed to defend the claim, and reputation.
Resolving disputes internally instead of allowing them to spiral out into tribunals is also important due to the pressure already being put on the tribunal system. The backlog of employment tribunal claims and waiting times for claimants to have their case heard have been a big concern for some years. With more claims anticipated as an unintended consequence of the ERA 2025 reforms, addressing workplace culture and tackling concerns early and pro-actively can mean avoiding long wait times and the associated stress of being ‘in limbo’ waiting for a matter to be resolved.
In turn, this frees up more time for everyone to concentrate on the core work of the organisation. HR teams can be at the forefront of bridging the gap between employers and employees in a constructive way to ensure early internal conflict resolution when possible. It’s far better for employment relations and workplace productivity to implement an early resolution framework to resolve individual workplace disputes.
What this means
It means:
- Encouraging a workplace where expectations are clear from the outset, and managers and staff have regular dialogue, and an understanding of how to give and receive constructive feedback within that framework
- Upskilling managers to be able to address performance and conduct issues early with employees, providing support and guidance in a structured way so that if required, the outcomes of difficult conversations can be backed up with evidence
- training line managers to spot the early signs of tension in their teams and ensuring they’re confident and capable of having difficult conversations with people and adopting a problem-solving approach
- ensuring managers understand how to handle grievances and to spot when a whistleblowing concern is being raised by a member of staff, or when someone’s behaviour suggests they might be being bullied or harassed at work, whether by a colleague or a third party
- addressing potential conflict at an early stage before it festers and escalates
- leaders fostering a climate where employees feel safe to speak up and voice concerns by managing their emotions and treating people consistently and fairly to create trust-based working cultures where conflicts are less likely and people feel able to perform at their best
- using alternative dispute resolution approaches such as mediation to avoid formal processes like grievance and tribunal claims where appropriate
- ensuring line managers and other leaders are still prepared to take formal disciplinary action where informal approaches have failed or issues are too serious.
In all, when it comes to being prepared for the ERA 2025 changes to tribunals, the importance of early action in order to prevent the escalation of workplace conflict cannot be overstated. This can only come from enforcing a culture of openness at workplaces, allowing problems to be resolved before they impact employee performance and wellbeing.
Sally joined the CIPD early in 2026 and works across the Public Policy and Knowledge Content teams, covering all aspects of employment law to support HR professionals with legal compliance alongside good practice in their organisations.
Sally has a range of previous experience which she brings to the work of the CIPD. Starting her career as an employment solicitor providing employment law advice and litigation services in central government and industry, she stepped away from the legal coalface for a time to run her own content marketing business, specialising in legal marketing. Immediately before joining the CIPD, she held a dual marketing manager/HR business partner role in a fast growth SME.
