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Dominic Ponniah, the boss of Cleanology, told the BBC his firm is delaying hiring plans while being more cautious of who it takes on.<\/p>\n
The cleaning company he runs has about 1,300 employees located from Scotland to Southampton.<\/p>\n
“Hiring people is quite a big thing, costly, and people are concerned about the ramifications after these announcements,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s just another thing that businesses have to contend with,” he said, adding that the new rules around sick pay, unfair dismissal and probationary periods would make business “very, very nervous”.<\/p>\n
Tina McKenzie, policy chair at the Federation of Small Businesses suggested that the new bill was a “rushed job, clumsy, chaotic and poorly planned”.<\/p>\n
She said that smaller firms would be left “scrabbling to make sense” of the changes and called for a full consultation on each individual measure.<\/p>\n
The matter of zero-hours contracts has also been hotly debated.<\/p>\n
Under the Employment Rights Bill, bosses will have to offer workers a guaranteed-hours contract based on the hours they have clocked up during a 12-week period.<\/p>\n
Workers on zero-hours contracts will also be entitled to “reasonable” notice ahead of any changes being made to their shifts, as well as compensation if a shift is cancelled or ended early.<\/p>\n
Zero-hours contracts have come in for criticism in the past as the likes of factory or warehouse workers have missed out on a steady income and certain benefits.<\/p>\n
But UKHospitality said it is the preferred policy for workers in their sector.<\/p>\n
Ruby, a first-year university student, told the BBC that she is on a zero-hours contract with her local football club, selling food and drinks on match days.<\/p>\n
“In my situation it\u2019s quite good. I can pick up shifts if and when I need a bit of extra money, or if I\u2019m home for the weekend,” she said.<\/p>\n
She says that this approach offers her more flexibility than a contract specifying a certain number of hours would.<\/p>\n
“If I\u2019m there and I want to do it, I can do it.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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‘Flexibility’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The business secretary said on Thursday it was “vital” to give employers flexibility to grow, while ending what he described as “unscrupulous and unfair practices”.<\/p>\n
Gary Smith, general secretary of the GMB union, described the bill as a “groundbreaking first step to giving workers the rights they’ve been denied for so long”.<\/p>\n
But he added that there is a “long way to go”, and called for unions and workers to be involved in the discussions around the new legislation.<\/p>\n
“The legislation must be watertight and without loopholes that could be used by those wanting to delay the rights workers so desperately need,” he said.<\/p>\n
Some measures included in Labour’s plan to “Make Work Pay”, issued in the run-up to the General Election, will not feature in the bill either.<\/p>\n
The “right to switch off”, for example, will be part of a “Next Steps” document in which the government will set out hopes for further reform.<\/p>\n
Conservative shadow business secretary Kevin Hollinrake said that the party would look “closely” at the detail of what Labour has set out.<\/p>\n
“But businesses and the economy needs certainty not the threat of being sent back to the 1970s, unleashing waves of low threshold, zero warning strikes, driving down growth and slowing productivity,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Additional reporting by Emer Moreau. <\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/picture><\/span>Getty Images<\/span><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n