A New Era for Workplace Responsibility and Employee Wellbeing
The UK’s Employment Rights Bill 2025, marks one of the biggest changes to employment protections in years. With easier access to tribunals, enhanced worker rights, and closer scrutiny of employer behaviour, organisations are entering a period where accountability is no longer optional. The Bill is designed to test how companies actually behave, and not what their policies claim.
For a long time, workplace wellbeing was viewed as a ‘nice to have. For years, approaches to wellbeing were reactive, often limited to Employee Assistant Programmes (EAPS), or the occasional wellbeing workshop, often poorly communicated and rarely integrated into day-to-day culture.
That era is over.
Wellbeing is now a core part of reducing absenteeism, supporting sustainable performance, and improving productivity. It’s good for people, and it’s good for business.
This shift gives leaders a moment to pause and ask:
Are we genuinely protecting our people and ourselves?
Are we improving the employee experience, or relying on outdated, reactive approaches that don’t align with the modern world?
Is our culture shaped purely by our core values and vision, or by what we tolerate, reinforce, or neglect to address? States Nahla Summers, Leadership, Kindness & Emotional Intelligence Expert, in her Executive Whitepaper – How workplace culture shapes health, trust & society”
Organisations willing to answer these questions honestly and act on them will be the ones that thrive.
Why Tribunal Risk is Likely to Increase
A major change brought by the Employment Rights Bill is the simplified route to employment tribunals. Employees will face fewer barriers when raising claims, and employers will need to demonstrate that they have acted fairly, consistently, and responsibly.
What This Means for Businesses
- More claims: HR and legal teams will face greater pressure and more time spent responding to cases.
- Higher financial exposure: Legal fees, reputational damage, settlements, and higher insurance premiums will add up.
- Greater scrutiny of processes and documentation: Tribunals will look for evidence. Documented wellbeing support, reasonable adjustments, proper handling of concerns, clear and fair processes, and consistent managerial decisions. Inconsistent decisions and poor management regarding stress, mental health, performance and flexible working are now significant sources of legal risk. Any gaps will become costly.
- Manager behaviour under the spotlight: Without clear frameworks, managers can unintentionally create risk. Decisions around workload, mental health concerns, conflict, performance, and flexible working must be defensible.
- Increase in Mental Health & Wellbeing claims: failing to act on early warning signs or ignoring preventable risks will lead to more cases.
- Rapid exposure of cultural weaknesses: Toxic or inconsistent cultures will no longer be hidden.
- Prevention becomes a legal & financial strategy – Employers must identify risks, mitigate them, and take reasonable steps to prevent foreseeable harm. This includes addressing psychological safety.
Proactive organisations will be able to show a clear trail of evidence: risks identified, actions taken, adjustments offered, and managers trained. This not only protects the business but also creates the conditions for sustainable performance.
Workplace Mental Health as a Core Compliance Requirement
Mental Health is no longer something employers can treat as a personal matter for employees to manage on their own. It is now a central compliance expectation. Regulators increasingly require employers to treat psychological risks with the same seriousness as physical risks. This includes risks linked to workload, stress, leadership behaviours. As well as inclusion & belonging, decision making practices, communication culture, bullying and ineffective job design.
Meeting these expectations means employers must identify psychological risks, assess them, take reasonable action, and document the process. Failing to do so is now considered a breach of duty.
Leaders should be asking questions like:
Are we aware of our employees’ true feelings and experiences in the workplace?
Do employees feel safe to raise concerns or admit mistakes?
Is communication honest, timely, and genuinely two‑way?
Are workloads, priorities, and expectations realistic and openly discussed?
Do employees feel included, respected, and valued for who they are?
Do our managers understand and follow fair processes?
Do we, as leaders, model openness, empathy, and active listening?
Do our systems and processes support transparency, collaboration, and learning?
Wellbeing Strategies to Reduce Company Risk
A strong wellbeing strategy is one of the clearest ways to demonstrate duty of care. It shows that the organisation has identified risks, implemented controls, assigned responsibilities, and put in place preventative measures with ongoing monitoring. If disputes arise, this documentation becomes essential. Companies should be prioritising things such as:
Mental Health First Aiders (MHFAs): Having one mental health first aider is no longer sufficient. Organisations need appropriate coverage to offer genuine peer support. Companies must scale their trained responders effectively to match their headcount.
Importance of a robust EAP: Employee Assistance Programmes (EAPs) are only effective if employees know it exists, understand how to access it, and trust its confidentiality. The majority of group insurance policies include EAPs at no extra cost.
Access to Occupational Health & Early Intervention– Access to Occupational Health is crucial for documenting early intervention notes. Policies like income protection provide a framework to support employees back to health.
Menopause support: This will soon be mandatory for organisations with over 250 employees, but it is advisable for all companies to have one.
Day one right to flexible working: Although already in place, employers must clearly justify why it can’t be granted and demonstrate a fair process has been followed.
Management capability: Managers are the primary reason employees leave jobs, as they have the biggest influence on employee experience, and now on tribunal risk, so training is essential
The Solution for Companies
Reactive wellbeing initiatives or assumptions about what employees need are no longer enough. To reduce risk and support sustainable performance, organisations need a structured, evidence-based approach to workplace wellbeing.
A practical starting point is a workplace wellbeing diagnostic that identifies the root causes and early warning signs behind issues such as stress, burnout, mental health challenges, and ineffective work practices. Rather than relying on anecdotal feedback, this gives leaders a clear picture of what’s really happening.
A structured diagnostic assesses all factors that shape workplace performance and employee experience, from alignment and clarity, leadership behaviour, belonging and psychological safety, resilience, collaboration, and overall employee wellbeing.
These insights reveal not just where issues exist, but also why they occur, and how they impact productivity, engagement, and organisational risk.
This approach also helps organisations meet growing expectations around documentation and prevention. By assessing risks and identifying areas for improvement, organisations create a clear record of the steps they’ve taken to understand and address potential issues.
Bigmore Benefits Health & Wellbeing
Bigmore Benefits has designed a variety of Health & Wellbeing propositions to fit businesses of all sizes. You can learn more about them here. Our diagnostic tool streamlines this process, saving organisations both time and money. Instead of HR teams spending valuable resources collecting and analysing multiple data sources, the platform quickly produces clear, evidence-based insights in a single report. The results highlight the largest drivers of lost productivity, benchmark the organisation against comparable workplaces, and provide each employee with their own confidential wellbeing report.
This enables organisations to focus their efforts where they will have the greatest impact while also strengthening their overall people strategy.
The first step is an Employer Wellbeing Audit, which takes around an hour to complete and gives immediate clarity on the organisation’s biggest risks and opportunities.
From there, we support organisations in building a strategic wellbeing framework, with a recommended actionable report, the delivery of services through our expert affiliate partners, and continuous monitoring to demonstrate ROI. A complete end-to-end solution taking care of it all for you.
For companies navigating the Employment Rights Bill, this kind of proactive assessment is becoming an essential part of responsible, compliant and future-focused leadership.
Article by Jane Sykes
Health & Wellbeing Consultant
Bigmore Benefits Can Help
As the landscape of workplace responsibility evolves, organisations must take proactive steps to strengthen employee wellbeing, reduce risk, and ensure compliance. By implementing structured wellbeing strategies and treating mental health as a core priority, businesses can protect themselves legally and financially. This approach not only fosters a happier and healthier work environment but also promotes greater productivity and sustainability.
To improve your employee wellbeing offering with Bigmore Benefits, fill out the contact form below.
