“We are rebalancing our country to serve working people,” prime minister Keir Starmer said at the conference. He also urged business executives to go directly to Number 10 if they had problems with government policy.
“Tell us how you think it will work and tell us what you think the inhibitors are,” he said. “Yes, government can set the mission on economic growth, but we can’t achieve that on our own – therefore we need to partner.”
Employment law
The Labour Party committed in its manifesto to implementing a ‘new deal for working people’ in its first 100 days in power.
In a speech at the conference on 24 September, secretary of state for business and trade, Jonathan Reynolds, confirmed the government would legislate on its promises in October. A government consultation on the legislation will follow.
The changes would mean probation periods would be limited to a maximum of six months, and that the right to challenge unfair dismissal and have access to maternity and sick pay would be extended to day one of employment.
Qarrar Somji, director of Witan Solicitors, explained the changes could leave employers open to litigation.
Speaking to HR magazine, he said: “The effect this will have is to make hiring managers reluctant to take on staff and or keep underperforming staff for longer than a few months.”
Pam Loch, solicitor and managing partner at Loch Associates, encouraged employers to review their recruitment and dismissal processes.
“Given we do not know when the changes will be effective, employers should be reviewing their processes and consider changing them now so that any exits would meet the requirements under the Employment Rights Act 1996,” she told HR magazine.
“In addition they need to be cognisant of the new time limits and not assume after the current time limit they can breathe a sigh of relief that no tribunal claims have been made.
“As it will be more onerous to exit a 'bad hire', employers should be reviewing their recruitment processes and considering how they can minimise risk. We have been advising [them to] review their processes, train their managers and use psychometric testing to reinforce their decision-making.”
Read more: Employment law changes: What HR needs to know
Apprenticeships
In Starmer’s keynote address to the conference on 24 September, he detailed apprenticeship reforms, following the Labour manifesto commitment to replace the apprenticeship levy with a skills and growth levy.
The reforms aimed to “give businesses more flexibility to adapt to real training needs”, he explained. This could allow for shorter apprenticeships in some areas of the country. The current apprenticeship levy requires apprenticeships to run for at least 12 months.
Starmer announced that new foundation apprenticeships were to be introduced, to give young people a paid route into critical sectors.
Meanwhile the government promised a 'youth guarantee' that “will eradicate inactivity and unemployment for our young people – once and for all”.
“The government is right to say it wants more of the new growth and skills levy invested in younger workers, but we need more details on how they plan to do this,” Stephen Evans, chief executive of policy and research organisation the Learning and Work Institute, told HR magazine.
“We await the details of the government’s plan, but we are concerned at the return of apprenticeships shorter than 12 months. That’s much shorter than in most countries and suggests a training need that could perhaps be better met through other means.”
At the same time, Starmer announced the first report by Skills England, the government’s new body for the skills system. The report highlighted skills gaps across the country and that almost one in 10 – or over 2.5 million – roles are in “critical demand”. Over 90% of these were roles that required training or education.
Cassie Gasson, co-CEO of AI learning platform Thrive Learning, urged employers to invest in skills while waiting for the government to clarify the reforms further.
Speaking to HR magazine, she said: “To tackle skills gaps, HR and people teams need to go beyond simply filling roles and seek to futureproof businesses by regularly upskilling existing employees.
“Employers must identify what skills already exist in their workforce in order to understand where to invest in learning and development plans across all departments.”
Read more: Overseas worker visa applications drop by a third
Immigration
“There are plenty of examples of apprenticeship starts going down, at the very same time that visa applications for the same skills are going up, and so we will get tough on this,” Starmer said in his keynote.
The prime minister confirmed the government would introduce a strict migration plan, to “reduce both net migration and our economic dependency upon it”.
Starmer explained there would be tighter controls on businesses hiring employees from abroad, and laid out plans to ensure visa policies were linked to market needs to ensure young people in Britain were given opportunities to work over foreign workers.
Companies that broke work visa rules would be banned from hiring employees abroad, Starmer added.
Benefits
During a speech on 25 September, Starmer commented that people on long-term sick leave claiming benefits should look for work “where they can”.
“That’s why I've gone out to look at schemes where businesses are supporting people back into work from long-term sickness,” he said on the last day of the conference.
“The basic proposition that you should look for work is right,” he told Radio 4'sToday programme.
Employers should ensure encouraging people with long-term sick leave to return to work “is done in a compassionate and supportive way, ensuring that no one is forced into a situation that could exacerbate their condition”, Kelly Tucker, founder of consultancy HR Star, told HR magazine.
She suggested HR could help the long-term sick return to work by creating a supportive environment, developing return-to-work programmes, collaborating with health professionals and by offering training.
