The Work Agenda

Romania’s name traces back to the Roman Empire, but its employment law regime is firmly rooted in the modern EU framework. In this episode, Tom Heys and David Lorimer are joined by Adelina Iftime-Blagean from Wolf Theiss to explore how Romania is approaching the EU’s Pay Transparency Directive. Armed with draft legislation hot off the press, with the ink still drying, the conversation looks at how Romania is tackling the PTD’s challenges, and how legacy pay decisions, like the Romanian proverb says, can have a remarkable tendency to stick around.

To mark Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2026, corporate partner, Katey Dixon, talks to employment associate, Jen Kingsmill, about how founders can build a neuroinclusive business and why it’s important to think about neurodiversity before hiring your first employee. They discuss the legal obligations start-up businesses need to be aware of and share creative ways of supporting any neurodivergent applicants or staff whilst operating on a tight budget.

AI is changing how employees bring employment disputes and how lawyers respond to them—and we all need to keep up. We look at what happens when employees turn to AI tools (sometimes getting it wrong), how legal teams can navigate this shift and make the most of AI themselves, and what a good workplace AI policy should look like to account for evolving uses.

This episode is part of a mini-series covering the topics discussed at The Work Agenda 2026 conference, we hope you enjoy listening. Remember to share with colleagues and if you do have any comments, we would love to hear them.

In this episode Leeanne Armstrong chats to Kate Nicholl, MLA and member of the Economy Committee, tasked with helping to bring the highly anticipated ‘Good Jobs’ Employment Rights Bill to law in Northern Ireland. Kate and Leeanne discuss the importance of  the proposed family friendly reforms in NI, as well as the current status of the bill, the stages required to bring it into law, and whether it will pass at all within the current Assembly mandate.

The red tape and costs associated with a contingent workforce will be increasing throughout 2026 and beyond. We discussed the complex new requirements under the Employment Rights Act.

The Act also introduces significant reforms to the regulation of umbrella companies and new responsibilities for payroll tax compliance bite in April 2026. We also looked at the government’s plans to make right to work checks compulsory for wider working arrangements with the associated civil and criminal sanctions for non compliance applicable.

This episode is part of a mini-series covering the topics discussed at The Work Agenda 2026 conference, we hope you enjoy listening. Remember to share with colleagues and if you do have any comments, we would love to hear them.