The Six-Month Countdown: Your Window to Act Is Closing

The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the most significant employment legislation for a generation. There are a lot of different topics within it, some more relevant than others depending on your business. But one aspect is going to surprise employers more than most: the changes to unfair dismissal rights. This is something that will affect every business, regardless of size or location in the UK.

What do I mean by 'unfair dismissal rights'?

This isn't a silly question to ask, it's one most people avoid, because it sounds like a legal minefield they'd rather hand to someone else. Once an employee has worked the required amount of time, they qualify for these rights. That means an employer can no longer dismiss them simply because "it isn't working out."

To avoid a dispute or to defend one if it happens, the employer needs a fair reason for the dismissal, such as conduct, capability, redundancy, or one of a small number of other recognised grounds, and a fair process has to be followed. Employers need proper documentation, a genuine opportunity for the employee to respond, and consistency with how similar situations have been handled before.

If you get either the reason or the process wrong, and the employee brings a claim against you, you'll need to defend it. The question a tribunal asks isn't really whether the employee should have been let go, it's whether you can prove you did it properly.

What's changed regarding unfair dismissal rights?

The short answer: the qualifying period has shortened. When I first started working in HR over twenty years ago, the qualifying period was one year, then it extended to two years. That meant even if employees passed probation, if they were under two years' service the business could have the "it isn't working out" conversation and there was very little the employee could do about it.

From 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal drops from two years to six months. Employees will be entitled to the full protections of unfair dismissal law, including the right to a fair reason for dismissal and a fair procedure, much earlier in their employment.

Why is this important to understand now?

Because it's being applied retrospectively. These protections will apply immediately, on 1 January 2027, to any employee who by that date already has six months' service or more. In practice, that means anyone recruited on or before 1 July 2026 will gain the extended protection, provided they're still employed on 1 January 2027. That's regardless of what your contract says about probation length or two-year thresholds. For anyone hired after 1 July 2026, the maths is simple: six months from their start date is when protection kicks in. Someone who starts work on 1 November 2026, for example, is protected from unfair dismissal from 1 May 2027.

How this changes the probation period

Under the old two-year system, most employees never got anywhere near unfair dismissal protection while in probation. If a new hire was struggling at month five or six, you could simply extend probation by a month or three months and see how they developed. If your probation period is three months with an optional one-month extension, you've got a comfortable safety margin under the new rules.

Whatever length your probation period is, the underlying point is the same: you can't leave the real decision until month six anymore. You need to know by month three or four, and act on it.

What businesses should focus on now

You might be thinking this means rushing people out the door. It's actually the opposite. This is about taking the probation period seriously and using it properly to work out if someone is right for the role.

However long your probation period is, there are some key things that need to be in place when you bring in a new hire:

• The right first impression — this could be anything from staying in touch before their start date, to giving them the right equipment, systems access, and training, to a warm welcome on day one. Showing them the toilets, the lunch room, parking, and introducing them to the people they'll be working with makes a huge difference.

  
  

• Set expectations from day one — there needs to be clear, specific, written expectations for performance and conduct from the start. This could be as simple as walking through the job description, setting basic goals for their first week, and covering health and safety rules and system logins.

  
  

• Clear timelines for review — a defined period at the start of employment for the new employee to settle in, receive a thorough induction, and get ongoing support, training and regular reviews. Break it down by day one, week one, month one, month two and month three. The key point is regular, documented check-ins — not just a single formal meeting at the end.

  
  

• Train your people managers — on how to use probation periods properly, and how to have a difficult conversation. The biggest exposure isn't the law itself — it's the procrastination of someone avoiding that conversation.

  
  

The bottom line

The two-year cushion has an expiry date now and for a lot of your current employees, the clock started the moment they walked through your door. The businesses that will handle this well aren't the ones panicking in December 2026. They're the ones already running tighter, better-documented, more genuinely supportive probation periods today, because they know the decision window just shrank to a quarter of what it used to be.