The Work Agenda

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.

Technical defences alone won’t stop misuse, error or rogue insiders. From careless clicks to malicious insiders, employees remain the most likely source of data compromise.

We unpack how everyday access rights and behaviours, including misuse of AI systems, become high impact breaches/risk incidents, and what “appropriate” security measures really mean in practice. Expect clear guidance on what good governance means, risk assessment, when and how to notify data regulators (around the world) and data subjects, and how to close incidents well to reduce repeat risk.

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.

Businesses are facing challenges in a modern work environment which is increasingly multi-generational and diverse. Employees are more aware of their rights and seeking to hold employers accountable for their actions and the actions of other employees/third parties. Using a case study to guide the discussion at The Work Agenda 2026 conference we shared practical solutions and explored some of the issues that we are seeing employers grapple with including sexual harassment (a year on from the introduction of the preventative duty), neurodiversity, divergence in socio-political views and speak up culture.

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.