Buzzing About HR

The harassment duty steps up on Friday 30 October. Employers must now take all reasonable steps to prevent sexual harassment, a higher, more active bar, and a new third-party harassment duty means protecting your team from customers, clients and contractors too. This is a get-ready, this-week episode: Kate explains what actually changes and the handful of proportionate things to put in place before Friday, with a safe, confidential reporting route at the centre.

Key points:

- From 30 October, "reasonable steps" becomes "all reasonable steps" to prevent sexual harassment. The bar is higher and proactive: risk assess, train, communicate, provide a reporting route, and act.
- A new third-party harassment duty means you're expected to protect staff from harassment by customers, clients, contractors and the public. Big for retail, hospitality and care.
- The standard is your effort, not a perfect outcome, and "reasonable" scales to your size. There's no small-business exemption, but proportionate action is what's expected.
- There's a possible uplift of up to twenty-five per cent on uncapped discrimination awards where process isn't followed, so getting it wrong has real financial teeth.
- Also on 30 October: a union right-to-join written statement and union access rights (with some under-21 exemptions), plus a tipping consultation with changes due by the end of the year.

This week's four steps: risk assessment, refreshed policy people have actually seen, training for staff and managers, and a safe, trusted, confidential reporting route.

Links:

- SafeVoice, a confidential, independent speak-up route for your team and clear evidence you took the duty seriously: safevoice.co.uk (comment WHISTLE on our socials for details)
- Ready for 2027, contracts, handbook, policies, manager training and a year of support, all in place before January. Buy by 31 October: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/offers/ready-for-2027

Call to action: Before Friday, do the four things: a half-hour risk assessment, a refreshed policy your team has actually seen, a quick brief for staff and managers, and a safe reporting route. Set up SafeVoice as that route, and comment WHISTLE on our socials to get the details. And if Friday has shown you the foundation underneath needs rebuilding before January, Ready for 2027 closes on Saturday.

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead. That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

There's a surge in AI-generated job applications, and it's broken the old signals, polished cover letters and CVs now tell you almost nothing, while burying employers in volume. Kate explains why the answer isn't an arms race with AI detectors, which are unreliable and risk discriminating, but a structured, consistent, ability-focused process. Tied to Black History Month, she shows how the fix for the AI problem and the fix for fair hiring are the same discipline.

Key points:

• AI can write a flawless, tailored application in seconds, so polish no longer signals a strong candidate, and the sheer volume pushes tired hirers onto gut instinct and shortcuts, where bias lives.
• AI detectors are unreliable and disproportionately flag non-native English speakers and assistive-tool users, creating discrimination risk. Don't police the application; test the ability.
• Define the real must-be-able-to-do requirements first, score every candidate against the same yardstick, and bring in a genuine job-related task early, because that's what AI can't fake.
• Structured interviews (same questions, same scoring) are fairer and better at predicting performance than a free-flowing, gut-feel chat.
• If you use any AI tool in hiring, mind your data protection: be transparent, keep a human meaningfully in charge of decisions, and don't rely on a black box.

Links:

• KUHR Training, get your managers confident on structured, inclusive, legally sound selection: kuhrtraining.co.uk
• HR Software, keep your hiring consistent and well-documented: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/services/hr-software
• Ready for 2027, contracts, handbook, policies, manager training and a year of support, all in place before January. Buy by 31 October: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/offers/ready-for-2027

Call to action: Before your next advert, write down the handful of things someone must genuinely be able to do, and build a real job-related task into your process. If your managers need to get confident on fair, robot-proof hiring, take a look at KUHR Training. And if hiring is only one of several things you know are not right, Ready for 2027 fixes the lot in one go. Eleven days left to buy it.

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead. That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

World Menopause Day is the way into a bigger subject: retention. Kate looks at how good, well-meaning workplaces quietly push out their most experienced people, often women going through the menopause at the peak of their careers, simply by never making it safe to say they're struggling. She covers the real cost of losing skilled people, why they rarely leave for money, and the small, cheap, humane changes that keep them.

Key points:

• The people you can least afford to lose are often your long-serving employees, and many are going through life stages your workplace never mentions.
• Replacing an experienced employee can cost many months of salary in recruitment, onboarding and lost knowledge, and in a tight market you may not replace them at all.
• Experienced people rarely leave for a small pay difference. They leave because they stopped feeling supported. You can usually out-care the market more cheaply than you can outbid it.
• Menopause support is largely cheap and practical: talking about it openly, desk fans, cold water, flexible start times, breathable uniform, and the freedom to step out of a meeting.
• Flexible working requests can come from day one with a two-month response window. Treat them as a retention tool. Use appraisals as a genuine two-way check-in to catch the quiet wobble early.

