Changes in employment law mean new rights for workers and new responsibilities for management

While 2019 is likely to be dominated by Brexit developments, it is also set to be an eventful year for employment law, as the Government implements its Good Work Plan (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (DBEIS), 2018). Hailed as ‘the biggest package of workplace reforms for over 20 years', it is the culmination of the Taylor review into working practices in the modern economy, which made key recommendations to promote ‘good work’ (Taylor, 2017).

In July 2017, the Government published the independent review Good work: the Taylor review of modern working practices, which looked into issues in the UK labour market, such as the implications of new forms of work, the rise of digital platforms and the impact of new working models (Taylor, 2017).

The review made 53 recommendations and in February 2018, the Government published a full response, the Good Work Plan, accepting the vast majority of the recommendations (DBEIS, 2018). Alongside the response, the Government also launched four consultations to seek stakeholder views on the approach to implementing changes to the law on: