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Coronavirus and the Workplace 16 March 8am Update

With 8 confirmed cases of the Covid-19 (coronavirus), many New Zealand businesses are currently reviewing or preparing their infectious disease outbreak response plans, as part of their health and safety.  Key objectives businesses should cover include:

  • Reducing potential transmission among your employees
  • Identifying people who are at higher risk due to health complications
  • Maintaining business operations – including checking stocks and suppliers
  • Minimising potential adverse effects through disruptions to your supply chains

Key considerations to protect and educate your workforce whilst ensuring business continuity are:

  • Encourage sick employees to stay home
  • If an employee shows up to work sick, send them home
  • Practice social distancing (no handshakes/hugs/hongis/hi-fives!)
  • Increase routine cleaning of the workplace environment especially  surfaces, keyboards, desks, kitchen/eating areas
  • Ensure your air conditioning maintenance is up to date
  • Don’t forget your mobile workers – provide alcohol wet wipes in vehicles
  • Check-in with staff who are currently travelling overseas, and have a log of anyone returning or going overseas, including destinations
  • Advise employees of company protocols for employees returning from overseas travel –especially now the NZ Government has enforced a 2 week isolation for people coming into NZ from other countries (other than the Pacific Islands)
  • Think about work from home arrangements, what resourcing could be required.
  • Prepare/monitor for a possible increase in absences due to illness in employees and their family members
  • Explain what human resources policies, workplace and leave flexibilities you currently have or may put in place, (5 days sick leave is the minimum employment standard, you need to weigh up whether the business can sustain any more than this or will staff use annual leave?)
  • Implement plans to continue your essential business functions in case you experience higher than usual absenteeism.
  • Cross-train personnel to perform essential functions so that the workplace is able to operate even if key staff members are absent
  • Communicate regularly with all employees

Regarding sick leave

The statutory entitlement is 5 days sick leave per annum.  If a worker is required to isolate you will need to decide as a business, what is a sustainable position for your business – given you may have several staff in self-isolation.

This pandemic is an exceptional situation, and you may have a staff member who has used all their sick leave, as an Employer you must have a conversation with them regarding whether they would have unpaid sick leave or use some annual leave – ultimately it is the employees decision

Keep communicating to your staff

Ensure you communicate regularly with your employees, letting them know there will be a series of communications as the status (spread or containment) of the virus changes.

Your safety and business plan should be adaptable to the changing circumstances and involve input from your employees as you develop and review your workplace safety and operational plans.  It is important that employees have a clear understanding of the facts about the COVID-19 virus.  They need to also understand what your workplace expectations are to prevent the spread of the virus and minimize the impact on the business and your protocols regarding people who are unwell.  Click here to receive your free HRtoolkit letter to staff which provides a great working template for your communications about COVID-19.  Click here to receive a fact sheet on COVID-19, for your staff, its important they have the correct information about the virus, our fact sheet is taken from World Health Organisation sources and the NZ Ministry of Health,  current as of  8am 16  March 2020

 

 

 

BUSINESS TIPS TO HELP SME’S SURVIVE COVID -19

As businesses start to feel the pinch of COVID-19, here are some measures to assist you to adapt your current business practices, take advantage of the Government assistance, and how to consult with your employees if more serious measures are required.

As strict self-isolation measures have been instituted, we have seen tourism grinding to a halt, and knock on effects in hospitality and other sectors.  Locally too we have seen thousands of planned events cancelled or postponed, which is having a real effect on businesses.  In response the Government has announced suite of comprehensive support mechanisms for businesses impacted by COVID-19 health protocols.  The Government support package aims to keep as many people in employment through this period as possible.  This is great news, and, as business owners, we also have to do our bit to ensure we are doing all we can to weather this storm.

Measures being adopted are:

  1. Postpone big events early – Late cancellation of events has a huge knock on effect. Keep your attendees informed of your thinking and/or postpone earlier rather than later so that everyone can make alternative plans
  2. Postpone overseas travel
  3. Talk to staff who are planning overseas trips – Any person leaving NZ now faces the risk that, on their return they will have to either serve a 14 day self-quarantine period, or they may find that one or more Border along their travel route has been closed and they can’t get back to NZ. Have an honest discussion with them about how you would respond if they decide to take the trip with that knowledge.