Links:

• YourAppraisal, turn appraisals into real, ongoing conversations that keep you close to your people: yourappraisal.io
• Fractional HR Director, board-level HR expertise a few days a month, without a full-time salary: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk
• Cake, Coffee and Compliance, one-hour manager sessions, Tuesdays 9.30 am, £75 a seat, Block 1 starts 13 October: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/managers
• Ready for 2027, contracts, handbook, policies, manager training and a year of support, all in place before January. Buy by 31 October: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/offers/ready-for-2027

Call to action: This week, name the three to five people you can't afford to lose, and take one action from the list to make sure they feel supported. If you want a steadier senior hand building retention into how your business runs, talk to us about a Fractional HR Director. And if the whole foundation needs rebuilding before the January changes, Ready for 2027 does it as one piece of work, but it has to be bought by 31 October so there is time to deliver it properly.

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead. That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

National Work Life Week and World Mental Health Day, and what wellbeing actually means in a small business once you take away the fruit bowl. Kate makes the case that wellbeing lives in your systems and your managers' everyday behaviour, not in perks and posters, with sickness absence at a fifteen-year high and mental ill health the top cause of long-term absence. She covers day-one Statutory Sick Pay, handling flexible working fairly, and how to make that first "I'm not okay" conversation safe.

Key points:

• Wellbeing is built, not bought. It lives in workload, rotas, flexibility and manager behaviour, not in a fruit bowl or a wellbeing week.
• Since 6 April 2026, SSP is payable from day one with no lower earnings limit, so lower-paid staff are covered and resting when ill is easier.
• Flexible working requests can be made from day one and you have up to two months to respond. Handled fairly, flexibility is a powerful, low-cost retention and wellbeing lever.
• Managers don't need to be therapists. They need to notice, ask, listen and signpost. The system around them is what makes the human moment safe.
• UK sickness absence is at a fifteen-year high, with mental ill health the top cause of long-term absence.

Links:

• Free HR Health Check, see where your wellbeing foundations stand: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/hr-health-check
• HR Software, take the absence and flexible working admin off your desk: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/services/hr-software
• Cake, Coffee and Compliance, one-hour manager sessions, Tuesdays 9.30am, £75 a seat, Block 1 starts 13 October: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/managers
• If you're struggling right now, you can call Samaritans free any time on 116 123.

Call to action: Take the free HR Health Check this week to see where your wellbeing foundations are solid and where they're leaking, then pick one thing from the quick-action list to fix before winter. And if the honest gap is that your managers have never been taught any of this, Block 1 of Cake, Coffee and Compliance starts next Tuesday, the thirteenth.

Tags: #WorkLifeWeek #WorldMentalHealthDay #WellbeingAtWork #StatutorySickPay #FlexibleWorking #SmallBusinessHR

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead. That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

October isn’t a single HR deadline, it’s a cluster of dates that can catch even well-run businesses out if you diarise the wrong one. We put every change in one place, in the right order, with the real dates attached, so you can stop guessing and start acting. Kettle on, standards up.

We walk through what shifts on 1 October, including the doubling of most employment tribunal time limits from three months to six months and what that does to your paper trail, your managers’ notes, and your ability to defend fair decisions months later. We also unpack the quieter change with wide reach: expanded right to work checks under the Border Security, Asylum and Immigration Act 2025, now stretching beyond employees to workers and many individual subcontractors, including agency-supplied roles and substitutes.

Then we move to 30 October, when the duty to prevent sexual harassment rises to “all reasonable steps” and third-party harassment liability broadens to customers, clients, contractors and the public across any protected characteristic. We cover the trade union statement and access changes, the tips and service charge consultation duty coming in by the end of 2026, and the January 2027 unfair dismissal changes that start affecting hiring decisions from 1 July this year.

Most importantly, we cut the noise and give you the honest priorities if you only get one afternoon: a safe reporting route, a short human message to your team that they are protected, and records that still make sense to a stranger next May. Subscribe, share with a fellow manager, and leave a review if this helped, what’s the first thing you’re fixing this week?

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead.

Let’s be honest, culture shifts when people feel safe to speak up.

New rules mean you’re legally required to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment.

SafeVoice helps you do just that.

It’s a simple, confidential way for your team to raise concerns — no faff, no tech headaches.
✔ Builds trust
✔ Meets your legal duty

👉 kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/services/safevoice

That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

Episode summary: It's National Inclusion Week (14 to 20 September), with Global Workplace Culture Day on Friday 18 September, so Kate makes the case that culture is behaviour, not branding. Five small habits any manager can build this week, then the heart of it: culture is decided in awkward moments, and the person standing in the middle of those moments is almost never HR, it's a line manager who was never trained for it. This is also the launch episode for Cake, Coffee and Compliance, the manager training built for exactly that gap.

