The new Employment Landscape for farmers

Finding, and retaining good, loyal and reliable employees is a challenge for every employer – but especially so for farmers since Brexit, according to a survey commissioned by Arla in 2024, which states that famers are now paying more for their staff, in addition to increased stock and running costs.

In addition to Brexit, the Employment Rights Bill may bring further contractual issues as most farm employers typically use a combination of full time, fixed term employees, agency workers and seasonal workers on zero hours contracts.

Jessica Gowar, Head of Employment at Ware & Kay incorporating Pearsons & Ward warns that “Soon, zero hours contracts will be considered to be exploitative and therefore will be banned, so farmers need to act now to stay ahead of the curve, and protect themselves from potential problems and employment claims arising. It is important to review all worker contracts now, before the changes come into effect and create flexible working patterns which will not breach the new regulations”. 

In addition to zero hours changes, there is also the day 1 flexible working rights, unfair dismissal claims no longer require a 2 year qualification period, and sexual harassment is now a proactive protection, which means that employers should be conducting risk assessments of their working practices, looking in detail at who their employees may or may not come into contact with as part of their daily work and making sure that those employees have a clear and transparent line of communication process on any potentially harassment scenarios

Where to start

Contracts: Think about your shift patterns – when do you need the most employees? Can you make sure you can guarantee a minimum number of hours work? If so, this would be a useful method to avoid the notion of zero hours.

Think about whether it would be more cost effective to convert all your contracts to workers for ultimate flexibility within the new rules or whether the mutual obligations that exist between employer and employees would be beneficial from a control perspective.

Unfair Dismissal: Think about including longer probationary periods in your contracts so that you can dismiss your workers and minimise the risk of a claim against you. Make sure your disciplinary process meets minimum standards so that a claim, even if issued, would not be successful. Know what to do if your worker or employee is on long term sick leave, or is injured at work. Understand how the duty to make reasonable adjustments to the workplace is triggered – and when it is not.

Proactive harassment policies: Make sure that your risk assessment of working practices takes full account of common areas of concern that can create intimidating or degrading environments such as power imbalances, gender imbalances and age imbalances. Educate and train all your staff on how to recognise harassment and what to do about it. If you do not take these steps now, you could be liable for the behaviours of not only your employees and workers but also for all the customers and clients your employees and customers may come into contact with.

Please contact Jessica Gowar, Head of Employment on York 01904 716000, Wetherby 01937 583210 or Malton 01653 692247 or email jessica.gowar@warekay.co.uk so that we can help you prepare the ground for the new law.