It is not available to those who can work from home during the period of self-isolation, and who can be paid normally by their employer.

Areas we are covering:

  1. Ideas to help your business adapt
  2. Who pays for self-isolation time?
  3. Need to cut staff costs, at least temporarily?
  4. Risks of reducing wages paid?
  5. Ways to reduce Staff costs
  6. Consultation process
  7. Free consultation template
  8. Need more help?

Ideas to help your business adapt –Think outside the box!

Although the business impacts will vary, one thing is for sure – we all need to be thinking how can we do business differently? Especially in the face of our requirement to practice social distancing to fight back against the spread of COVID-19.

Here are some ideas to assist your businesses maintain social distancing and keep working

Office based workers

  1. Prepare and set up systems for remote working – though you may not need to close your office at present, businesses need to be thinking about how you can work from home, if self isolation is required, having your systems in place, will assist with your business continuity planning. Consider:
    1. Cloud based systems – can your team members access work remotely?
    2. Do you have enough laptops to facilitate work from home arrangements?
    3. Diverting work phone numbers –to private phone numbers/mobile numbers
    4. Can you issue pay as you go temporary mobile phones for workers to work remotely?
  2. Virtual meetings – do you need to meet face to face or can the meeting be managed by phone or video conference- there are great facilities that many businesses are using already; Zoom /Skype and Facebook

Retail

If you have fewer customers coming through the door consider:

  1. Can you offer delivery services for customers? Rather than waiting for customers to come to you and can you deliver to your customers? Remember that deliveries can be dropped off on doorsteps without having to compromise social distancing protocols.
  2. Do sell through your website?, or could you adapt your website to allow for this? Adapting a non-e-commerce website may be expensive and time consuming, but you may be able to do ‘work arounds’ such as phone or e-mail orders with payments made by internet banking or over the phone

Tourism

With the significant drop in overseas tourists what can you do to attract the local market?

  • Specials for locals? Not only is this a good way of getting some business in, it is also a good way to promote your attractions to those people who live locally. Word of mouth referrals are a great way to get business, but the locals can only rave about you if they have   experienced your tourist attraction.   So use the quiet time to get a few more “Ravers”
  • Using Grab-a-deal types of online specials to stimulate your business.
  • Promote to the domestic market? There is a large pool of New Zealanders who have had to cancel or are in the process of cancelling their overseas trips. This is if you will excuse the pun – a “captive market”.

Hospitality

  • Look at your processes and service and reduce contact points– already many cafes are not accepting keeper cups (as an interim measure). Serve coffee without the lid on -giving your clientele the ability to pop the lid on themselves
  • Have hand sanitiser by the eftpos machine and at key areas in your café.
  • If your foot traffic has reduced consider offering a delivery service, or utilise Uber Eats to facilitate your food sales, consider pre-prepared meals – this has proved successful in other countries with COVID-19

Workers who go to multiple places of work (e.g. Trades)

For Tradies working on mixed sites, it is more difficult to maintain social distancing.  Some ways to limit risk may be:

  • Have clear communications and expectations on how your tradies would like to be communicated to regarding any COVID-19 incidences (A site noticeboard)
  • Ensure tradies have alcohol wet wipes in their vans
  • If tradies are doing private work, they should phone and check if anyone is self-isolating at the residence. Check if they job can be delayed until the end of the isolation period, or there is some other way they can be kept apart from your workers?
  • Reinforce social distancing protocols e.g. no handshakes, Hongi’s, high-fives or Hugs , keep a few meters distance between people, use hand sanitisers
  • Ask if they work can be completed at a time when no-one it home

Supply chain issues?

Can you source from within NZ?  Do you need to offer that particular product, or is there an alternative?   Proactively preempt issues and keeping your customers informed is essential.  So, look at what you provide that comes from overseas, and work out your contingency plans.  Supply chain issues were felt from China long before the borders were closed because the Chinese companies simply didn’t have the workers at work to fulfil the orders.

Who pays for self-isolation?

