Leave & Policies – Page 2

‘Skivitis’… beware it’s catchy

Posted on May 30, 2018 - 4:23 pm by Lisa Mackay

Skiving off work, can take many forms. There are the easily recognisable moments in a working day when you know employees are not technically working – often termed ‘ low level’ skiving. Then there is the more problematic ‘presenteeism,’ where people show up to work, but are not engaged and productive. Even more serious to the business bottom line is the practice of employees taking non-genuine sick leave. A small amount of ‘downtime’ has always been tolerated, for example a quick chat around the water-cooler, we are not robots after all. However skiving should not be overlooked, as it is can be a real cost to your business.

Introducing a workplace code of conduct and clear policies on sick leave/reporting absence. Policies outlining the company’s stand on such matters, will reduce frustration and assist employees to understand your workplace culture and work expectations. Lets examine the business impacts of a couple of very common low-level skiving practices that we come across regularly. There are more scenarios covered in the HRtoolkit Quick Guide to Sick Leave

Recently, I was visiting an apartment undergoing a re-clad in the two hours I was there I saw the worst presenteeism. Three workers had 2 ciggie breaks, before their morning smoko, and another worker stood on the scaffolding, in front of me, having an argument on the phone with his girlfriend for 20 minutes. I suspect the re-clad on that particular job will not come in on-time and to schedule. Showing up to work is not enough!

What is your policy around smoking breaks? Cigarettes may take years off your life, but they can also easily steal 30 minutes or more of daily productivity from a few extra quick ‘ciggie’ breaks.

And what about the guy on the phone to his girlfriend? Mobile workers need smart technology, for productivity and safety reasons. Technology is often criticised for encroaching on our personal time, with smartphones creating an always-on culture, but the opposite also holds true. We can literally sit at our desks and skive – sending personal emails, checking our bank balance, browsing social media, or chatting to our friends overtly or via text messaging/Facebook messenger or other apps.

As an employer it would not be a useful use of your time to be continually checking on workers and it’s simply not possible in the case of remote workers. With all workers, there is a level of trust required, in addition you need to set the standards early in the employment relationship and formalise them in writing through good policies and a code of conduct).

A common misconception of employers to think they can just lead by example, and nothing else should need to be said. However, people do not share all the same values, or motivations. Our cultural and family backgrounds vary, which all feed into shaping our understanding of work. Having a code of conduct, fleshes out the day to day issues that arise in the workplace and provides suitable guidelines on what the business expects.

Increase in Paid Parental Leave

Posted on July 1, 2018 - 9:14 am by Lisa Mackay

The Labour Government has made key changes to Parental Leave Law in New Zealand and we have updated two documents in our document library to ensure you have legally compliant documents and templates covering all aspects of your employment relationship. You can download the new documents here.

Changes to the document library include:

Paid parental leave has increased from 18 weeks to 22 weeks from 1 July 2018.
The number of “keeping in touch days” is also set to increase. From 1 July 2018, when paid parental leave is increased to 22 weeks, an employee will be able to work up to 52 hours without losing their entitlement during the period of paid parental leave.
Although parental leave payments are administered by the IRD, employers should ensure that their policies and/or information sheets are updated to reflect the changes.

Paid parental leave is available to casual, seasonal and fixed-term employees, and those with more than one employer
Paid parental leave can be taken by any primary caregiver of the newborn baby
Paid parental leave will be available to people who have recently changed jobs
Paid parental leave will offer more generous benefits to parents of babies born pre-term
Parents are able to resign their positions without losing their entitlements
Unpaid parental leave will be able to be taken more flexibly
Employees are now able to go back to work for up to 52hours during their paid parental leave

Keeping in touch

The changes also allow people to work up to 52 hours during the 22 weeks of paid parental leave. These hours can be used to keep up with skills development, training, handover or help the parent ease back into work. Keeping in touch days are not compulsory, and can only be used in mutual agreement between an employer and an employee. Additionally, they cannot be used in the first four weeks of a babies birth. This is to protect the baby and mothers health.

