Lawyer Jolyon Bates
Employer non-compliance with legal obligations now means "a massive potential uplift" in fines, says Napier employment lawyer Jolyon Bates.
New laws have brought "many administrative tasks that employers need to tackle".
"It is certainly unusual to have a wide-ranging formula of changes for a number of critical pieces of legislation at once, and employees and employers inevitably have to get to grips with all of those changes," he said.
Health and Safety
The Health and Safety at Work Act comes into force on April 4, aimed at halving workplace fatalities. In New Zealand about 50people die working annually and one in 10 is harmed.
The Act prescribes responsibilities and duties for everyone in the workplace.
Hasmate Managing director Gordon Anderson said while a lot of businesses were complying "a lot have not addressed it and are just starting to wake up".
"I identify one a week on average," he said.
Business owners, directors and managers and what the Act calls Persons Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU), needed to know the regulations needed for their business' risk category.
Dairy, beef and sheep farming escape being defined as high risk, as did worm farming eventually.
Mr Anderson said the building sector was flagged as a high-risk industry "and this means the chance of inspectors turning up on site for assessments will potentially increase".
Business owners and PCBU's needed to have practices in place to avoid penalties.
"This applies to sub-contractors such as painters, bricklayers, plumbers and drain layers."
The new laws placed greater emphasis on proving due diligence, which requires quality data.
"This will be an evidence-based process and it will be the responsibility of the business owners or officers and managers to provide the documented evidence in a relatively quick time-frame."
Failure to comply was "at the owners and director's peril". Responsibility could not be contracted out, he said.
"They have to review all of their business operations and identify risks to their business and employees.
"There has been a major change - the responsibility has been clearly defined back to the business owners and directors."
He said there was a large amount of information available on Worksafe, ACC and Federated Farmers' websites.
"It is going to be an interesting field to play in. It is long overdue that this particular subject was addressed," Mr Anderson said.
Employment Standards Legislation Bill
The Employment Standards Legislation Bill, yet to be passed by Parliament and due to take effect on April 1, seeks to promote fairer and more productive workplaces for employers and employees, amending the Employment Relations Act 2000, the Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987, Minimum Wage Act 1983, Holidays Act 2003 and Wages Protection Act 1983.
Zero-hour contracts and compensation
Zero-hour contracts offer no guarantee of work but require employees to be available.
Under the Employment Standards Legislation Bill such contracts need to offer compensation for availability.
Grow HR director Dave Robb said zero-hour changes gave certainty to both parties.
The Bill also said compensation was due when hours specified in a contract were not forthcoming.
Fellow Grow director Murray Cowan said contracts could have stand-down clauses, but with goodwill in the workforce there were ways around that situation as was practised at his time at Wattie's.
A cancelled shift would meet in the cafeteria, the situation explained and a day's holiday offered or other work arranged.
"To be quite honest, 99 per cent of the staff opted to take a holiday; whereas, strictly speaking if we required them to take a holiday we had to give them 14 days' notice in writing.
"That relies on the goodwill of the employees."
Mr Robb said employers "have to be on their toes in terms of how they manage their workforce and contingency situations".
"The Bill is talking about not just cancelling shifts but giving just and reasonable notice for a change in shift/work pattern."
Paid parental leave
Paid parental leave is increasing from 16 to 18 weeks in April, the second change to parental leave after the increase to 16 weeks, from 14 weeks last April.
The government is proposing further changes, including parental leave payments to workers such as casual, seasonal, employees who have recently changed jobs, employees with more than one employer and primary carers.
Easter Sunday
Due to be passed this year after Easter, the Government's Shop Trading Hours Amendment Bill proposes giving local councils power to limit trading.
Workers could refuse to work on Easter Sunday without giving a reason.
Enforcement of employment standards
Tougher sanction for not providing minimum employment standards under the Employment Standards Legislation Bill include increased maximum penalties with additional penalties for employers intentionally breaking the law, with public naming of employers breaching minimum standards.
Mr Robb said awards through the Employment Relations Authority and Employment Court were already "creeping up" and in some cases "extreme" but small businesses were given leeway for small understandings.
"A lot of employers make little mistakes with process or substance, particularly in terms of personal grievances.
"They don't follow the process to the letter perhaps for a justification of dismissal, but the court and the authority take into account the nature of the business and the resources they have available.
"If you are good at making widgets but not that flash on employment law then the authority takes that into account.
"But we read about some of the big corporate environments with as many HR people as employees - they should know better.
"The courts are saying, not good enough you are going to pay the penalty."
Mr Robb said most employers in Hawke's Bay were good employers, with many taking "the liberal approach".
"I was listening to a guy the other day from Napier who identified people were having trouble getting to work because the car broke down or they couldn't get some tyres for a warrant of fitness.
"He is actually buying the cars the tyres for them so they can get to work and they are paying him back on a drip-feed basis.
"You can slam someone for not coming to work or find out why it's happening and how to fix.
"That is a very simple example. It's not patriarchal, it's just saying this problem is here and do we want to lose our staff, spending time in meetings arguing, that costs with the employee and a lawyer, or do we fix their problem?"
"It wouldn't be unique - that type of thing is all around the place. When employers are painted as the wicked witches of the west, there are some very good examples."
He said some employers chose to litigate instead of mitigate.
Wairoa Affco workers returned to work this week on order of the High Court, with workers having a claim for five months back-pay after an unlawful lockout of 160 workers.
The dispute started when the union and Affco failed to renegotiate a collective agreement that expired in 2013.
The company walked away from negotiations, citing amendments to the Employment Relations Act, and offered union members individual contracts, which were refused.
After the Employment Court ruled the lockout illegal in November, the union members were only offered night shifts, so the case went back to court.
The company said the latest ruling would be appealed to the Court of Appeal.
Mr Robb said a minority of companies took a hard line.
"They will litigate at huge costs rather than find practical solutions to the situation."
Mr Cowan said such an attitude was "win the battle and lose the war".
"Are your employees going to do a good job for you? Like hell.
"Are they going to have your best interests at heart when they go about the day-to-day job?
"I think a lot of employers do that.
"A lot of our clients are hugely compassionate and community minded and probably endure an awful lot from the staff, in terms of doing the best by the staff.
"If you don't have a stable employment relationship, sometimes all the other ones fall apart," Mr Robb said.
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