The government has mandated everyone returning from overseas (except the Pacific Islands) has to self-isolate for 14 days.  If you are required to self-isolate – who pays, when most people have only 5 days sick leave per annum?

The government’s relief packages for businesses can assist.  The government will pay

  • $585.80 per week for a full time employee (20 hrs or more)
  • $350.00 per week for a part time employee (less than 20 hrs).

Wage subsidies will be available for all employers that are significantly impacted by COVID-19 and are struggling to retain employees. The scheme will be open to sole traders and the self-employed as well as firms.

 

COVID 19 free consultation document

With the changes to the COVID 19 subsidy scheme announced on Friday 27th and subsequent changes we are updating the consultation document to take account for these changes and will be reloading this document in the next couple of days.  So please revert back then, we are working on this as fast as we can, but also want to make sure you are getting the best advice.

 

In the meantime, we recommend that you carry on as you were planning for your payroll for this week and if you need to make adjustments to pay or annual leave deductions then these things can be tidied up later.  We realise this is very unsettling for everyone, so please bare with us.

 

 

 

Tips on help your staff working from home due to COVID 19

Working from home now? Tips for success

HRtoolkit Tips to Support your workers to ‘get into the groove’ of working from home.  

Many workplaces are trialling and preparing work from home arrangements as part of their business continuity planning.  However, this move to remote working is happening very quickly, sometimes announced and actioned in the same day. I doubt many businesses have had time to put a training seminar together to assist your teams through this change, so they remain happy and productive.   Here are some simple low-cost tips to help your team get the most out of working from home.

 

Think about the challenges working from home poses- and have a plan

For many workers this will be their first experience of remote working. Here are some key challenges:

  • Setting up the workspace
  • Work times and outputs
  • Lack of face-to-face supervision – self-managing
  • Provide our daily checklist for your team
  • Communication misunderstandings because you cannot ‘see ‘ the person
  • Lack of access to information
  • Distractions at home
  • Reduced social interaction -team building virtually
  • What technologies will you use to prioritise communications

Setting up an organised workspace– with the speed of the transition to home-based working, it’s important to encourage staff to set their ‘workspace’ up to their advantage.  Ideally work from home is best if you have a dedicated room shut away from the household action, to limit distractions.

However, this is not always possible, so it is important that you look at what is happening in the household and plan your day to give you good stretches of uninterrupted work time.  E.g.:

  • Utilise headsets and earphones to reduce distraction.
  • Explain to the others in the house what you are doing. Young kids especially may not understand the “boundaries” needed to allow a parent to effectively work at home.

Work Times and outputs – Some jobs will still require fixed-working hours, even if at home (e.g. when you need to be available to answer phone calls).  However, some tasks may be able to be done more efficiently and effectively outside the normal working hours (e.g. when the kids have gone to bed).  To help everyone through this without the Boss worrying about how much work is being done, or the staff member feeling they are “always at work”, focus on outputs and agree on these in advance.  E.g. X phone calls answered, Y invoices processed etc.

 

No onsite supervision – keep communication up with your team

Establish a daily check-in with each of your staff, giving them time to go over any issues or just have a general chat.  Keeping in touch with your team is essential, keep these check-ins regular

 

Provide a checklist of ‘daily basics to help employees get into the work mindset ‘

  • Get dressed!
  • Use Skype/Slack/Zoom/WhatsApp etc to arrange a visual DAILY kick start meeting in the morning with the team or a colleague
  • Take regular breaks
  •  At break times – go for a walk or step outside
  •  Pick up the phone or arrange to video conference your manager or a team member if you are feeling isolated.

 

How to avoid miscommunications and misunderstandings

Without the context of the workplace environment where you can readily check in with someone, it can be very easy to misread an email or instruction.  In the office, you can tell what kind of day people are having and adjust your communications accordingly.

Getting access to information may not be quite as easy when you aren’t in the office.  You may have to work a little harder at communicating to get what you need when remote working.  Be patient and the rule of thumb is to provide the why so you get exactly what you need from your other remote workers.  It is better to over communicate than under communicate.

Be supportive and discuss struggles with distractions at home

Be mindful that some workers may have a suboptimal workspace.  Offer headsets and provide a supportive stance.  Being mindful should COVID-19 get into the community there may be day care and school closures to contend with.

