Waikato Business News August/September 2018

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30 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS August/September 2018 HR MANAGEMENT AND RECRUITMENT HR - Recruitment - Selection interviewing One of the key aspects to any successful recruitment process is the actual interview, that time spent face to face with the candidate. A.I. Technology cannot, with its present capabilities, replicate what the recruiter can do within the interview. At the shortlisting stage, Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) can find a special type of profile but will struggle to understand or influence the person behind that profile. This human aspect of recruiting is vital to understanding how a candidate will behave in a specific role. There are a number of tools a recruiter can use to support the profile they are building of the candidate including: psychometric profiling; skill-based testing; credit and criminal checks; reference checks; and of course the all-time favourite, checking the social media profile of the candidate. Although these tools are available, it is the interview that is the most critical aspect to the recruitment process. However, it is often treated as the end of the process rather than the most crucial element. “In their most introspective moments most Executives readily acknowledge that selecting the right people for the right jobs constitutes one of their most important responsibilities. Few decisions they will make have as direct an impact on every facet of the organisation, yet few other decisions are made in such an ‘illogical, slipshod manner’. Many argue that organisations are in fact, reflections of their top Managers.” (Swiercz & Ezzedeen, 2001) There are a range of opinions on whether interviewing is a valid form of assessment, however it does remain one of the main selection tools used by Employers. Its validity Linda-Maree Drake It is the interview that is the most critical aspect to the recruitment process, but is often treated as the end of the process. comes down to the competence of the interviewer’s skills and abilities to conduct an interview that extracts the information required. The interviewer needs to have an arsenal of skills that cover different questioning techniques, the ability to interpret behaviour and validate their assessment and its accuracy. One of the most important skills is the ability to detect deception through validation of the information provided by a candidate. To improve your selection interviewing techniques, updating your skills in the following areas would be an advantage: • taking detailed notes during the interview; • establishing how the candidate typically behaves; • using unbiased sampling of attitudes and values; • undertaking an in-depth exploration of skills, abilities, education and experience; • following-up questions in response to information provided by the candidate; • understanding the behaviours demonstrated through the answers provided. Equipped with this knowledge, it is then possible to make an assessment of the extent to which a candidate would be a fit for the role they have applied for. Linda-Maree Drake is a Director of Fegan & Co, a specialist recruitment company with a reputation of successfully appointing key people into organisations. “You appoint the people you like, we appoint the people you need” Call us today to discuss your recruitment requirements on (07) 823 0105. Fegan & Co (2017) Limited | Phone: 07 823 0105 | www.fegan.co.nz J1742P HR MANAGEMENT AND RECRUITMENT Finding the right person for the role... BOOK YOUR SPOT IN OUR NOVEMBER ISSUE For more information contact the team today at info@nmmedia.co.nz or phone 07 838 1333
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS August/September 2018 31 Employees working extra hours: What is reasonable? It is a legal requirement for individual employment agreements (‘IEAs) to contain a clause setting out the hours an employee will usually work and the days of the week these hours will be performed (with the exception of casual employees). From April 1, 2016, the Employment Relations Act 2000 (‘Act’) was amended by the insertion of a new section designed to combat certain employment practices that greatly benefitted an employer while disadvantaging an employee. Generally known as ‘zero-hour contracts’, employers (particularly, but not limited to, those in the fast-food industry) were expecting employees to be available to work whenever the employer required them, without offering any guaranteed hours in return. Section 67D of the Act set out the law regarding what is now known as an ‘availability provision’ and the conditions that would need to be met if an employer wants an employee to be available outside of their usual hours. While too lengthy to replicate in this article, in a nutshell, an employer can only require an employee to be available outside of their usual work hours if the IEA contains some guaranteed hours of work, there is good reason for the employer requiring the employee to be available and ‘reasonable compensation’ is offered to the employee for making themselves available. There is no definition of the term reasonable compensation, although s 67(d)(6) does set out some factors to consider such as number of hours in addition to agreed hours, the nature of any restrictions the availability places on the employee and the hourly wage/salary. Interestingly, in the first test case decided under the new law in 2017, Fraser v McDonald Restaurants (New Zealand) Limited, the Parental leave increases Delivering better outcomes for families has long been one of the Government's top priorities, and it is great news for expectant parents and carers that Labour has implemented part one of their three-part paid parental leave increase, affirming their first 100 days in office pre-election commitment. The first increase from 18 to 22 weeks occurred on July 1, 2018, with a further extension to 26 weeks expected from July 1, 2020. Parental leave is a scheme where eligible parents, or other primary carers, who stop working to care for their newborn baby or a child (under 6) are compensated for the otherwise unpaid time they would have to take off work. In New Zealand paid parental leave is available to everyone, provided you meet the criteria, and you do not need to be a citizen or permanent resident. To qualify for paid parental leave, you need to be employed under New Zealand employment law and have worked for an average of 10 hours a week for any 26 of the 52 weeks before the due date of the newborn, or the date you become the primary carer of a child under 6 years of age. There is also the ability to transfer your paid parental leave