Parents of babies born pre-term are eligible for additional Keeping in touch hours, up to an average of three hours per week and don’t need to wait for their baby to be four weeks old before using these hours.

Learn more

Down load the MBIE maternity leave table which clearly explains parental leave entitlements here, please don’t hesitate to give us a call on 0800 HRtoolkit (0800 47 86 65). We don’t charge for those quick questions, and often a few minutes with our experts is all you will need.

Help for Victims of Domestic Violence – New Employment Law 1 April 2018

Posted on April 11, 2019 - 10:56 pm by Lisa Mackay

The Domestic Violence-Victims’ Protection Act came into effect on 1 April 2019. It aims to enhance legal protections in the workplace for people affected by domestic violence.

This is a significant piece of legislation reaching across the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Holidays Act 2003 and the Human Rights Act 1993. All companies are required to have a comprehensive policy which provides the necessary support to the affected family member (employee) and responds to the payroll, privacy and employer obligations required by this bill.

Similar to sick leave, once an employee has been employed with an employer for 6 months of continuous employment, the employee becomes entitled to up to 10 days (per annum) of paid domestic violence leave. This entitlement is not cumulative and does not roll over after each 12 months following entitlement.

This entitlement is not payable upon termination. The purpose of this leave is to allow an employee to deal with the effects of domestic violence.

It is important to note, an employee may make a request irrespective of when (or how long ago) the domestic violence event occurred and regardless of whether the employee was employed by you (as the employer) at that time.

If an employee is impacted by domestic violence, they can request leave or make a request to temporarily variation to their working arrangements for a period of up to two months with the intent of dealing with the effects of domestic violence.

MBIE states ‘The law also explicitly prohibits an employee being treated adversely in their employment on the grounds that they are, or are suspected to be, a person affected by domestic violence’.

An employer may require proof of domestic violence prior to paying domestic violence leave or making changes to their working arrangements. There are grounds upon which leave and/or flexible working arrangements can be denied. We will draft further communication around this as these details become available.

Where employment agreements specify the types of leave available to employees, a provision will need to be included identifying the entitlement to domestic violence leave. Employers should also consider updating their ‘flexible working arrangements’ policies to reflect the changes to legislation.

It is our view that Employers should be proactive and communicative with their employees in agreeing to leave arrangements when a request is made. Ideally, employers will be discussing how much leave is requested, whether the employee anticipates taking more leave in the future and whether there is any other support or assistance that the employer can provide.

Employers also require a “Victim Protection” policy. This should outline the mechanisms for the application of domestic violence leave and ensures that the employee is adequately supported through the process and maintains dignity and privacy. The policy will identify who has access to information regarding the employee’s status and payroll information specifically related to these matters.

Your payroll system may also need to be updated to ensure that entitlements are available and calculated appropriately for those employees accessing the leave.

A Victim Protection Policy is essential, and should cover the following four areas:

The Victims’ Protection Act – Overview (explained in clear easy to understand terms)
Domestic Violence Leave Policy
Domestic Violence Workplace safety plan
Domestic Violence Disclosure guide

Call us to talk this through

Call us on 0800 HRtoolkit (0800 47 86 65) to discuss getting a policy for your workplace.

Coronavirus and the Workplace 16 March 8am Update

Posted on March 16, 2020 - 4:00 am by Lisa Mackay

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

Posted on March 18, 2020 - 9:42 pm by Lisa Mackay

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:

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
Postpone overseas travel
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:

Ideas to help your business adapt
Who pays for self-isolation time?
Need to cut staff costs, at least temporarily?
Risks of reducing wages paid?
Ways to reduce Staff costs
Consultation process
Free consultation template
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

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?
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:

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.
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.

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

Posted on March 21, 2020 - 11:44 am by Lisa Mackay

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

Managing sick leave – Skivitis or Genuine, how do you deal with it?

Posted on February 22, 2021 - 1:44 pm by Lisa Mackay

Managing sick leave so you don’t get caught out if the law changes

There is currently a Bill before the Select Committee to increase the amount of employer funded sick leave to 10 days. This is NOT law as yet, though the vast majority of people that I have spoken to believe that it will pass into legislation. So, what can you do to prepare for this change?