Choosing the technologies, you will use to prioritise your communications

Have some guidelines around communication.  What technology will you use in each situation?  For example:

  • email is best for straightforward communications
  • when dealing with complex issues or discussions you need face-to-face viewing. Set a company standard for what video platform you will use (e.g. Skype/Zoom/Slack etc).
  • Decide on the contact method for more urgent matters e.g. when you need to connect with your department, you may send a WhatsApp Team alert.

Be sure to establish the company ‘norms’ for their use -drawing the line between work time and private – it will be especially important to emphasis this as your workers need to be able to switch off.

Lack of social interaction – try virtual team building

Have a team exercise where everyone discusses a tip or a motivational book /idea in your online morning meeting.  Rotate the person who leads it – so everyone gets to participate.  The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins, is a great read, short, and simple ideas to get people out of procrastination and into action!

Or try virtually socialising – Friday pizza and meeting online.

Lastly amidst all the turmoil – still try to have fun as a team

Top 6 tips on Home-working arrangements for business owners

  1. Focus on outputs rather than hours

 

For most people setting up a temporary home office arrangement will be, by definition, temporary i.e. working on the kitchen table, in the corner of the lounge etc.  They are also likely to have interruptions such as children, students and others who may also be in the house working from home.  Sitting down at a desk from 8.30 to 5pm Monday to Friday could often be impractical.

 

As such focus on outputs rather than hours of work e.g. Make X number of calls per day, process Y number of invoices, call back within Z timeframe

 

Some members of your team may find it easier to work in the evenings (which can be a quieter time with fewer interruptions), but others may prefer to aim for working set hours.

 

  1. Respect down-time

 

Try to get a handle on your teams likely work times at home and have a team email outlining best times for colleagues to call.  Respect your workers need for their personal time after work  to avoid them feeling that they are “on-call” 24/7

 

  1. Schedule regular catch-ups

 

Keeping in touch is critical during this period.  Group conferences by phone or video conferencing are ideal, though not always possible.  But touching base on a daily basis with every member of the team will help

  1. a) the business owner feel reassured that things are on-track and
  2. b) the employees feel they are valued

 

  1. Learn as you go

 

This is a time of adjustment for everyone, so take on board ideas and feedback from your team.  What are they struggling to get access to, and can you make access easier?  What challenges are individuals facing, and can you resolve this?  Some simple examples may be:

 

  • Physical file access – can these be made available on-line? Can you utilise cloud-based sharing such as dropbox/Sharepoint with access to these from their home computers?
  • Printer access – if they don’t have a printer at home, can you buy them one? A quick google search shows they are as cheap as $40
  • Talk to your IT person, they will probably have some ideas about how to adapt your current systems to facilitate work from home arrangements.

 

  1. Communicate, Communicate, Communicate

 

This is probably the most critical point, E-mail communication is best for basic work communication, but  you lose many of the nuances of face to face communication, so utilise phone calls, Videoconferencing (Skype/Zoom etc)

 

  1. Ensure staff are informed correctly about COVID-19

Following The Prime Minister’s address to the nation Saturday 21 March, ask all staff to refer to the government information website: covid19.govt.nz for all the information and advice from the Government regarding COVID-19 and how it will affect New Zealanders, and keep informed of any escalation of the COVID-19 alter system, and what is required.

For more details tips see https://www.hrtoolkit.co.nz/2020/03/tips-on-help-your-staff-working-from-home-due-to-covid-19/

 

Call Lisa (021 741 544) and France (022 059 5022) for more help and advice on this issue.  Our goal is to help and support businesses as much as we reasonably can through this crisis.

Isolation payments agreement template

With isolation protocols now in place many companies will have had to adjust peoples pay.  However, you need to get their written permission to do this.  The following template will help you achieve that.

We recommend you define what you are basing any 80% assessment on, and recheck if you made correct assessments on how to pay in light of information that has now come out.  Errors can be corrected, but don’t let them accumulate for 12 weeks.

