Employment law changes 2024 – what farmers need to be aware of

Anyone employing staff needs to grapple with a number of recent and planned changes to the law.

From the practice of rolled-up holiday pay being extended to irregular and part-year workers, to redundancy protection for pregnant workers, there is a lot to keep pace with.

Robert Whitaker, who heads the employment law department at Tees Law, gives guidance on some of the reforms relevant to agriculture.

See also: Farm payroll: Rules employers need to consider

Holiday pay for irregular and part-time workers

Agriculture relies heavily on part-time staff, and calculating the holiday accrued for such workers and finding a practical way for them to receive this benefit can be a challenge.

Under employment law these part-time staff are broadly defined as either part-year or irregular-hours workers.

For farm businesses, part-year workers are typically seasonal workers who help with jobs such as harvest and lambing, and workers required for only part of the year and with periods of at least a week when they are not required to work.

Irregular-hours workers are a group whose number of paid hours worked in each pay period is, under the terms of their contract, wholly or mostly variable. 

Reform of the Holiday Pay and Working Time Regulations 1998 has introduced changes to how the statutory holiday entitlement for these workers is calculated.

Robert says the reforms may, in part, be a reaction to case law decisions and challenges that employers have faced in recent years.

“Cases such as Bear Scotland v Fulton and Harpur Trust v Brazel have meant some employers having to carefully reflect on what they pay staff for annual leave and how that is calculated,” he says.

“For many years employers have had to look to employment tribunal rulings for guidance on this, but they may now get a clearer legal direction on how this should be done.

“While change is always a potential concern in the short term, these changes may provide clarity for employers in the longer term and be welcomed accordingly.”

From 1 January 2024, for the leave years beginning 1 April 2024 and following that date, holiday entitlement will accrue at a rate of 12.07% of the actual hours worked by part-year and irregular-hours workers in a pay period.

To work out the accrued holiday during that time, Robert advises that a 52-week reference period must be used to calculate an average of the hours that would have been worked.

“Advice should be sought as to how that applies to an individual farm business,” he says.

For direction on dealing with accrued holiday in practice, the reforms also make lawful the practice of “rolled-up” holiday pay, a payment structure that allows an uplift to be included in each payslip instead of paying holiday pay when the worker takes annual leave.

This came into force from 1 January 2024, but is applicable for leave years commencing on or after 1 April 2024.

The equivalent of 12.07% of pay for all work done in the relevant pay period can now lawfully be paid on top of payment for actual hours worked.

Robert emphasises that it is important to be transparent – the uplift sum should always be itemised separately on the worker’s payslip.

As this could constitute a variation of the terms in an employment contract, he recommends reviewing existing agreements before implementing any changes from current arrangements and, if in doubt, seeking advice.

Holiday entitlement accrued by irregular-hours workers on maternity and other leave

For maternity or other family-related leave, such as paternity leave, for example, a worker will continue to accrue leave since it cannot be taken during their period of absence.

For this scenario, the government has introduced a new method of calculation that applies to leave years beginning on or after 1 April 2024.

The calculation method follows the same principle as the accrual method for statutory holiday entitlement, but introduces a 52-week relevant period so employers can look back and work out an average of hours worked across that period.

This will inform the period of leave accrued during the worker’s absence.

The relevant period runs from the day before the worker starts their leave and covers the preceding 52 weeks; if the worker has not worked for the employer for a full 52 weeks, the relevant period covers the shorter period actually worked.

Unpaid carers leave

From 6 April 2024, employees are entitled to a “day one” right to take up to a week’s unpaid leave to care for a dependent who has a long-standing care need; this also applies to an employee who wants to take time off to arrange care for a dependent.

Robert recommends farm businesses ensure that they have policies and procedures in place to reflect the new rules and how they will work. 

Sexual harassment

In autumn 2024, new legislation that puts the onus on employers to take reasonable steps to prevent their employees being sexually harassed will come into effect.

Where an employer breaches this duty, employment tribunals will have the power to increase a compensation payout in sexual harassment claims by up to 25%.