Zero-hours duties, evidenced by the rota you already keep

Guaranteed hours, reasonable notice of shifts and payment for short-notice cancellations. The policies written for you, the managers briefed, and a shift history that records what notice was actually given rather than what somebody remembers giving.

A readiness pack, not legal advice. Included in Core at £59 per site per month.

Passed, not commenced, and the numbers are not set

The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025. The zero-hours provisions are not yet in force. The government’s roadmap lists the right to guaranteed hours and the right to reasonable notice and short-notice payments under 2027, gives no month or quarter, and says its own timings will be updated after consultation.

Much of the operative detail is left to regulations that have not been made: the length of the reference period, what counts as reasonable notice, and how a short-notice payment is calculated. The consultation on those closed on 25 August 2026 and the response is still awaited. Anyone selling you a finished answer to those questions today is selling you a guess — which is why the policy templates in this pack leave those numbers as decisions you record and revisit.

The three duties

• Offer guaranteed hours based on the hours a qualifying worker actually worked during a reference period, without them having to ask
• Give reasonable notice of shifts, and of any change to them
• Pay the worker where a shift is cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice

Enforcement sits with the employment tribunal system. The government consulted on whether the Fair Work Agency — operational since 7 April 2026 — should enforce the right to short-notice payments; that question was still open at the time of writing.

The offer is calculated from hours you are recording today

Whatever reference period the regulations finally set, it looks backwards through records you are creating now. So does every argument about how much notice a worker was given. And the habit that decides whether those records are worth anything — making the change in the system at the time, with a reason attached — takes months to establish across a team of managers.

A shift cancelled by phone at four in the afternoon and typed into the rota the next morning reads, in the record, as most of a day less notice than you actually gave. That gap is not something you can fix retrospectively, and it is the gap that decides a dispute.

Install it in one click, then make the decisions

Five policy documents that say what you have decided

Shift notice and cancellation, guaranteed hours reference period, short-notice cancellation payment, a records and retention statement, and a manager briefing note. Where the law has not set a number, the template leaves a marked placeholder and says so explicitly, so nobody mistakes our guess for the regulations. Each one carries a review-by date, lists the gov.uk and legislation.gov.uk sources it was written from, and states on its face that it is a template rather than legal advice.

A readiness checklist that ends in decisions, not ticks

Identify who is in scope, including agency workers. Choose and record the reference period you will work to. Publish a shift notice standard and tell people about it. Decide the payment basis and the narrow list of situations where nothing is paid. Write the offer process. Get the rota discipline in place. Brief the managers. Set retention periods long enough to defend a claim and short enough to satisfy UK GDPR.

A manager course with a five-question test

Four short modules for anyone who writes a rota, offers a shift or sends somebody home early: what is changing and how firm the dates really are, how a guaranteed-hours offer is built, what counts as a cancellation or a curtailment, and the day-to-day habits. It is direct about the two behaviours that cause claims — managing somebody’s hours down before a reference period ends, and making an offer feel expensive to accept — and about detriment, which is usually the allegation that succeeds.

A readiness view that measures evidence, not intent

One percentage and a list of what is outstanding. A policy counts once its placeholders are gone, not once it is installed. The checklist counts once it has been completed. The course counts once everyone assigned has passed it — and it tells you how many of them have. Installing the pack and doing nothing else scores zero, which is the honest answer.

This is a readiness pack, not legal advice. Everything installs as ordinary documents, checklists and courses inside your account, which you can edit, rename or delete like anything you wrote yourself. The regulations that will set the reference period, the notice and the payment have not been made, so the figures in your policies are decisions you take and review — not settled law.

Zero-hours questions

When do the zero-hours rules start?

Not yet. The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, but the zero-hours provisions are not in force. The government’s roadmap for implementing the Act lists the right to guaranteed hours and the right to reasonable notice and short-notice payments under 2027, with no month or quarter given, and adds that its own timings will be updated after consultation. Treat 2027 as the government’s current expectation, not a fixed date.

How long is the reference period?