Sick leave is a significant cost to business, not only is 5 days sick leave 2% of your annual payroll cost, there is also the disruption to the team of unplanned absences.

Categories of sick leave and how to manage them

Next months free webinar is on Managing sick leave, on 25^th March at 10am, click here to register

Many people don’t use all their sick leave every year, and generally those are not people you are concerned about, after all, we all get sick from time to time. However, there are several groups of people who you do need to manage more carefully:

Long-term genuine sick leave
Regular genuine sick leave
Sick leave abusers

Long-term genuine sick leave

Some absences (e.g. broken leg) have a fairly predictable timeframe and therefore can be planned for relatively easily, e.g. get a temp worker in. However, issues such as mental health, cancer etc have a far less predictable timeframe. And, though you may be exceedingly sympathetic to the individual’s situation, you, as a business owner, have a duty of care to provide a safe working environment to all staff. And, if you have one team member down, the others will be picking up the slack, and potentially getting overworked or stressed trying to keep up.

You also need to consider what is best for the individual involved, being off on long-term sick, and feeling that you are letting the team down by not getting back to work can create huge stresses on the individual. Further, if the absence is caused by something which is not covered by ACC, and they are not receiving money from you because they have exhausted their sick leave, they may be under significant financial pressure, and not entitled to benefit because they are still employed.

As such, proactive management of these people is crucial for everyone. In simple form the steps are:

Speak to them about the situation.
Seek their consent for release of medical information.
Get information from their doctor about their situation and prognosis, and then make decisions based on that information. This may include medical retirement.

NB you do have to make reasonable adjustments to a job, and you do have to be reasonable in your expectations about how long you keep the role open. But you DON’T have to keep the job open forever, and you DON’T have to create an entirely new job.

Regular Genuine sick leave

This is the group who are either regularly sick themselves, or are caring for dependants who are regularly sick. Though the absence may be 110% genuine, it does create a huge pressure on the rest of the team if you have someone who you can’t rely on being at work.

The key, is communication. Talk to them about your concerns and the impact on the team, and work together towards solutions. Some points of question could be:

Is there an underlying health condition of which they haven’t told you? If so, deal with this as per long-term genuine sick leave
If the time off is to care for dependants, can they make additional arrangements to share the caring responsibility?
Are there other arrangements that you can make to address the issues such as moving them to part-time, or moving them to a role that could be done from home, or doesn’t necessarily have to be picked up by other team members if they are off sick

Whatever the outcome, do it by agreement, and document it in writing

Sick leave abuse

Skivitis is a sadly common condition, which is also highly contagious.… i.e. if they are getting away with it, why should I bother getting out of bed? So, it definitely needs to be nipped in the bud quickly.

Common signs on skivitis are regular single days of absence, especially Fridays and Mondays, or the day after a statutory holiday. Often texting in rather than calling in person, and often having made a miraculous recovery by the time they return to work.

Sick leave is for genuine sick leave, and taking sick leave when you are not sick is theft of a days pay to which they are not entitled. However, I don’t recommend that you go straight to disciplinary as it could be that there is an underlying health condition that you are not aware.

Some ways to prevent/cure skivitis are:

Introduce and/or enforce a policy which requires people to phone you in person when sick rather than just texting. Lying verbally is a lot more of a deterrent than sending a text message
If you have noticed an adverse pattern bring them in for a meeting to discuss their absence and ask if there is any underlying health condition that you need to be aware of. The mere fact that you are monitoring will deter them from the non-genuine sick leave next time.
Ask for a medical certificate for absences of less than 3 days. The employer has to pay for this, but you can require a medical certificate for shorter absences.

And if they continue to abuse sick leave, then you may need to move into the disciplinary process.

HR is easy…

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Free Webinar Programme

I will be hosting monthly webinars on a range of topics, and the plan for the next 6 months is:

Looking forward to seeing you at the next webinar

Cheers

Lisa Mackay

Do I have to have a No Jab No Job policy?