Key points:

• Culture is not your values statement or your logo colours. It is the accumulated pattern of what your managers do in small moments on ordinary days.
• Five habits to build: learn how people want to work, make space for quiet voices, give credit out loud, handle the awkward moment, and follow through on the small things.
• Small businesses have the advantage. In a team of nine, culture is three people's habits, so it can change in a fortnight.
• Awkward moments never book themselves in. They happen in corridors at 4.15pm, and your line manager is the one standing there, usually with no training at all.
• From 30 October the preventative duty on sexual harassment rises to all reasonable steps, with a broader third-party harassment liability alongside it covering any protected characteristic, and it rests on managers noticing and acting in the moment.
• THE GROWL, our new segment: Hazel, our Wellbeing Officer, says the quiet part out loud about rainbow mugs and Christmas dos, and Kate agrees sideways.
• LAUNCH: Cake, Coffee and Compliance. Twenty one-hour sessions, Tuesdays at 9.30am, three blocks across the year, evergreen so there's no wrong time to join. Block 1 starts Tuesday 13 October. Every session hands over a real document your managers keep. No exam, and recordings are up within 24 hours. HR Business Partner and HR Excel clients get all twenty in their retainer. Priced per person plus VAT, cheaper the more places you buy, full table in the brochure.
• The first three sessions are all harassment, on 13, 20 and 27 October, landing before the 30 October deadline.

Links:

• Cake, Coffee and Compliance, the training your managers were supposed to get and never did: kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/managers

Call to action: Pick one habit and practise it for a fortnight. Then get your managers a place on Cake, Coffee and Compliance before Block 1 starts on Tuesday 13 October, so the three harassment sessions land before the duty changes on 30 October.

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead. That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

Imagine it is March and a letter lands asking you to set out, step by step, why you dismissed someone last autumn. You remember being fair. You remember a meeting. You think there was an email. Now you have to prove it, clearly, six months later.

From 1 October, the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims doubles from three months to six across England, Wales and Scotland. That does not make dismissal rules “harder”, but it does double how long you stay exposed and how long your evidence has to survive. We talk through exactly when the new deadline applies, why September events sit under the old clock, and why “durability” is the quiet change small business owners cannot afford to ignore.

Then we make it real with three case stories that show what tribunals actually punish: choosing belief over qualified advice, missing steps in a process, and getting caught out on disability and reasonable adjustments. We cover Jones v Pilkington UK Limited and the dangers of covert workplace monitoring and sickness absence suspicion, plus Cunningham v BBC and what “constructive knowledge” means when occupational health advice is sitting in front of you.

We also flag time-sensitive consultations, including the draft ACAS Code of Practice on disciplinary and grievance procedures, holiday pay compliance and enforcement, and the consultation on fair, transparent workplace monitoring technologies. You will leave with a simple checklist for cleaner records, better consistency, and fewer nasty surprises months down the line. Subscribe, share with a fellow manager, and leave a review with the one paperwork habit you are changing first.

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead.

Let’s be honest, culture shifts when people feel safe to speak up.

New rules mean you’re legally required to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment.

SafeVoice helps you do just that.

It’s a simple, confidential way for your team to raise concerns — no faff, no tech headaches.
✔ Builds trust
✔ Meets your legal duty

👉 kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/services/safevoice

That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

A customer crosses the line, your team freezes, and the shift carries on because nobody is sure what they are allowed to do. That moment is not just awkward, it is risk. From 30 October, UK employers face a higher bar on preventing sexual harassment through “all reasonable steps”, plus a new and wider duty around third-party harassment, covering customers, clients, contractors, suppliers and the public. If you employ people, this matters even if the person causing the harm is not on your payroll.

We unpack what the legal change actually asks for, without jargon or scare tactics. We talk through the difference one word makes, what tribunals will probe, and why “reasonable” still depends on the size and shape of your business. You will leave with a clear picture of practical steps that stand up in the real world: a quick harassment risk assessment, a plain-English anti-harassment policy that names third parties, manager training that helps people act in the moment, and a reporting route staff will genuinely trust.

We also get into the part leaders often miss: most harassment problems do not start with a dramatic incident. They start small, get brushed off, and escalate when people learn nothing happens here. That is why a speak-up culture is not a nice-to-have, it is the cheapest tribunal insurance you can buy, and the most human way to keep your people safe. We finish with a key update on how reporting sexual harassment can interact with whistleblowing law, and why your response now matters twice over.