The Act does not say. The end of the initial reference period, and therefore its length, will be set out in regulations that have not been made. In its consultation the government named 12 weeks as its preferred option for directly engaged workers, against alternatives of 26 and 52 weeks, and marked no preference for agency workers. That consultation closed on 25 August 2026 and the response is still awaited. The policy template in this pack has you write in the period you intend to work to now, and review it when the regulations are published.

What are the three duties?

Offering guaranteed hours calculated from the hours a qualifying worker actually worked during a reference period, and offering them without the worker having to ask. Giving reasonable notice of shifts and of any change to them. And paying the worker where a shift is cancelled, moved or curtailed at short notice. The amounts and the notice periods will be set by regulations rather than being on the face of the Act.

Who enforces it?

The Act places enforcement of the zero-hours measures with the employment tribunal system, and the government has said guaranteed hours and reasonable notice are better dealt with there. It consulted separately on whether the Fair Work Agency should enforce the right to short-notice payments; that was still an open question at the time of writing. The Fair Work Agency itself has been operational since 7 April 2026.

Why bother before the rules commence?

Because a guaranteed-hours offer is calculated from hours already worked. Whatever reference period is finally set, it will look back through records you are creating now. The habits that make those records defensible — every change made in the system at the time, with a reason attached — take months to establish and cannot be applied retrospectively to a rota that was managed by text message. A cancellation phoned through at four o’clock and entered the following morning reads, in evidence, as most of a day less notice than you actually gave.

What is in the pack?

Five policy documents you adapt — shift notice and cancellation, guaranteed hours reference period, short-notice cancellation payment, a records and retention statement, and a manager briefing note — plus a readiness checklist, a manager course with a five-question test, and a readiness view showing what is outstanding. Every document carries a review-by date, links the government sources it was written from, and says on its face that it is a template and not legal advice.

Written from the Employment Rights Act 2025, the government’s roadmap for implementing it, and the zero-hours consultation published on gov.uk. Every document the pack installs links its own sources so you can check them.

One login, one bill, one set of sites

Every Zynthio module shares the same sites, the same people and the same reporting. Turn on what you need.

Martyn’s Law Readiness

Procedure templates, a per-site capacity and tier view, a quarterly drill record and a staff briefing.

Food Safety & HACCP

Digital daily checks, temperature logs, HACCP plans, allergen charts and EHO-ready PDF records.

Rotas, Clock-In & HR

Build rotas against a live labour budget, clock staff in with geofencing, approve timesheets.

Stock & Cashing Up

Stocktakes, purchase orders, delivery scanning, GP tracking and daily cashups with weekly rollups.

EPOS & Till

Connect your existing till for live sales into stock and rotas, plus the ZynthioEPOS till in build.

HACCP Plans

Build a full Codex HACCP plan online, link CCPs to daily checks and export EHO-ready PDFs.

COSHH & Risk Assessments

Substance register with data sheets and PPE, plus scored venue risk assessments with sign-off.

Audits & Mock EHO

Ten UK templates, 400+ inspector-style questions, weighted scoring and a site league table.

Staff Training

Assign courses, track completion by person and site, and issue certificates into the HR file.

Review Management

Google, TripAdvisor and your FSA rating in one dashboard with a reputation score per site.

Table Bookings

Website booking widget, live service diary, deposits and a guest CRM - no per-cover fees, ever.

Refusals Register

A digital refusals book filled from the till, ready for the licensing officer.

Cash Management

Safes, floats, banking and an append-only ledger with daily cash-up reconciliation.

Accounting Export

The daily sales journal, supplier bills and payroll journal in Xero’s own import layouts.

KPIs & Reporting

Clock-in accuracy, labour budget, salary utilisation and reputation, per site and per group.

Recipe Costing

Cost dishes from live stock prices, track GP ex-VAT and tag all 14 UK allergens.

Free GP Calculator

Cost a dish, cost a keg by the pint, or price to a target GP. No account needed, VAT handled properly.

Or start at the beginning on the Zynthio homepage, try it with sample data on the live demo, or read practical operator guides on the blog.

Start recording the evidence now

Install the pack, brief your managers, and let the rota keep the record. Start a free trial with no card, or book a call.