With new employment rights, changing expectations around flexible working and growing questions over how businesses monitor and manage remote teams, Jennifer Smith at Forbes Solicitors looks at what the changing employment landscape means for CTOs and senior technology leaders, and why treating employment law as simply a compliance exercise could be a mistake.
For CTOs and senior technology leaders, the next two years will test leadership in ways that go beyond technical strategy. The reality for leaders across 2026 and as we head into 2027 is that employment law, workforce expectations and operational performance are becoming increasingly intertwined.
Hybrid working, remote accountability, staff retention pressures and new employment rights are no longer issues that can be delegated to HR entirely. They now sit at the centre of how leaders build resilient, high-performing teams.
Flexible working is a clear example of this shift and is becoming increasingly common in workforces. Employees now have the legal right to request flexible working from the first day of employment. A request can relate to hours, working times, days of work or place of work, including home or hybrid arrangements.
Employers must deal with requests in a reasonable manner, which includes assessing the advantages and disadvantages, discussing possible alternatives and offering an appeal process where appropriate. Employers can refuse a request, but only for good business reasons.
A rigid or poorly explained approach to hybrid work can undermine trust, while an overly informal approach can create inconsistency, resentment and legal risk. CTOs need to ensure that managers understand how to handle requests fairly, document decision-making and apply policies consistently across teams. The goal is not to grant every request automatically but to show that each request has been considered seriously and transparently.
Around 1.1 million employees left a job in the last year due to lack of flexible working
The business case for getting this correct is strong. The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) research shows that 91% of employers offer some form of flexible working and 74% have hybrid working in place. Around 1.1 million employees say they left a job in the last year because of a lack of flexible working. Those figures should concern any leader responsible for retaining specialist technical talent. In competitor labour markets, flexibility is not simply a benefit, it is part of the employee value proposition.
However, flexibility also brings challenges. Many technology leaders are under pressure to improve delivery, maintain collaboration and justify technology investment. This has led some organisations to look closely at return-to-office requirements, productivity tools and digital monitoring.
The risk is that legitimate accountability measures can cross into excessive surveillance if they are not carefully designed. UK GDPR and data protection obligations apply where employers monitor workers, including remote workers. Leaders should therefore understand whether monitoring is lawful, fair, transparent and proportionate and whether a data protection impact assessment is needed before introducing new tools.
Remote accountability should not mean measuring every single action; it should mean setting clear expectations, agreeing outputs, creating regular feedback points and using technology to support performance rather than control behaviour. Over-monitoring can damage trust, wellbeing and culture, particularly where employees feel they are being watched and micromanaged rather than led.
More changes ahead
The Employment Rights Act 2025 adds further urgency. Many of its changes are being implemented in stages during 2026 and 2027. Some changes have already taken effect, including day one rights to paternity leave and ordinary parental leave, alongside reforms to statutory sick pay. From 1 January 2027, the qualifying period for ordinary unfair dismissal protection is expected to reduce from two years to six months. This will significantly increase the risk of litigation, which highlights the importance and need for proper probation processes, performance management, manager training and contemporaneous documentation.
A fast-growing technology team may be used to moving quickly, but speed cannot come at the expense of process. If concerns arise during probation, managers should be equipped to set measurable objectives, give timely feedback, keep fair records and offer support before decisions are made. Strong leadership practice will help ensure the best defence against avoidable disputes.
The wider leadership challenge is cultural. Flexible working, employment rights and accountability are often treated as separate compliance topics, but employees experience them as one thing: how the organisation treats its people. If leaders say they support flexibility but penalise remote workers informally, trust is lost. If managers demand accountability but fail to give clarity, performance suffers. If policies exist but are applied inconsistently, legal and cultural risks increase together.
The strongest leaders will respond by building leadership systems, not just policies. That means designing hybrid working principles that reflect business needs, training managers on flexible working requests, reviewing monitoring tools through a data protection lens, and aligning probation and performance frameworks with the changing legal landscape. It also means communicating the “why” behind workplace decisions. Employees are more likely to accept limits on flexibility where they understand the operational reasons and see that decisions are fair.
In 2026 and 2027, modern leadership will be defined by balance. Businesses need performance, collaboration and accountability. Employees increasingly expect autonomy, wellbeing and flexibility. One thing is for certain, employment law is moving in a direction that requires clearer processes, better records and more thoughtful management. The organisations that succeed will be those that do not see these developments as obstacles but as prompts to build better management habits.
Ultimately, employment law should not be treated as a tick-box exercise that sits outside leadership. For leaders in the technology industry, it is becoming part of the operating model. The best leaders will use the law as a framework for fairness, consistency and trust, while still protecting the commercial needs of the business. In a workplace shaped by flexibility, data and rapid change, that approach is not just compliant. It is what long-term success will depend on.
Forbes Solicitors have joined the CTO Debrief event as an official content partner – you can sign up to register your interest for this exclusive new event here. Designed as an invite-only, closed-door summit, the CTO Debrief brings together 150+ in-house CTOs, CIOs, and VPs of Engineering at voco Manchester on 30 September.
Known across the region for their work with scaling tech firms, Forbes will be bringing direct, practical perspective to the stage, focusing on the real-world friction points leaders face today, to evolving employment law and AI.
