Feb 25
Wednesday 25th February 9:30 - 16:00
De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms
With the workforce, skills and education landscape about to dramatically change in the next few years, our work at the forefront with Government allows us to set up a jam-packed agenda to give you the inside track. The Workforce, Skills and Employment Rights Event will keep your business ahead of the curve and give you a significant advantage against your competitors to recruit the best. We’re bringing together some of the brightest and innovative minds in the sector to share what they’re doing to buck the trend and keep their workforce full and engaged.
This year we will spend the afternoon focusing on the upcoming Employment Rights Bill that will effect the sector massively. Members have the option of attending the full day or joining us after lunch for our Employment Rights Bill session.
Dress Code
The dress code for this event is business attire.
When
Wednesday, 25th February, 2026
Where
De Vere Grand Connaught Rooms
61 - 65 Great Queen Street
London
WC2A 5DA
Contact
Hannah Adlam
[email protected]
Tickets
(Prices exclusive of VAT)
-
Full day conference - Operator
£105
-
Full day conference - Supplier
£165
-
Afternoon Employment Rights Bill session only - Operator
£65
-
Afternoon Employment Rights Bill session only - Supplier
£95
Trouble booking?
Agenda for the day
After a year where employment, skills and training have been in the spotlight once again, Kate reflects on how hospitality has reacted to unprecedented challenges facing this part of our sector. This will include an update to delegates on UKHospitality’s work to support training and create pathways into the sector, including our groundbreaking SWAPs and Hospitality Skills passport.
Kate Nicholls, Chair, UKHospitality
Hospitality businesses are home to thousands of lines of employment data, so what can it teach us about our staff, what the emerging trends are, and how can we use it to improve our own practices? Whether it’s turnover, absence, sickness, pay rates or progression, there is always something to be learned from our data.
Harri join us to take us through the industry-wide trends and give their expert insight into how this can inform businesses to get ahead of the game.
Harri
The labour market is everchanging, and that’s never been truer than in 2026. With the Employment Rights Bill shaking up the regulatory landscape and the UK’s wage structure fundamentally changing, HR, learning and development experts CIPD join us to share their latest assessment of how the world of work is changing across the economy, and what businesses should expect in the years ahead, from pay to people.
Adam Stanbury, Director of Employer Solutions, Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD)
What are your challenges and how are you tackling them? How are you prioritising learning and development, and what are you focusing on? What is the balance you are striking between cost pressures and delivering on workforce priorities? What have you found works, and what doesn’t?
Following expert insight from both Harri and CIPD, delegates will be supported in roundtable discussions to share their perspective from their own businesses and learn from one another.
Sunaina Sethi, Co-Founder & Chief People Officer, JKS Restaurants
Helping people back into work, whether they are long-term sick, unemployed or looking for a career change, is one of hospitality’s unique skills, and a fit-for-purpose adult skills agenda is crucial to our success.
Hear from Sandra Kelly, our Skills Director, who will outline the work we have already done to set up the Hospitality Skills Passport and Hospitality SWAPs to deliver a new pathway into work that saves businesses money and delivers on Government priorities. Sandra will share what’s next on the agenda with DWP and how businesses can benefit.
Sandra Kelly, Skills Director, UKHospitality
Hard-working, creative, resilient and passionate teams are absolutely critical in hospitality, but how are businesses building teams full of top talent? Our expert panel brings together award-winning experts from across hospitality to speak about how they’re recruiting, what they’re doing to retain their best members of staff, the leading role training and development plays, and the best tips and tricks for operators.
The Employment Rights Bill represents the most significant change to employment law in a generation and will have wide-ranging implications for hospitality.
New rules governing Statutory Sick Pay and trade union access, notice of shifts and a new system of guaranteed hours for staff on Zero Hours Contracts, and many other issues affecting our businesses, make this Bill an area that hospitality businesses absolutely need to be on top of – and the preparation needs to start now.
Given the importance of this legislation for hospitality, our afternoon session is dedicated to bringing operators up to speed on the changes, providing expert insight into what it means for businesses and how operators can best prepare.
The Department for Business and Trade is responsible for the implementation of the Employment Rights Bill and for developing the detailed secondary legislation and guidance for businesses. Mark Holmes and colleagues will join us to outline what businesses should expect, and the timeline for implementation.
Mark Holmes, Deputy Director, Department for Business and Trade
Looking after our teams is a top priority for hospitality businesses but the Employment Rights Bill will make having good employee relations even more important. Leading workplace employment experts ACAS join us to talk about what this looks like, how businesses can go even further in their engagement with staff, and how dispute resolution will become even more important.
New legislation means new legal obligations for employers, but what are the biggest changes and the most significant legal risks for operators in the Employment Rights Bill? RWK Goodman is one of the leading law firms for hospitality businesses in this area and they join us to share their expertise and insight.
Kirsty Swan, Senior Associate, RWK Goodman
Of the many changes in the Bill, we've picked three of the most practically relevant for hospitality businesses to put under the microscope and hear from operators about how they’re preparing for change.
Changes to zero hours contracts has probably had the most attention of any of the proposed measures in the Bill and is perhaps the least well understood amidst nuanced reporting and debate.
We’ll hear from a leading operator that is a significant employer of people on zero hours contracts to hear how they’re preparing and what the impacts will be on their business.
Shift patterns are an ever-changing ecosystem of their own in hospitality, but employers will be under new obligations to provide reasonable notice and predictability of shifts, as well as be liable for compensation in shifts are cancelled.
In a sector where demand can change at short notice, how will this work? We will explore how a prominent business that is reliant on staffing up events at short-notice and sporadically through the year will be tackling this change.
The changes to unfair dismissal are one of the most dramatic in the Employment Rights Bill. The current two-year period is considered generous, compared to other similar economies, but the change to day-one rights will make the UK an outlier, again, in introducing this right from the start of employment.
How are hospitality businesses anticipating this shift will impact their businesses, their teams and how they recruit? A leader operator employs around 40,000 people and join us to share their perspective, and how they’re preparing.
Thank you to our sponsors