Download the isolations agreement template consultation document here 

What to pay people during isolation and written permission required

Published 2nd April 2020

Free template for staff agreement to pay changes for Isolation period

Free webinar on How to pay your staff during isolation – Tuesday 7th April at 10am

Executive summary

The following guidance is to help you make decisions about how to deal with the isolation period payments.

Immediate action required

The 2 immediate actions we strongly recommend you take at this stage are:

  1. Check your decisions in respect of isolation period payments against the new COVID 19 declaration (guidance below)
  2. Get your employees written agreement to the payments that you are making during the isolation period. We have developed a template to help you deal with that

Hold all other action in respect of employment agreements at this stage

Our recommendation at this stage is to hold off making any further decisions about changes to terms of employment until such time as there is further clarity about how long the isolation protocols will be in place.

What to check?

  1. Have you used the correct baseline for “Ordinary wages or salary”?
  2. Are you making correct annual leave deductions?

Saving grace

The law does allow employers to correct mistakes.  So do not panic if you think you may have made errors so far but do use the information you have now to adjust your decisions moving forward. If you have deducted too much annual leave this can be added back into the leave balance, if you have not paid enough pay, you can correct this.

What this document covers

  • If an employee earns below the subsidy received?
  • Paying 80%
  • What is ORDINARY WAGES OR SALARY?
  • Annual leave
  • Does employment law still apply?
  • Can I change someone’s terms of employment during this period?
  • Can I fire someone or make them redundant during the next 12 weeks?
  • Can I ask people to do work?
  • What are “best endeavours”

Government advice

On Friday changes were announced to the COVID 19 subsidy scheme, but over the weekend these have now been readjusted.  The subsidy declaration for the new scheme can be viewed here. https://workandincome.govt.nz/online-services/covid-19/declaration-wage-subsidy.html

Which declaration applies to me?

Technically, if you applied under the original scheme then the declaration in force at the time of application is the one that applies.  However, the 1st declaration was open for interpretation and the 2nd declaration has answered many of those areas of confusion.  As such, if making decisions about how to proceed I would recommend that you look at your decisions in light of the 2nd declaration.  If you are not able to meet the requirements of the 2nd declaration, then be prepared to justify why you have made the decisions you have made.

What the 2nd Declaration states

We recommend that you read the entire declaration, however to help you make your decisions we have broken it down around the main areas of question that have been coming through

If an employee earns below the subsidy received?

The 2nd declaration (applications after 4pm on 27th March 2020) states that  you will “pay at least the full amount of the subsidy to the employee; but where the ordinary wages or salary of an employee named in your application was lawfully below the amount of the subsidy before the impact of COVID-19, pay the employee that amount.”  The First declaration states that you will “make best efforts to pay them a minimum of 80% of their normal income for the subsidised period.

As such if Mr X normally gets paid $20 per hour for 10 hours per week, his normal pay would be $200 gross per week and therefore you pay him $200 gross under Declaration 2, but (arguably) $150 gross under declaration 1, even though the subsidy received as a result of putting Mr X’s name on the application was $350.  The balance should be used for the wages of other affected staff.

Warning

I am sure there will be further commentary on this, however it would appear that under declaration 2 the 80% rule should NOT be applied to Mr X.  It is the value of the subsidy OR ordinary wages or salary.  But under Declaration 1 you should make best endeavours to pay everyone 80%.  You will need to assess:

  1. When you applied – i.e. before or after 4pm on 27th March 2020
  2. What the impact on everyone is of applying 100% to Mr X, i.e. will you have to disadvantage Mr Y you normally earns $60K per annum because you are having to top up Mr X?

Paying 80%

The declaration states that “You will for the period you receive the subsidy: use your best endeavours to pay at least 80 per cent of each named employee’s ordinary wages or salary;”

 

Key words of note here are:

  1. At least – 80% is the target, but if you are not paying 80% you may be called on to justify why (see later on “best endeavours”). Equally, if you can pay more than 80% you should still be doing so.
  2. The period you receive the subsidy – this is for a 12 week period and you need to pay them through this whole 12 week period (see later on Redundancy during this period)
  3. Each named employee – you need to keep everyone named on the application (see later on Redundancy during this period)
  4. If your staff are still doing more than 80% of normal work you do need to be paying them in line with the work load they are doing. You should NOT be using the COVID 19 situation as an excuse to pay them less money for the same amount of work.

