Employment Rights Act 2025: What Hospitality Employers Need to Know

Quick Summary

• The Employment Rights Act 2025 introduces major changes for hospitality businesses across 2026 and 2027.

• Day-one statutory sick pay is already in force.

• Third-party harassment liability returns in October 2026.

• Guaranteed-hours rights for eligible zero-hours workers are expected in 2027.

• Hospitality employers need stronger documentation, training records, and compliance processes.

• Training is no longer just good practice. It can become evidence if a claim reaches a tribunal.

• A hospitality training learning management system helps businesses deliver training and maintain auditable records.

What Is the Employment Rights Act?

The Employment Rights Act is a major reform of UK employment law that strengthens worker protections around sick pay, harassment, working hours, and employment rights enforcement. For hospitality employers, the biggest challenge is not simply understanding the rules. It is proving that policies, training, and compliance measures are actively being followed across the business.

What Does the Employment Rights Act Mean for Hospitality Employers?

The Employment Rights Act is changing how hospitality businesses manage compliance, employee records, and workplace training. Statutory sick pay is already a day-one right. Third-party harassment liability returns in October 2026. Guaranteed-hours rules for eligible zero-hours workers are expected in 2027.

For an industry built on flexible shifts, casual contracts, and constant guest interaction, these changes require more than policy updates. Operators must be able to show evidence of compliance through documented procedures, training records, and workforce management processes.

This guide explains what the Act changes, who is affected, and why many hospitality businesses are now reviewing their training and documentation systems before enforcement risks increase.

What Employment Rights Act Changes Affect Hospitality Most?

The Act reforms employment law across many areas, but four changes have the biggest impact on hospitality businesses.

1. Day-One Statutory Sick Pay

From April 2026, statutory sick pay became a day-one right for all workers. This includes employees on zero-hour contracts. There is no lower earnings threshold and no waiting period.

For hospitality businesses, accurate absence records are now more important than ever.

2. Guaranteed-Hours Rights

The Act does not ban zero-hours contracts. Instead, it limits one-sided flexibility. Workers who regularly work a consistent pattern may become entitled to a guaranteed-hours offer based on those working patterns, with a reference period expected to be around 12 weeks (subject to secondary legislation).

The right to guaranteed hours, the right to reasonable notice of shifts, and the right to payment for cancelled, moved, or curtailed shifts are all expected to come into force in 2027. The exact commencement date has not yet been confirmed and will be set out in secondary regulations.

3. Harassment Prevention

Harassment rules create one of the biggest compliance risks for hospitality operators because staff interact with customers throughout every shift.

4. Stronger Enforcement

The Fair Work Agency(FWA) launched on 7 April 2026 and now brings multiple employment-rights enforcement functions together.

Combined with longer tribunal time limits, undocumented procedures, informal communications, and missing training records become much harder to defend.

Why Training Matters Under the Employment Rights Act

The Employment Rights Act places greater emphasis on proving compliance.

Many hospitality businesses already have policies covering harassment, conduct, and workplace standards. The challenge is demonstrating that employees received those policies and completed appropriate training.

This is where a hospitality training learning management system becomes valuable. It helps businesses:

• Deliver mandatory training consistently

• Track completion rates

• Maintain training records

• Store certificates and evidence

• Support compliance across multiple locations

For operators focused on workforce management for hospitality, documented training is becoming just as important as scheduling and labour planning.

The Harassment Change Most Operators Are Not Ready

From October 2026, two important harassment provisions take effect.

Third-Party Harassment Liability

Employers can once again be held responsible for harassment of staff by third parties, including customers, suppliers, and contractors.

In hospitality, where employees interact with guests every day, this creates a direct area of risk. A single incident may be enough to create liability if an employer cannot demonstrate that reasonable preventative steps were taken.

The same due-diligence principle applies to food safety; see how HACCP training and record-keeping provide the same kind of documented defence under the Food Safety Act 1990.

Stronger Preventive Duty

The Act raises the standard from taking reasonable steps to taking all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment. That small wording change can have a significant impact in a tribunal.

The question becomes:

• Did you have a policy?

• Did staff receive training?

• Can you prove they completed it?

• Were records maintained?

For many businesses, this is where training moves from being a recommendation to becoming a documented defence.

Hospitality operators can support compliance through courses such as:

• Preventing Sexual Harassment in the Workplace

• Preventing Workplace Harassment and Bullying

These courses help ensure employees understand expectations while creating a record of completion.

Why Documentation Protects Hospitality Businesses

The biggest misconception about employment-law compliance is that policies alone provide protection. In reality, tribunals often focus on evidence. A policy sitting in a folder proves very little.

A dated training certificate showing that a specific employee completed harassment-prevention training provides evidence that action was taken.

Many businesses face challenges because training happens informally:

• Verbal briefings

• Paper sign-off sheets

• Inductions without records

• Missing attendance logs

Under the new rules, those gaps create unnecessary risk.

How Can Training Records Protect a Hospitality Business in a Tribunal?

Training records help employers demonstrate that they took reasonable steps to prevent workplace issues.

A strong training record should show:

• Employee name

• Venue or location

• Course completed

• Date completed

• Time completed

This creates documented evidence that training was delivered to a specific employee at a specific time. Modern hospitality training management helps automate this process and reduces the risk of missing records.

What Hospitality Operators Should Do Now

Treating 2026 as extra time is a mistake. It should be treated as a preparation period.

Hospitality businesses should:

1. Review zero-hours contract usage.

2. Track actual hours worked.

3. Improve absence-recording processes.

4. Update harassment policies.

5. Deliver mandatory compliance training.

6. Store completion records securely.

7. Audit current workforce documentation.

Many operators are now using a hotel staff training platform to standardise training and create a central record of compliance activity.

Conclusion:

The Employment Rights Act is changing how hospitality businesses manage compliance, training, and employee records. With stronger harassment protections, day-one sick pay rights, and future guaranteed-hours requirements, employers need more than updated policies. 

They need clear processes and documented proof that staff have been trained. Businesses that prepare early will be in a stronger position to reduce risk, support their teams, and demonstrate compliance when it matters most.

If you want your mandatory training delivered across your whole team with a defensible record for every completion, book a 15-minute demo, and we will walk through it with your operation in mind. You can also read more about the hospitality LMS that holds the records and the hospitality courses included as standard.

FAQs

1. What is the Employment Rights Act?

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is a major UK employment law reform that strengthens worker protections around sick pay, harassment prevention, working hours, and enforcement.

2. How does the Employment Rights Act affect hospitality businesses?

Hospitality businesses must review policies, improve documentation, update training programmes, and maintain stronger records to demonstrate compliance.

3. Why are training records important under the Employment Rights Act?

Training records provide evidence that employees completed the required training. This can help demonstrate that an employer took reasonable steps to prevent workplace issues.

4. What is a hospitality training management system?

A hospitality training learning management system is software that helps businesses deliver, track, and manage employee training while maintaining completion records and certificates.

5. How does hospitality training software support compliance?

Hospitality training software helps businesses deliver mandatory training consistently, track completion rates, and maintain auditable records for compliance purposes.