COVID-19 – Getting Your Employment Response Right

As we enter Level 4 lockdown again, the last thing your business needs is to be exposed to the risk of a personal grievance, so take a deep breath, refresh yourself on what you can/can’t do and think carefully before you act.

Our top tips for getting through this difficult time with your employees:

1. Keep informed (https://www.employment.govt.nz/leave-and-holidays/other-types-of-leave/coronavirus-workplace/ is a great resource)
2. Communicate with staff early, openly and often
3. Try to get agreement from staff about what is going to happen about their hours and pay during lockdown and beyond
4. If you can’t get agreement, get legal advice before taking any action that will negatively impact an employee

Remember: normal employment law rules still apply, so you need to do things the right way even if you have very valid reasons for what you’re doing.

We’re here to help:

• Government assistance: we can answer any questions you have about how the government can help your business and staff.
• Reducing staff hours or pay: we can help check if your employment agreements allow you to do this and, if not, help you navigate the process of doing so through agreement with staff or through a change management process.
• Varying employment agreements: we can draft simple, straight forward variations to record any agreements you reach with staff about how thing will be different during lockdown or beyond.
• Flexibility: we can help you respond to staff requesting flexibility in their hours or location of work.
• Redundancies: we can help you follow the change management process you need to go through first.
• Letting go causal staff (by not offering any more hours): we can help by making sure they are truly “casual” and not permanent part-time, mitigating against the risk of an unjustified dismissal claim.
• Cancelling contracts with independent contractors: we can help make sure they are actually contractors in the eyes of the law and not employees, again mitigating against the risk of an unjustified dismissal claim.

For help related to your employees or business, please contact Wakefields Lawyers on 04-970-3600 or email info@wakefieldslaw.com.