Helping to avoid minefields

Local Employers & Manufacturers Association's Clive Thomson, Amanda Wallis, Kelly Kautai and Tarrin Terry have seen demand increase. Photo / Stephen Parker

From personal grievances, independent investigations looking into claims of bullying and harassment and helping employers with staff performance issues, Clive Thomson never knows what the day will bring.

It's unpredictability that makes his role with the Employers & Manufacturers Association exciting and has seen him notch up more than a decade in the role.

Since he moved from a job in human resources with Fletcher Challenge Forests to EMA 11 years ago, the amount of work being done by the organisation has grown year after year.

Among the biggest growing areas is bullying and harassment.

"That's where we are getting significantly more awareness and claims in recent years."

The group of consultants based in Rotorua now cover a big chunk of the central North Island and Bay of Plenty, with offices in Tauranga, New Plymouth and Napier.

"Basically, we help employers with their people issues and help them avoid the minefields in employment law."

Mr Thomson said they dealt with all sorts of human resource issues on any given day from the likes of dismissals, business closures, restructuring and collective bargaining.

"It's the difficult people issues that keep a lot of business owners awake at night."

Mr Thomson said clients were businesses of all sizes and, in the past 12 months, they'd helped more than 300 businesses. "There's a whole mix from small owner-operator businesses to the larger corporates."

Some firms chose to use EMA because they didn't have specialised HR divisions while others turned to the organisation for a second opinion.

"We understand employment law and the court decisions, but we also understand business and what is important for owners and managers. We are dealing with it day in and day out."

EMA is New Zealand's oldest and largest business association, and receives more than 40,000 calls a year on its advice line.

"We provide the on-the-ground support to business owners when dealing with the tough issues."

Fellow consultant Amanda Wallis said the broad range of issues made it interesting. "It's from implementing current employment agreements and policies, providing one-on-one management coaching, dealing with serious misconduct cases and, in some situations, picking up the pieces afterwards. We like to help businesses resolve matters without having to go to court."

She said there was an increasing trend of businesses going to them for advice before a problem arose or straightaway which could then be fixed quickly. "You feel like you can add value and when clients let us know this, it makes what we do even more rewarding."

-EMA is writing a monthly column for Business Extra looking at issues it deals with. Turn to page 15 for the first one.