However, the Finance Minister stated on Saturday 28th March “We still want employers to use their best endeavours to pay employees 80% of their normal salaries. Where this is not possible, we want the value of the subsidy to be passed on.” So if you can’t pay 80%, pay the subsidy.

What is ORDINARY WAGES OR SALARY?

The 2nd declaration defines ordinary wages or salary as” specified in the employee’s employment agreement as at 26 March 2020.”

This is still not totally clear exactly what the “starting point” will be for assessing if you are meeting the 80% threshold.  However a rule of thumb may be to utilise 80% of “ordinary weekly pay” as defined by the Holidays Act as your starting point and then assess this against “best endeavours”.

Warning

This is another point which I am sure there will be more commentary about.  However, I suspect that the main aim of this clause is to ensure that employers don’t rely on a lower guaranteed number of hours clause in the employment agreement to reduce their assessment of peoples pay during this period.  NB refer to the section on “If an employee earns below the subsidy received”.  We recommend that when communicating with your employees about this you specify what you are using as the baseline to calculate the 80%.

Annual leave

The declaration states “You will not unlawfully compel or require any of the employees named in your application to use their leave entitlements for the period you receive the subsidy in respect of those employees;

In Practice

  1. Check your employment agreements – Since at least April 19 the HRtoolkit templates included the following clause “In the event the Employer’s business is interrupted by unforeseen events beyond its control e.g. natural disaster (earthquake etc.), damage to the workplace premises, governmental action, war, terrorism or health epidemic or pandemic) causing significant disruption to the business then the employee may be required to take annual leave or unpaid leave without notice. If the impact is long-term then the employer may be required to terminate employment by reasons of frustration of contract.”

 

Even if you have downloaded one of our agreements please double check this is actually in the agreement you gave to a specific person.

If you have this clause or something similar then you may lawfully require an employee to take annual leave.  But check your wording very carefully.

  1. Don’t use the subsidy to reduce an annual leave liability – Annual leave is a liability for a company that accrues over time. To use the COVID 19 subsidy payment, a payment you would not have otherwise received, to reduce an existing liability would not, in our opinion, be legally compliant

 

  1. Ask your employees if they want to take annual leave to top up above the subsidy – the declaration says you can’t require or compel an employee to take annual leave. However, you absolutely can ask if they want to take annual leave.  We would particularly recommend this for top up between 80% and 100% if you are unable to pay 100%

 

Does employment law still apply?

Yes.

The declaration states that ”your receipt of the subsidy does not override your existing obligations under the Employment Relations Act 2000”

There have been no changes to employment law and technically you can still be held accountable to abiding by the terms of your employment agreements.  I.e. if an agreement states “You are paid a salary of $XX,XXX which will be paid in 52 equal instalments” then arguably you still have to pay that.  The current situation does give a level of defence to not abiding by this term.  However, we recommend that you tidy up paperwork in respect of payments during the period of isolation, and you will need to make sure your employment agreements align with the new reality for when the isolation protocols are lifted.

 

Can I change someone’s terms of employment during this period?

The declaration states that “You will not make any changes to your obligations under any employment agreement, including to rates of pay, hours of work and leave entitlement, without the written agreement of the relevant employee; [3]”

So, yes you can make changes, BUT you have to get the employees written agreement to the changes.  I.e. you need to consult with them.

Action required NOW

Most companies will not have the “written agreement” for changes made to pay as a result of the isolation protocols.  This paperwork needs to be tidied up and we have drafted up a template letter available for free to companies to achieve this.

Future actions may be required

Depending on when the isolation protocols are lifted will, for many companies, dictate what your company will look like when we re-open for business.  However, for the majority we will not be up to 100% speed day 1 and therefore you will need to build a degree of flexibility into your employment agreements to cope with the reopening.  We will be issuing more guidance and templates on this once we have a clearer picture about how long isolation will last.

At this point we recommend that you DO NOT make any further changes to employment agreements (except as to account for the isolation period) as decisions may change depending on how long isolation lasts.