Posted on September 21, 2021 - 2:55 pm by Lisa Mackay

As a business owner, you have a legal obligation to:

Provide a safe working environment
Act in good faith in the best interests of your company

Irrespective of which side of the vaccination argument you sit, as a business owner you need to put those views aside and ensure that you are fulfilling your legal obligations to the above.

The H&S issue is already fairly widely understood, however, the issue of acting in good faith in the best interests of the company is what do you do if a client or company you sub-contract to introduces a No jab, no Job policy? If you don’t comply, how much will that affect your business? Many companies who contract to aged care facilities, border points (airports, ports etc), and schools are already facing this issue.

This is a challenge which many business owners are currently grappling with and therefore I will be hosting a Question and Answer session at 10am on Thursday 30^th September with myself, Max Whitehead (A fellow HR professional) and Mark Todd (Director of Ockham group, a business owner working through introduction of a No Jab, no Job policy).

Click here to register.

This will be Q&A session to hear what other companies are doing about this and discuss how can we proactively move forward to address this new and very real challenge to businesses. NB the discussion is not to debate the rights and wrongs of vaccinations, compulsory mask-wearing or compulsory testing at the Auckland Boarders, it is to discuss how we deal with this brave new world as business owners.

I don’t agree so I am going to ignore this!
To put it bluntly, the freight train of COVID passports, mandatory mask-wearing and compulsory testing is already out of the station and up to full speed!

Why do I say this?

New Zealand’s Health and Safety law was based on Australia’s. Recently the NSW Deputy Premier, John Barilaro told its businesses that they will face “significant fines” if they serve unvaccinated customers who haven’t received their double dose.
In the last few weeks, a law was quietly passed in NZ that imposes an up to 6 months jail sentence and $4000 penalty on any business that failed to stop a person from entering a workspace without first scanning or signing in
In the UK you can’t travel to certain places unless you can prove you have been double vaccinated, and Victoria, Australia, yesterday announced similar rules
Tai Webster was released from his NZ Breakers Basketball contract yesterday for refusing to be vaccinated

So, whether you agree or not, the reality is that these changes are coming, and you can either be ahead of the game or be caught off guard by the announcement at the 1pm Cindy and Ashley show!

So please join me, Max and Mark for a Q&A Session on how to address this issue, and share the knowledge about how other businesses are moving ahead

Cheers

Lisa Mackay
Managing Director

When your Hercules plane keeps breaking down…

Posted on June 19, 2024 - 10:26 am by Lisa Mackay

There has been a lot of news about the RNZAF Hercules plane breaking down whilst flying the Prime Minister and his delegation around the world. Resulting in the Christopher Luxton having to go ahead on commercial flights and leaving half his delegation behind.

Yup, this is embarrassing all around, plus it ends up with lots of last-minute logistical nightmares to sort out. So, what lessons can you learn from this for your business?

Contingency planning

If disaster strikes, do you and your team know what to do? COVID was the most major change anyone has faced, but where you able to pivot? Have you remembered the lessons learnt? For the PM and his delegation, they were able to get some of the team onto commercial flights, but also had to leave some behind, so have to adjust how they approached the situation with a much reduced team on the ground.

From an HR perspective, retaining flexibility in your workforce is still critical in the current economic climate to ensure that you can respond to unexpected challenges. In small businesses, that includes having staff with a wide range of skills so they can adapt and pick up new things. Having flexibility in the fixed payroll cost (i.e. lower guaranteed hours, contractors etc).

Learning from Challenges

For the PM the questions they should be asking are, should we use the Hercules, or commercial flights? Do we need such a big delegation?

From an HR perspective, I am getting a lot of issues with theft in various forms. Falsification of timesheets, misuse of the company fuel card etc. Many of these issues have been going on for some time, but have either not been spotted, or have been let slide because of fear of having to go out and recruit new staff.

The good news for employers is that the recruitment pendulum has swung very much back in favour of employers, rather than a shortage of applicants, those who are recruiting are getting an overabundance of applicants.

