Press office

“The results of the poll reveal that unfair dismissal rights, employment tribunal procedure and retirement practices are the most important reforms sought by HR professionals.  Furthermore, when specifying the kind of reforms they wanted, nearly a third of HR professionals wanted a simplification of the law, followed by a reduction in existing rights. Interestingly, reducing employer penalties received very little support.

"HR professionals are telling us that, in particular, they want employment law to be simplified or scaled back. They identified unfair dismissal protection, employment tribunal practice and procedure and retirement age and procedure as their overall top three areas for such reform. Yet, such wishes are unlikely to be realised, at least in the short term, according to the manifestos published this week.

“While all three manifestos mention deregulation, they contain little detail and no mention of simplifying legislation. The manifestos refer to scrapping the current default retirement age of 65 years, but again provide no detail as to what will replace it or, in the case of the Liberal Democrats, how outright abolition would work in practice. More importantly, there is no prospect of a moratorium on new employment law or rights being scaled back given that all the manifestos contain commitments for new employment law, including extending the right to request flexible working and changing and extending family leave rights.

“With a pipeline of new employment law already on its way, reflecting the last acts of the Labour government and including the Equality Act and extended paternity leave, it appears that many HR professionals will be denied their wishes for now."