Employment Rights Act 2025: Essential SCVO Briefing for Charity Leaders

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is reshaping the employment landscape with major changes taking effect throughout 2026 and 2027. For charities this means a review of policies, contracts, recruitment and how we manage people to reduce risk and ensure we continue to comply with our legal obligations.

This briefing will help you in your charity leadership role to understand what is changing, what action is required now, and how to prepare your organisation for new responsibilities around third-party harassment, probation management and unfair dismissal rights. You’ll leave with practical steps to strengthen your organisation’s employment practices and prepare confidently for the new legal framework.

What, when, where?

This briefing will be delivered on MS Teams on Wednesday 23rd September, 9.30 am to 12.30 pm. The briefing will be delivered by a specialist from Black Country legal firm Higgs LLP who have many years’ experience of providing local charities with expert support in areas including employment law and charity advice.

Who’s it for?

This briefing is for managers and anyone with HR responsibilities within a charitable or not-for-profit organisation that employs staff. It’s aimed at organisations within Sandwell’s Voluntary and Community Sector but not-for-profit leaders from other areas are also welcome to attend.

What will I learn?

(i) What you need to know: an overview of the Employment Rights Act 2025

This will be a brief tour of changes that have already happened this year, changes set to happen in October 2026, and January 2027. Key takeaways for charities to update their employment policies and contracts of employment.

(ii) Third Party Harassment – Taking proactive steps to protect and empower your employees

This will cover the new type of claim being introduced in October 2026 which allows employees to make claims if they are subject to discriminatory conduct by third parties such as clients or customers.

Charities often deal with people in crisis who may sometimes exhibit challenging behaviours. An employer must be able to evidence that they have taken all reasonable steps to prevent discriminatory harassment by third parties, including clients, customers, service users, contractors and others. Learn more about how to recognise discrimination, how to manage issues raised by employees, and preventative steps you can take before an incident arises.

(iii) Managing Probation Periods

In January 2027, the qualifying period to acquire unfair dismissal rights reduces from two years to six months. This means that past six months of service, employers will need to follow a fair process and have a fair reason to terminate an employee’s employment.

This is likely to mean that employers need to manage probationary periods carefully and how to identify issues and performance manage new recruits effectively. Learn more about effective probation period management, including how to deal with misconduct and poor performance.

There will be opportunities to ask questions throughout this briefing event.

How do I join?

Tickets for this briefing are available for £40 (SCVO members) and £50 (non-SCVO members). SCVO is subsidising the cost of this event.

Bookings are subject to the following terms and conditions.

SCVO is committed to providing accessible and inclusive meetings and events. Please let us know if you have any access requirements to fully participate in this activity.

To contact SCVO about this event please call 0121 525 1127 or email support@scvo.info