FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Brindlecombe & Moist Holdings (BMH), the Rotherham-based provider of workplace compliance solutions to organisations that are themselves providers of workplace compliance solutions, today unveiled a package of people-first measures in response to the Employment Rights Act. The Act is expected to reduce the qualifying period for unfair dismissal claims from two years to six months from January 2027. BMH has described its response as a bold commitment to people, and has asked that the word “bold” be left in.

The Pre-Probationary Pre-Period

From the first quarter, all new starters will enter a six-month Pre-Probationary Pre-Period. During this time they will not be employees in the formal sense, but “colleagues in waiting”, and will be observed against a set of criteria that will later be used to determine whether they are ready to be formally observed. A Probation Review Preparation Phase will follow, lasting a further six months, in which staff will be given every opportunity to prepare for a review of their probation, which will not yet have started.

Only then will the probationary period begin, preceded by a Welcome Fortnight. The Welcome Fortnight may be extended at the discretion of the line manager. No upper limit has been set, as setting one would create an upper limit.

“We have looked at the legislation, and we have looked at our options, and I want to be clear that those are the same thing. I have not had a full night’s sleep since the Budget, and I would like that to be seen as evidence of our commitment.” Janine Whitcombe, Head of People, Brindlecombe & Moist Holdings

Assessment Framework

Each stage will be documented using one of fourteen new forms, numbered PP-1 to PP-14, to be completed in triplicate. The forms are available electronically, but must be printed on the first floor, which the lift does not serve. Every assessment will itself be reviewed by an Assessment Quality Panel, which will be assessed annually by the Panel Effectiveness Group, which is currently Janine.

Priya Natarajan, a Pre-Probationary Associate (Provisional) who joined the firm in September, said she had been told she started on a Monday and had since been told she had begun the process of starting. “I asked whether I was an employee, and was given a leaflet,” she said. “The leaflet asked whether I was an employee. I think it was a draft.”

Ms Whitcombe said the measures were designed to give everybody clarity, and that a Clarity Working Group would meet in the new year to establish what had been meant.

Notes to Editors

1. BMH employs 212 people, or 212 colleagues in various phases. Several have been in the same phase since 2023.

2. Photographs of the Welcome Fortnight are available on request. The fortnight is currently in its eleventh week and is being held in the car park, owing to a dispute over the large meeting room.

3. The firm’s legal advisers have reviewed this release and have asked it be noted that they have reviewed it, and nothing further.

4. Mr Brindlecombe left the business in 2003. Mr Moist is understood to remain on the books in a probationary capacity, and has done so since 1994.

5. Media enquiries should be directed to the People team inbox, which is monitored when possible. Please do not telephone after four o’clock, as the telephone is now in the Pre-Period too.

6. Ms Whitcombe is available for interview on Thursdays, subject to her remaining in post, which is under review by a panel she convened herself in October.

7. Should this release be found to contain errors, a Correction Preparation Phase will begin in the spring.