to your spouse, partner or another carer, provided they also qualify for paid parental leave. The hours worked to meet the parental leave payment test do not have to be with one employer. If you have changed jobs multiple times throughout the year, as long as you have worked the minimum hours required then this is not an issue. These hours can be either worked as an employee or self-employed, or a combination of the two. In terms of applying for paid parental leave, the process has remained the same. There are two steps. One, you are required to notify your employer a minimum of three months in advance for a newborn and 14 days for primary carer, and two, you are required to complete an IR880 form which is sent to the IRD. As part of the IR880 form, you are required to send confirmation of income and work details. For employees this can be done by an employer’s declaration, if you have had the same employer for the last 52 weeks and they are able to verify you have worked an average of 10 hours a week for any 26 weeks in the last 52 weeks. If you have had multiple jobs and employers in the last year, you will need the statutory declaration to be verified by an authorised person, such as a Justice of the Peace. If you’re self-employed, you must get the IR880 form signed by your chartered accountant or tax advisor if you have one; otherwise you will need to complete a statutory declaration. If the expectant mother wants to transfer her leave to her spouse or partner, she must first fill out the IR880, and then transfer her entitlement to her spouse by completing an IR881 form. The individual must fill in the form either before the parental leave starts or at any time while on leave, but before they return to work. The first increase from 18 to 22 weeks occurred on July 1, 2018, with a further extension to 26 weeks expected from July 1, 2020. The policy covers babies with a due date on or after the change date, and also applies for date of adoption or date you become primary carer. The rate of payment has also increased by 4.7 percent in line with the increase in the nation’s average weekly earnings from $538.55 to $564.38 before tax. If you do not qualify for paid parental leave, there are still other types of leave available to EMPLOYMENT LAW > BY ERIN BURKE Employment lawyer and director at Practica Legal Email: erin@practicalegal.co.nz phone: 027 459 3375 Employment Court held that it could not set an amount as reasonable compensation, as that would effectively be determining the terms and conditions of an employee’s employment, which is outside the Court’s jurisdiction. Presumably, if an IEA does contain a specified compensation amount, the Court would have the jurisdiction to decide whether the amount is reasonable or not, should the matter be litigated. The facts in Fraser involved two McDonald’s employees who had guaranteed hours and were also asked to indicate their potential availability for hours over and above the amount in their IEAs. The roster for each week would include their guaranteed hours and additional hours within the periods they had indicated they could be available, which they were free to decline if they gave 24 hours’ notice from the roster being published. The Court first had to determine whether the clause in the IEA did in fact amount to an availability provision and if so, did McDonalds breach s 67D by not paying reasonable compensation. The Court held that the clause did not amount to an availability provision, as the employees could be requested to work the additional hours, but were not required to work, if they did not want to. Employers will need to check their current IEAs to ensure they are not requiring employees to make themselves available outside their usual hours, without providing reasonable compensation. Far more common, and potentially more complex, is the situation where an employee is on a salary and the hours of work clause in their IEA states the hours and days the employee would usually be required to work, but also includes the term that “… the employee may be required to work additional hours, from time-to-time, to meet the needs of the business”. Ordinarily, this is not a problem if an employee is required to work additional hours on occasion or take the odd after-hours phone call. Indeed, ss 67(D)(6) and (7) of the Act allows the employer and employee to agree that an employee’s salary can include payment for this availability, although it does note that the amount of the salary and the number of additional hours required will be a factor to consider. However, I have had two recent cases, where there is an employee who is basically the only trouble shooter (in one case, a 24/7 business and the other a 13/7 business) and they have been expected to be available if required, throughout the entire operating hours of the business. In both cases, the detrimental effects this availability requirement has had on TAXATION AND THE LAW their wellbeing and freedom is significant, and with salaries well below the $100 thousand mark, it is arguable that additional compensation would need to be paid. Employers also have an obligation to ensure the health and safety of their employees, and potentially, this unrelenting requirement to be available, will put employee health at risk. The major problems employees in this situation face are the restrictions the employee is continuously subjected to where they can never switch their phone off after hours, go to an area where there is no cell phone coverage, commit to social/ recreational functions at any distance from the business or even drink an amount that might put them over the driving limit. As more Court cases arise testing the availability provisions, we will increasingly understand what is reasonable in terms of an employee being available, and what will be considered reasonable compensation an employee can expect to receive. In the age of mobile devices, ‘switching off’ and relaxing after hours is becoming increasingly difficult for employees. Employers should start to consider now, what is reasonable in terms of expectations and remuneration, or risk being the next test case that seeks to address this. > BY TRACEY CLARK Tracey Clark is a PwC director based in the Waikato office. Email: tracey.e.clark@nz.pwc.com parents including primary carer, special, partners, extended and negotiated carer leave, which all have their own criteria and benefits that they provide. The comments in this article are of a general nature and should not be relied on for specific cases. Taxpayers should seek specific advice.
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Waikato Business News August/September 2018

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