UK 
United States
Three weeks ago, the biggest wave of UK employment law changes in a generation came into force. SSP from day one. The Fair Work Agency launch. Day-one paternity and parental leave. A doubled protective award for collective redundancy. A refreshed whistleblowing duty. New minimum wage rates.
For most HR professionals, the first response was a flurry of policy updates, payroll checks and quick manager briefings. A few weeks in, the dust is starting to settle. And one change is quietly causing more trouble than the rest.
The early picture
Lots of the employment law changes are admin-heavy, requiring updates to contracts, policies and payroll. But one of the changes that's proving trickier is holiday-records.
The gap UK SMEs are still wrestling with
As of 6th April 2026, employers have a legal duty to keep adequate records of statutory annual leave entitlement, leave taken, carry over and holiday pay calculations. They need to retain those records for at least six years.
Six years is longer than most SMEs keep anything centrally.
In conversations with HR leads at growing UK businesses, the same pattern keeps coming up. The records exist. They're just not in one place. A bit in a spreadsheet. A bit in an email chain from when someone booked time off two years ago. A bit on a paper form sitting in a filing cabinet from the previous office. Calculations vary depending on who did them. There's no audit trail of who changed what, when.
In March, that was untidy but tolerable. In April, it became a legal duty backed by an enforcement body.
Why this one matters more under the FWA
The Fair Work Agency launched on 7th April 2026. It can inspect workplaces without needing a complaint, request documents, and recover up to six years' arrears plus penalties of up to 200%. Holiday pay and record-keeping sit squarely within its remit.
The shift isn't really about the rules themselves. It's about the burden of proof. The question is no longer "did you get this right?". It's "can you show that you did?". If your holiday data lives in five different places, that question is much harder to answer than it used to be.
What "good enough" actually looks like
For most SMEs, this isn't about perfection. It's about being able to pull six years of accurate, accessible, defensible records when asked. Three things tend to make the difference:
One central place where holiday entitlement, bookings, carry over and pay calculations all live
A consistent calculation method that doesn't vary depending on who's running payroll that month
A clear audit trail of any changes, with version history attached
Where to start
If your holiday records are still spread across spreadsheets, emails and the odd bit of paper, bringing them into one place is the single most useful move you can make this quarter. Breathe's holiday management automatically calculates, tracks and stores entitlement, bookings and carry over, with a clear audit trail retained in the system.
For a wider sense-check on the rest of the April changes, what you need to do, and a practical preview of what's coming in October, join Breathe's free webinar on 19 May. Employment law 2026: what changed in April and what to do next is hosted by Bharat Siyani (VP People & Culture, Breathe), with HR and employment law specialists Jemma Fairclough-Haynes (Orchard Employment Law), Juliet Irving (Impact HR) and Oli Moreton (Littler Mendleson).
