The Employment Rights Bill

The effective recruitment and retention of staff continues to be one of the key challenges for healthcare providers given the shortages of clinical staff and stiff competition across the sector to attract new talent. With significant changes to employment law on the horizon there will be various new factors for healthcare employers to consider in this already difficult area. 

The government’s flagship Employment Rights Bill, currently passing its way through parliament, contains a number of proposals which make it more important than ever that employers take steps now to improve their recruitment process to ensure they are making effective hiring decisions and are properly assessing staff during their probationary periods. 

Crucially, the Bill will introduce a number of new day-one rights for employees. To prepare for this change, and get ready for the introduction of day-one unfair dismissal rights, employers should consider taking steps now to enhance their recruitment procedures to ensure that the right candidates are being hired. For example, it is advisable to explore the reasons for any gaps in a candidate’s employment history and to check more than one reference. Managers should be properly trained in how to conduct job interviews, so that there is some consistency in how candidates are assessed.

It is also sensible to ensure you have robust pre-employment vetting procedures. For example, making sure a candidate’s qualifications are properly checked and verified, that they have the right to work in the UK and performing criminal records checks in appropriate cases. 

Currently, most employers include a contractual probationary period of between three to six months, during which they can assess a new employee’s performance and dismiss them more quickly and easily if things are not working out. Following this lead, the Bill introduces the concept of the ‘initial period of employment’, which is akin to a statutory probationary period and expected to be between three to nine months.

During this initial period of employment, the employer will be able to follow a lighter-touch process to dismiss the employee for the potentially fair reason of capability, conduct, illegality or some other substantial reason (but limited to reasons related to the employee).

To prepare for this move towards an initial period of employment/statutory probationary period, many employers are getting ahead of the game now by starting to train their managers. For example, we have recently been training managers on how to (formally and informally) assess an employee during their probationary period, set them achievable targets and goals, and monitor/measure their progress against any KPIs. It is important that this probationary period training also covers equality issues, such as the duty to make reasonable adjustments for disability.

The Bill is expected to be implemented on or after Autumn 2026. This means employers have the benefit of some time to prepare for the wide sweeping changes it introduces, but there are as outlined, various steps healthcare employers can take now to improve their recruitment processes and the management of probationary employees, to help reduce risks later. 

This article is an abridged version of a piece written by Fiona for LaingBuisson’s HealthcareMarkets publication. For the full article, please click here.

Join employment partner Fiona McLellan at LaingBuisson’s Private Healthcare Summit on Thursday 15 May at 14:15 for her session on ‘Is retention the new recruitment?’

Details on Fiona’s session and the ‘Conference Agenda’ can be viewed here.