Can I make someone redundant during the next 12 weeks?

The declaration states that “You will retain the employees named in your application as your employees for the period you receive the subsidy in respect of those employees

It is very clear that the intention is to keep everyone in employment for the next 12 weeks.

We strongly recommend that you do NOT go into a redundancy process right now.  However, if the isolation protocols are extended then we will provide further advice applicable at that time.

Can I ask people to do work?

Yes.  You are paying them so you can call on them to do work for 100% of the time you are paying them for (NB the wages subsidy is time you are paying them for).

Work requests of course need to be fair and reasonable and given the situation you need to ensure that the requests are:

  • Able to be done at home (i.e. without breaching isolation rules)
  • Done in line with appropriate protocols (PPE etc) for essential workers
  • Within the reasonable abilities of the person. g. you can’t ask someone who is computer illiterate and doesn’t have access to a computer at home to do on-line work

But this is a great time to get all of those “tidy-up” jobs done e.g. reviewing documents, phoning clients etc

What are “best endeavours”

This is not a term that is defined and will, I expect, be one of the areas of biggest debate as this situation unfolds.

Each business owner will need to make their own assessments and I strongly recommend that you speak to a financial advisor/bank/accountant about what you can do.  But keep a record of what you have done as this is likely to be called on later if you get any challenges either from WINZ or from employees that you have not made “best endeavours”.

If best endeavours mean that you can’t pay anything more than the subsidy then the statement from the Finance Minister on Saturday 28th March was “We still want employers to use their best endeavours to pay employees 80% of their normal salaries. Where this is not possible, we want the value of the subsidy to be passed on.”

If you have already consulted with staff, but now think you need to adjust that approach how do you do that?

Paying less than 100%, but not communicated this in writing

The declaration states that “You will not make any changes to your obligations under any employment agreement, including to rates of pay, hours of work and leave entitlement, without the written agreement of the relevant employee;

Technically, if you are paying less than 100% of their normal earnings the COVID 19 situation has NOT changed employment law and you can still be held accountable for reductions in pay.  Obviously the COVID 19 situation will be a strong defence.  But we recommend that you get this kind of paperwork sorted and we have developed  a free template which will help you deal with this situation.

Already changed employment terms?

If you have made changes already, great.  I would not suggest making any further changes until it becomes clear what those changes will need to be.  However, refer to earlier sections about paying people who are below subsidy level and paying the 80% and, if you are not complying as a result of changes to employment agreements then you will need to address that.

Told them you will pay less than 80% or less than full subsidy if pay under subsidy value?

You may need to change this approach and re-consult with them.  However, refer to earlier sections about paying people who are below subsidy level and paying the 80%.

Legal disclaimer

The advice included in this is aimed to give as much clarity as possible based on the information today.  We will endeavour to keep employers as up to date as possible through our mailing list, but it is likely that this advice will change over the coming weeks.

We are here to help

Our goal is to help you through this trying time as much as possible, though we obviously also have to keep ourselves afloat too.  As much as possible we will be providing COVID 19 specific templates for free, and reasonable free phone advice for those who are willing to do as much of it for themselves as possible.   We can of course help with consultancy support on a pay by the hour basis and our philosophy is to facilitate you to ensure you keep your costs down as much as possible, and also to ensure that what you do is legally compliant.

So give us a call and we will be very happy to get you through, and help you thrive.  Lisa (021 741 544) or Frances (022 059 5022)

 

12 week variation to terms of employment or need to close down?

Free Redundancy and Restructure Webinar

Free 12 week Variation Template

Free Consultation for full closure of business template

We are now nearly 3 weeks into Alert Level 4.  The indications are promising that we will be downgraded from Alert Level 4 at some time in the not too far distant future.  However, Level’s 3, 2 and 1 also include restrictions which are liable to impact on your business and your clients.  Under level 3 it currently states “Alternative ways of working required”, under Level 2 it currently states “Employers start alternative ways of working if possible”.

When should I consult with my team again?

The government are planning to announce changes to the Alert Level definitions tomorrow and make announcements about Level 4 restrictions next week.  So, do I consult now, or wait until I have more information?