Subscribe so you do not miss the October changes, share this with a manager who deals with customers, and leave a review if it helps. What is the one situation in your business where you most need a clear line and a safe way to report it?

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead.

Let’s be honest, culture shifts when people feel safe to speak up.

New rules mean you’re legally required to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment.

SafeVoice helps you do just that.

It’s a simple, confidential way for your team to raise concerns — no faff, no tech headaches.
✔ Builds trust
✔ Meets your legal duty

👉 kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/services/safevoice

That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

October 2026 is shaping up to be the biggest single month of HR change for small UK employers, but it is only frightening if you leave it until October. I break it down into two separate dates you can actually diarise, so you stop treating it like one giant blob and start doing the sensible, proportionate actions that keep you protected.

First, we tackle 1 October: most employment tribunal claim time limits move from three months to six months across England, Wales and Scotland, which makes record-keeping, process notes and documented decisions twice as important. Then we get into the under-the-radar change many businesses will miss: expanded right to work checks under the Border Security Asylum and Immigration Act 2025. This is not just about employees. It can stretch to workers, individual subcontractors, substitutes and even down subcontracting chains, so I share a simple way to map who is doing work in your business’s name and where your gaps are.

Then we move to 30 October, the heavy hitter: the duty to prevent sexual harassment rises to taking all reasonable steps, alongside new third-party harassment liability where customers, clients and the public are involved, plus trade union written statement and access updates. I also flag four September consultation deadlines (ACAS disciplinary and grievance code, holiday pay enforcement, tipping code, workplace monitoring tech) and explain why small employers should respond so the rules are not written only for organisations with HR teams.

If you want a calm, practical plan, use the September audit I set out, then take the free HR health check at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk slash HR-health-check. Subscribe, share with another business owner, and leave a review so more people can find the support before the dates land.

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead.

Let’s be honest, culture shifts when people feel safe to speak up.

New rules mean you’re legally required to take reasonable steps to prevent harassment.

SafeVoice helps you do just that.

It’s a simple, confidential way for your team to raise concerns — no faff, no tech headaches.
✔ Builds trust
✔ Meets your legal duty

👉 kateunderwoodhr.co.uk/services/safevoice

That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.

Autumn doesn’t just bring darker mornings, it brings deadlines. With October 2026 and January 2027 lined up back-to-back, UK employment law changes are about to hit in clusters, and we want you calm, clear, and ready rather than scrambling at the last minute. I’m Kate, and with Hazel supervising the nearest sunbeam, I walk you through what’s coming and how to use these quieter late-summer weeks to get properly sorted.

We break down the key Employment Rights Act changes: the stronger duty to prevent sexual harassment moving to “all reasonable steps”, the new third-party harassment duty that pulls customer and client behaviour into your responsibilities, and the doubling of tribunal time limits from three months to six. Then we look ahead to January 2027, where unfair dismissal rights kick in after six months, the compensation cap disappears, and fire and rehire becomes automatically unfair. The big takeaway: good process and tidy records are no longer just good practice, they’re protection.

We also talk about the practical difference between a one-off HR power hour and ongoing outsourced HR support. If you only buy help during a crisis, you pay the emergency premium again and again. If you build a plan, you spread the cost, keep contracts and handbooks current, and have someone who already knows your business when a problem lands. I share the step-by-step route we use: the free HR Health Check, the Employment Rights Act timeline tool, and how a £150 + VAT power hour can credit back onto a service plan if you move within 30 days. We even squeeze in a timely reminder on bank holiday entitlement and the part-time prorating trap.

If you want autumn handled with less stress and fewer surprises, subscribe, share with another business owner, and leave us a review so more employers can find practical HR help when it matters.

If you’re not 100% sure how your HR is really holding up, take our free HR Health Check. It’s short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what’s working — and what needs a bit of love.

And if you do it before 30th October 2026 you’ll get a bonus 7 Pillar Strategy-on-a-Page, tailored to help you manage HR brilliantly for the year ahead. That’s it for today, but if you fancy a bit of friendly HR advice in your inbox (with zero waffle), come and join our newsletter.

We send out bite-sized tips, plain-English updates, and handy things you’ll actually use — no spam, no fluff.

You can sign up here 

If you're not sure how your HR is really holding up, take the free HR Health Check. It's short, jargon-free, and gives you a clear score on what's working and what could do with a bit of love.

Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe so you never miss one, and leave a review if you've got thirty seconds. It honestly does help more small business owners find the show, and it's the cheapest good deed you'll do all week.

Got a question or need actual HR support? Find Kate at kateunderwoodhr.co.uk, email [email protected], or follow along on social.

Until next time, keep buzzing, and take care of your people.