The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the biggest shake-up of UK employment law in years. Its changes are being phased in over roughly two years, and several affect how early in employment decisions can be challenged, how claims are enforced, and how fairly people are expected to be treated.
The Act does not create new duties around neurodiversity or reasonable adjustments. Those sit, as before, in the Equality Act 2010. What it does is put more weight on how clearly employers set expectations, how consistently they make decisions and how well managers handle the early months of someone’s employment. That is exactly where neurodivergent employees are most likely to meet avoidable barriers.
Protection starts earlier
The headline change is to unfair dismissal. The qualifying period is falling from two years to six months, with the change due to apply from 1 January 2027, and the cap on compensation for unfair dismissal is being removed. Separately, the time limit for bringing most employment tribunal claims is being extended from three months to six, timetabled for October 2026.
Employers can still manage performance and end employment where that is fair. But decisions made in the first year will be open to scrutiny far sooner than they are now, and employees will have longer to bring a claim.
What to review now
Look at whether your probation process is structured and applied the same way across teams, whether performance expectations are written down rather than assumed, and whether feedback and decisions are recorded properly. None of this is a new legal requirement. It is simply what you will need to show that a decision was reasonable.
Where neuroinclusion comes in
Probation is where many neurodivergent employees run into trouble, often before they have had a chance to say what they need. Managers who are confident discussing working needs early, who look into performance concerns rather than assuming the cause, and who check for environmental or communication barriers before reaching a conclusion, will make fairer decisions and fewer risky ones. We cover this in detail in neurodivergence and probation periods, and a recent case shows what is at stake: an ADHD probation dismissal that cost a hotel £200k.
Performance management and decision making
The Act doesn’t tell employers how to manage performance. It does raise the stakes on whether decisions are clear, proportionate and consistent with how similar situations were handled.
For neurodivergent employees, three questions are worth asking about your performance process. Does it lean on informal judgement or subjective criteria such as “presence” or “communication style”? Does it separate genuine performance concerns from unmet support needs? And does the employee get a real chance to understand what is expected and meet it? If the answers are uncomfortable, now is the time to fix them, before longer tribunal time limits apply. Our guide to reasonable adjustments and your legal responsibilities covers the Equality Act side.
Flexible working
The Act strengthens the existing day-one right to request flexible working. It still isn’t an automatic right, but employers will need to explain their reasons for a refusal, and refusals will have to be reasonable. These changes are expected during 2027.
Flexible working is one of the most useful adjustments for many neurodivergent people, whether that means hybrid working, adjusted hours or a quieter start to the day. A structured, consistent approach to requests means less depends on which manager someone happens to have. It is worth checking now whether flexibility is handled the same way across teams, how refusals are explained and recorded, and whether managers know how to look for alternatives rather than simply saying no.
Sick pay and early support
Statutory sick pay has been payable from the first day of absence since April 2026, and the lower earnings limit has been removed so more people qualify. That creates no new wellbeing duty, but it is a good prompt to check that absence policies are written accessibly, that managers handle wellbeing conversations well, and that support is offered before problems escalate. Unaddressed barriers at work are a common route into sickness absence for neurodivergent employees.
What the Act does not change
To be clear, the Employment Rights Act does not replace the Equality Act 2010, add new reasonable adjustment duties or change the legal definition of disability. Your existing obligations stay exactly as they are. What changes is how early, and how closely, your management decisions can be examined. The government’s Employment Rights Act factsheet and its implementation timeline set out the full list of changes. We have also looked at the Act’s new trade union provisions and what they mean for neurodiversity.
This article is general information, not legal advice. Please take specialist legal advice on specific situations.
How Enna can help
We don’t invent legal obligations that aren’t there. We help employers get the basics of good, fair management right for neurodivergent staff, which is what the new rules will test.
Our neuroinclusion audits review probation, performance and flexible working processes for consistency and hidden barriers. Neuroinclusive Performance Management gives managers the confidence to hold clear, fair conversations in those critical first months, and a workplace needs assessment helps you put the right adjustments in place early. Book a call if you’d like to talk through your processes before the changes land.