Under normal circumstances, if you want to vary someone’s terms of employment you consult (approximately 1 week) and then you give notice as per their employment agreement about when the changes will come into effect.  Obviously, if you have consulted about what payments will be made for the first 4 weeks of lockdown, that expires next Thursday (23rd).  So, the normal notice periods are not achievable

Overall, we recommend that you consult early with a worst-case scenario in mind, and then top up pay to higher levels if the future is rosier than anticipated.

What consultation will I still need to do?

At this point you need to consult with all your employees about any temporary changes to pay and conditions over the balance of the 12 week subsidy period. (Free Template attached)

Then, at approximately 6 to 7 weeks into the subsidy period (i.e. sufficient time for you to consult and give proper notice before the end of the 12 weeks period) you will probably need to consult with your employees about any permanent changes to their terms of employment.  However, at this point there are far too many unknowns, and to consult about permanent changes to your employees’ terms of employment is liable to cause greater concern at a time of great uncertainty for everyone.

We will be providing more guidance on consulting about permanent changes to terms of employment as we gain a clearer picture about how to best advise employers on that.

The key thing is to very clearly demonstrate (and keep records of ) the best endeavours you have made to keep higher levels of pay higher e.g. cutting costs, and exploring potential new avenues to put the company in good stead for the future

If you need to close the business for good

Sadly, there are already some companies for whom there will be no recovery from this situation.  We sincerely empathise with you, and please reach out for support.

You do still need to consult with your employees about closing the business and any redundancies and also consider how you deal with the subsidy payment.

We have developed a template and guidance to deal with that which can be found at

In brief summary our guidance is:

  1. Be very sure that you have made best endeavours and that you can evidence this before taking this course of action
  2. The government has been very clear employment law still applies, you do need to consult with your employees
  3. Be very open with your team members about exactly what you have done to prevent this outcome
  4. Payments in the event of redundancy need to be carefully considered and the template provides details on these considerations

 

Can You Do Us A Favour… From One Small Business To Another?

We’re determined to help as many businesses as we can through these tough times and will continue to offer a range of free resources to help you successfully navigate the impacts of COVID-19, however as a small business ourselves we are not immune to the economic fallout.

So what we’re asking is this… if you’ve found these free resources helpful or attended a webinar and thought it was valuable, please consider investing in our Full DIY Document Library for $349 + GST for 12 months access. Not only will you be helping us, but all the employment related templates you’ll find within the document library will be essential as your business gets back to work following the lockdown, as unfortunately the side effects of COVID-19 will likely continue for some time.

We understand that for some businesses this won’t be possible, but for those that can we’d certainly appreciate it!

We are here to help

We can of course help with consultancy support on a pay by the hour basis and our philosophy is to facilitate you to ensure you keep your costs down as much as possible, and also to ensure that what you do is legally compliant.

So, give us a call and we will be very happy to get you through, and help you thrive.  Lisa (021 741 544) or Frances (022 059 5022)

PS, please excuse the Hyperlink-fest, advice is changing so quickly that if you click on a document next week it may already be irrelevant, by Hyperlinking we can keep the main document as up to date as possible

 

 

12 Week Variation letter 15th April 2020

As at the 15th April it is looking hopeful that we will be downgraded from Alert Level 4 at some time in the not too far distant future.  However, Level’s 3, 2 and 1 also include restrictions which are liable to impact on your business and your clients.  Under level 3 is states “Alternative ways of working required”, under Level 2 it states “Employers start alternative ways of working if possible”.

If you are continuing to vary terms of employment for the balance of the 12 week subsidy period you need to consult with your team and this template will help you do that

https://www.hrtoolkit.co.nz/media/covid-19-12-week-variation-letter-10-april-20-final

Free template – Need to make all staff redundant?

The guidance remains from the government that it is better to pay staff the subsidy payment, than make people redundant.  However, unfortunately, for some businesses the daily rising costs v’s no income will mean that you no long have any options but to make all staff redundant and close the business.   From an employment law perspective, you are required to consult about this and the following template is designed for this situation.

[gview file=”https://hrtoolkits.com/hrtoolkit/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/COVID-19-all-staff-redundant-consult-letter-15-April-2020-final.docx”]