Practical guidance for UK employers and recruitment agencies preparing for the Employment Rights Act 2025 and a more evidence-based way to hire.
"Evidence-based" is a phrase that gets applied loosely across HR technology, worth actually tracing back to where the real evidence comes from, since the claim only means something if the underlying research holds up to scrutiny.
Read more →The UK government wants 10 million workers trained in AI skills by 2030. It's a genuinely ambitious target, backed by free courses and a cross-government unit tracking AI's effect on the labour market. The direction is right. But a recent piece from Wouter Durville, CEO of assessment platform TestGorilla, makes...
Read more →In 2015, the CIPD, the UK's professional body for HR, published a genuinely uncomfortable finding: hiring decisions are shaped far more by unconscious bias than most employers would like to admit. A decade on, the underlying psychology hasn't changed, and it's worth revisiting exactly what they found.
Read more →Something interesting has been happening in HR thought leadership over the past few weeks. Three senior voices, writing independently, in different contexts, for different reasons, have converged on the same underlying idea: what people say, complete, or claim tells you almost nothing. What they actually do under real pressure tells...
Read more →A mis-hire is expensive in ways that are easy to underestimate until you're actually dealing with one, recruitment cost, onboarding time, lost productivity, the disruption of starting the search again, and often a hit to team morale that's harder to put a number on but real all the same. Reducing...
Read more →Most hiring managers would say they trust their instincts, and most of the time, that instinct feels reliable in the moment. The uncomfortable research finding is that it usually isn't, not because hiring managers are bad at their jobs, but because gut feel in an interview setting is measuring something...
Read more →The phrase gets used often enough that it's worth actually defining, rather than assuming everyone means the same thing by it.
Read more →For decades, the CV did a simple job. It was a rough filter. A well-written, well-structured CV with the right experience suggested a candidate who had taken care, knew the field, and could communicate. A weak CV suggested the opposite. It was never a perfect signal, but it was a...
Read more →For a recruitment agency, few things hurt more than a placement that falls apart inside the rebate period. You sourced the candidate, sold them to the client, closed the deal, and then weeks later it unravels. The client wants the rebate. The fee you had counted on disappears. And the...
Read more →A new hire failing during probation is one of the most expensive and demoralising things that can happen to a team. You have spent weeks advertising, shortlisting, interviewing and onboarding. The person seemed right. Three months in, it is not working, and everyone can feel it.
Read more →On 7 April 2026, the UK launched the Fair Work Agency (FWA), the country's first single enforcement body for workplace rights. It replaces the previous fragmented enforcement landscape with one regulator, with broader powers, more inspectors, and a budget that's been increased by over 25% to £60.1 million.
Read more →The Equality Act 2010 has been UK law for over a decade, but the way it shapes hiring practice has changed sharply in recent years. The rise of structured assessment, AI-assisted scoring, and bias monitoring tools has shifted what "compliance" means in practice. Doing the right thing now means more...
Read more →On 6 April 2026, the UK quietly introduced a new legal duty for employers: keep records of annual leave and holiday pay for at least six years. Failure to keep adequate records is a criminal offence with potentially unlimited fines. The duty applies to every UK employer regardless of size,...
Read more →On 6 April 2026, three new day-one rights came into force in the UK under the Employment Rights Act 2025. They apply from the moment a new hire starts. There are no qualifying periods, no waiting times, no service thresholds. This article covers what changed, who it affects, and what...
Read more →Statutory Sick Pay rules changed on 6 April 2026. The changes are some of the biggest in decades and apply to every UK employer. This is the practical version of what changed, what it means, and what you need in place. We are not lawyers; this is not legal advice.
Read more →On 6 April 2026, Statutory Sick Pay in the UK is changing more dramatically than at any point in the last 40 years. Three big shifts are happening at once: the three-day waiting period is gone, the lower earnings threshold is gone, and the calculation method is changing.
Read more →The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the biggest change to UK employment law in a generation. From 1 January 2027, day-one rights apply to every worker from the moment they start, the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims disappears, and the Fair Work Agency gains enforcement powers that carry real...
Read more →If you are looking for a better way to assess candidates, you have probably come across two main approaches: psychometric testing and scenario-based assessment. Both claim to predict job performance. Both use technology. But they work in fundamentally different ways, and one is significantly more predictive than the other.
Read more →Interviews are the most widely used hiring tool in the world. They are also one of the least predictive.
Read more →From January 2027, every employee in the UK will have unfair dismissal protection from their first day of employment. No qualifying period. No compensation cap. This is not a future possibility. It is confirmed legislation taking effect in January 2027.
Read more →The Employment Rights Act 2025 is the most significant change to UK employment law in a generation. If you employ people in the UK, it affects you. If you hire people, it changes how you should be doing it. And if you are not preparing now, you are running out...
Read more →Everyone talks about the cost of a bad hire. The numbers most commonly cited are between 30,000 and 50,000 pounds. But where do those numbers actually come from? And are they accurate?
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