But you need measures, rules and controls in place to prevent people from taking advantage of the loopholes in your systems (and they will!). And this months free webinar is about the importance of HR Policies and procedures, and enforcing them.Click here to register.

Review – are you doing the right thing?

It is important that you continually review your business:

If someone resigns, do you need to replace like with like? Can you contract out? Can you use technology to automate some tasks within your business?
Is what you are delivering still meeting the needs of your (prospective) clients?
Is what you are doing returning profitability?

In a tight economic climate, clients are wanting more for less. So:

Do your staff know how to push back on clients asking for extra that is not paid for?
Are your staff burning themselves out by trying to please customers, when in fact they could push back on
Are the clients worth having? (never be afraid to fire a bad client, if they are costing you more than they are paying you, they are not worth it!)

Free webinar
This month’s free webinar is on Friday 21^st at 10 am and I will be covering HR Policies, what you need and why it is important to enforce them. Click here to register.

Here to help
We are here to help with any staff queries, so feel free to call me on 021 741 544 or 0800 HRtoolkit (0800 47 8665). Or sign up for our DIY document library for only $399 + GST per annum, or our DIY expert package which gives you access to the document library and unlimited phone and e-mail support for only $129 + GST per month (minimum 12-month term)

Cheers

Lisa Mackay
Founder of HRtoolkit Ltd

Working from home, a right, not a privilege

Posted on October 9, 2024 - 4:01 pm by Lisa Mackay

Recent surveys of staff benefits have seen “working from home” as no longer in the top of the list of what staff perceive as benefits. And this is not because they no longer value being able to work from home, but rather they perceive it as their right!

The reality is that working from home does have some major benefits:

Less commuting = less traffic = less pollution and less time spent sitting in your car
Flexibility to…. Pick up kids; do shopping when it is quieter; go to the gym when it is quieter; etc
Peace and quiet to get on with your job without the distractions of the office
Ability to work at times that you are more productive – early morning, or late evening

Working from home doesn’t work for every person or every job
Some jobs simply have to be done in the workplace (receptionist, barista, etc.), while others can be done remotely (bookkeeper, solo project worker). But even though the job can be done remotely, not everyone is good at working productively from home.

Some key considerations in remote working arrangements?

Do they have a dedicated office at home? Working from the kitchen table with hoards of kids running around will never be fully productive, nor is this likely to be good from a H&S perspective (workstation set-up, and stressors of this working environment)
Remote workers will not sit at their desk from 8.30am to 5pm, so you need to consider what is acceptable e.g. they have to be reasonably available for “core hours’ of (e.g.) 10am to 3pm
What is “reasonably available”?. I define this in the HRtoolkit remote worker employment agreement as “with access to your computer and immediately contactable by phone, or phone calls returned within 60 minutes”
Security of information and equipment:
1. Who is in the household, and are you confident that the wrong people can’t access confidential information?
2. Is equipment stored securely, or is there a risk of theft? And who is responsible for insuring the equipment
3. Could someone accidentally delete all the computer files (e.g. the exuberant toddler, playing on daddy’s keyboard! Fortunately that company had good backup systems, but about half a day’s work for the whole team was lost before the issue was discovered!)
Health and safety – who is responsible?:
1. Ergonomic workstation set up?
2. Workplace environment safety?
Team interaction – though this may be last on the list, it is certainly not least

HRtoolkit resources
In the HRtoolkit we have 2 main resources for use with remote workers:

Free Webinar
This month’s free webinar is on Virtual Working Arrangements, and what you need to consider, and this is on Friday 11^th October at 10am. Click here to register, and, if you can’t make that time, register and the recording will be sent out later.

Here to help
We are here to help with any staff queries, so feel free to call me on 021 741 544 or 0800 HRtoolkit (0800 47 8665). Or sign up for our DIY document library for only $399 + GST per annum, or our DIY expert package which gives you access to the document library and unlimited phone and e-mail support for only $129 + GST per month (minimum 12-month term)

Cheers

Lisa Mackay
Founder HRtoolkit

Category Archives: Leave & Policies