HR compliance in the UK: a guide for employers

Modern workplaces know the importance of HR compliance. In 2025, a raft of new statutory HR requirements and UK legislation came into play, with hefty penalties for non-compliance in HR that every-sized business needs to keep an eye on.

It’s not just about you building HR compliance best practices; it’s about mitigating legal and financial risk as well as reputational damage. They say ignorance of the law is no defence and the same applies here — a lack of knowledge or up-to-date understanding is no excuse. But don’t worry, this is where the right HR governance and compliance software has your back.

What is HR compliance?

Sounds daunting at first, granted. Any HR compliance definition that UK employers use must run the full gamut of HR activities, covering employee health and safety. Your HR compliance checklist must include clear reporting and HR compliance audit processes. These will document how you meet UK employment law compliance standards.

HR compliance is a key responsibility for HR staff and leaders — your heads are on the chopping block for HR compliance failures. ADP’s HCM platforms help track and manage compliance obligations, so that everybody can enjoy peace of mind.

Employment law and HR compliance in the UK

All’s fair in HR and law. Creating a fair, safe and comfortable working environment is the crux of UK employment law compliance. Statutory HR requirements in the UK outline the standards that every employer should adhere to, and specify the HR governance and compliance practice expected.

Key GDPR and HR compliance legislation includes:

• Employment Rights Act
  Covers key staff protections for low or zero-hours contracts, rehiring controls and sickness and leave pay rights. You can study up with our Employment Rights Act guide.
• Equality Act
  Antidiscrimination legislation with ‘protected characteristics’ including age, race and sex. This enshrines respect, compassion and dignity into HR equality, diversity and inclusion compliance.
• Working Time Regulations
  Working time regulations here in the UK limit our weekly working hours to a maximum of 48 hours (with an opt-out) and, the best part, enforce breaks and holiday entitlement.
• GDPR
  This old chestnut is our UK version of the EU law that covers the use and storage of personal information, and it’s pivotal to the way HR teams collect and process data.

Without doubt, there’s plenty here for your already busy HR team to absorb and implement effectively.

Statutory HR requirements every employer must meet

These are the non-negotiables, so the pressure is on. Mandatory policies and procedures are an organisation’s bespoke embodiment of wider UK employment law. To meet HR compliance expectations, you must establish robust human resources policies and procedures for your UK operations.

Every business and every person working for one is an individual — unique. So, staff contracts, employee rights and flexible working policy compliance should be covered within mandatory HR documents, then tailored to industry, cultural and workforce specifics. All the while, of course, staying  compliant. And all underpinned by good record keeping at every stage, expertly done through workforce management solutions like ADP.

HR policies and procedures for compliance

Knowing the law and actually implementing it aren’t the same thing. Core policies like disciplinary and grievance procedures compliance, health and safety requirements and equality standards must be unequivocally laid out. Then communicated in plain language so that everyone can understand.

Choose clarity over cleverness, every time. HR teams translate and communicate policy strategy into staff handbook legal requirements, setting out how employees should behave at work — and what to do if this behaviour breaks down. Any HR compliance checklist should include a responsibility hierarchy and clear, correct steps to meet disciplinary and grievance procedures compliance standards.

The ADP People at Work 2025 study reports that 15% of UK employees have experienced discrimination at work¹. So good equality, diversity and inclusion compliance has real-world impact, it’s not just box ticking. By adapting the workplace and flexible working policy compliance standards, you can ensure your people feel able to work confidently. And a happy workforce is more engaged, motivated and productive.

Usefully, HR policy management tools within ADP systems can track this brilliantly.

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Managing employee compliance

The fastest and easiest way to get everybody up to speed is employee compliance training, so your HR team and staff are on the same well-documented page. Monitoring behaviour and conduct is essential, so if any workplace issues escalate your HR team, managers and staff have backed-up evidence of due process followed. Which will be a relief to everyone.

When monitoring employee compliance, data is your friend. So always back yours up by employee data protection compliance as per GDPR law. HR compliance software systematically notes health and safety compliance as it goes, for an up-to-the-moment snapshot of standards met plus any fails and slip-ups.

Risks of non-compliance

This is the big one. Poor HR compliance management creates a financially and legally risky business, potentially resulting in reputational damage that may be impossible to bounce back from.

HR teams and managers cannot be blasé about HR governance and compliance. Hefty fines, compensation, legal fees and limitless financial penalties for non-compliance in HR can hit your bottom line hard. Failure to mitigate HR compliance risks could result in legal action and criminal charges, even prison sentences.

How to achieve HR compliance

With so much to think about, an HR compliance checklist is a dynamite way to tick everything off nicely. Creating an HR compliance framework for your UK-based business that covers off all employment law and staff demands forms the heart of HR compliance best practices.

When looking at how to achieve compliance in HR, as well as training and documentation there’s the HR compliance audit process. This gives you an overview of whether all that HR training and documentation has done its job. An HR compliance audit should be run at least annually, pulling together HR activity into one all-encompassing report.

A crucial role of HR in compliance management is seeing if you’re meeting legal obligations and hitting those HR KPIs. Technology can work wonders with all that information, as ADP HCM software automates reporting and compliance checks.

HR compliance framework and governance

We think your hard work is worth shouting about. HR governance and compliance is part of the wider picture; so you want to be sure your HR compliance is as one with the overall business strategy. The importance of HR compliance reporting and monitoring is in giving leaders an accurate look at how an organisation is functioning, how its legal obligations are being met and how its staff are feeling.

Ideally, such compliance reporting in HR then steers future decision-making, bolstering continuous improvement and ensuring happy, thriving workplaces. Thankfully, ADP workforce management provide such oversight and governance tools to get you started.

Next steps

Compliance and happy employers go hand-in-hand. HR compliance is vital in the UK to create respectful workplaces and contented workforces. The UK has stringent employment law standards and HR compliance risks can derail company coffers and careers if they aren’t taken seriously.

That’s why we sing this from the rooftops — the importance of HR compliance can’t be overstated. Proactive compliance management is a no-brainer for HR teams — and the benefits are endless. Whether that’s laws obeyed, targets met, strategic insights revealed, profits made or staff listened to loud and clear.

Prevention is always better than cure. So heading off any issues before they develop into high-risk scenarios can be done through easy-to-use and effective HR software. But you can relax, knowing ADP is here with worry-free and forward-looking payroll, HR and workforce solutions that support you at every step.

Frequently asked questions

1. ADP People at Work 2025: A Global Workforce View