The decision to vote Brexit in the referendum may have far-reaching consequences for employers and their employees up-and-down the country. 

For employees it is an uncertain time as they ponder the impact the result will have on their jobs, and the terms and conditions of their contracts. For employers, there will be long-term uncertainty about regulations and case law originating within the EU, such as the Working Time Directive, and regulations protecting employment during acquisitions and service provision changes, commonly known as TUPE. Business leaders are looking to HR for guidance, so below we set out the agenda for what happens next, when, and what the potential outcomes are for the country. 

Timeline for Brexit negotiations
The next Government will have two years to negotiate a new relationship with the EU from the point Article 50 is triggered – work is required to establish the legal and regulatory framework for employees and employers alike before starting the clock.

Assuming new leadership is in place by October 1 (following leadership elections in both the Conservative and Labour parties and a potential General Election) we can expect the negotiating period to run at the earliest from mid-October 2016 to mid-November 2018.

It is possible that as a result of legal challenges negotiations may be subject to extensions beyond this date. 

Possible UK-EU relationships following Brexit negotiations

The negotiating position the Government opts to take will depend on what kind of future relationship they want to secure for the UK with the EU.

There are four possible scenarios, ranging from tight-knit consensus to loose association:

A Norway-style ‘everything but membership‘ arrangement

A Swiss ‘patchwork of two-way treaties‘ situation

A Canadian ‘tariff-light‘ trade deal

The World trade Organisation’s ‘basic vanilla package’ 

The Workforce – who can work here, and under what conditions

Leaving the EU will have an immediate impact on the lightening-rod issue of the referendum debate – immigration. With options 1 or 2, free movement of citizens with EU member states would likely continue, with limited impact on employers’ capacity to recruit from the continent. Options 3 and 4 will almost certainly see an end to the automatic right to live and work in the free movement of labour, with a points-based system (like the one that already applies to non-EU migrants) the most talked-about replacement. 

One possibility allows EU nationals to work in the UK for a specified period of time, after which they would need to obtain a visa or residence on the same basis as people from outside the EU. The major uncertainty of a Brexit vote is for migrant employees who’ve been here fewer than four years and are ineligible for permanent residency. It’s expected that EU migrants already working here would be free to stay, and UK job searches from EU nationals have spiked in the days leading upto and following the Brexit vote.

The law – what could change, and what’s unlikely to be touched
On the face of it Brexit gives the UK power to repeal or reshape employment legislation that many UK businesses dislike. The Government may try to repeal certain aspects of EU law, such as the Working Time Regulations (WTR), Agency Workers Regulations and CRD IV

(intended to cap bankers’ bonuses). However, a wholesale abolition of all EU-based workplace law is very unlikely, not least because: Repealing some workplace law would be politically difficult domestically. International political pressure will also inhibit the repeal
of some rules. The way UK judges interpret what was previously the dominion of EU Court rulings will change the law over time, but slowly