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Under-Management is just as problematic as Micro-Management

Through the recruitment process, no-one answers the question ‘how do you liked to be managed?’ with the answer “I really enjoy it when someone micro-manages me.”  Likewise, ask someone being interviewed for a management role about their management style, and the chances are that the first words out of their mouth are “well, I’m not a micro-manager.” So we know people don’t like to be micro-managed, and they don’t like to be seen as a micro-manager…but what about the...

Does Success = Happiness?

Ever wondered why you search for happiness but don’t necessarily find it?  We found this article by Yale psychologist Laurie Santos interesting and thought you might too.  Make sure you keep reading to the questions around 'what everybody thinks makes them happy but doesn’t’ and ‘what makes us happy but we neglect it.’ Interesting and thought provoking…time to pay some attention to happiness as the days lengthen and the sun starts shining on us even more&hell...

Plan Ahead - it's not too late!

Recently our GM sat in on a DairyNZ webinar with updates around what happens if there is a positive Covid-19 case on farm. There have been many questions floating around – who can run the farm?, will the milk be collected? . . .  there is now some clarity around this. If a farmer displays Covid type symptoms they should get tested, do the right things, follow the rules, it’s an Health and Safety issue and you could put yourself and your business at more risk. ...

Are Your Staff Truly Casual Employees?

We’ve been reminded recently how important it is to employ people on the correct contract.  Here’s a story to learn from: A dairy farm had employed the wife of a Farm Manager on a casual contract as a calf rearer. She stayed on that casual contract for over 18 months and carried out a wide range of farm duties in addition to calf rearing, including milking’s, farm maintenance and moving stock. During that time she worked nearly every week, and normally work 4-5 days of a week, althoug...

Do You Employ Migrants?

From 19 July, changes have been made to Essential Skills visas to streamline application processing and increase visa duration. This includes: Increasing the maximum duration of an Essential Skills visa for jobs paid below the median wage from 12 to 24 months Removing the requirement to provide medical and police certificates if these have already been provided to Immigration New Zealand, even if they were provided more than 36 months ago If the applicant is remaining in their current full time ...

2021 Law Change Round-up

The Government has introduced several new changes to the legislation for this year. Are you up to speed with these changes – check out the summary of below to see what applies to your business. Sick leave changes – 24 July 2021Minimum wage increase – 1 April 2021Tenancy law changes – 11 February 2021Healthy homes standards – 1 July 2021Vaping law changes – 11 August 2021Changes to the consumer credit laws – 1 October 2021Investment property changes – 27 March 2021 For specialist ...

Ten Steps to Happiness

Everyone deserves happiness in their lives so it should be a top priority. As Robert Louis Stevenson once quoted ‘There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.’ Those that are happy have a positive effect on others whereas when you are unhappy you can also influence - but in a negative way!  Think of it as a ripple effect, like when a rock is dropped into the water causing ripples – our words, actions and feelings will affect those around us, who in turn affect tho...

Are You Ready for Sick Leave Changes?

From 24 July 2021 employee sick leave entitlement will increase from five days to 10 days. The three questions we have been getting asked are: does this change for all my team members on 24 July? Do I need to do anything? And is the ‘cap’ of 20 days changing? Let’s tackle the first one first…the short answer is no, not all team members’ entitlements change on 24 July – this happens when they reach their next entitlement date after the 24th of July – either after reaching six m...

Four Essential Qualities of Great Teams

Given the labour market challenges we talked about in the last article, the spotlight (quite rightly!), goes onto retention.  How do we make sure we keep the teams we’ve got? And how do we make those teams great?  Now that we’re into the new season a lot of you will either have new team members to orientate on farm or even if you don’t you’ll still find it interesting to measure your current team against these essential qualities. Research about teamwork shows there are no grea...

Getting creative around employment…

With almost full employment in NZ, and the borders still effectively closed, we are talking to businesses every day that are dealing with the reality of a labour shortage.  While we’re seeing this across many industries, it’s particularly true in the primary sector.   Our GM Toni has recently been involved in an MPI ‘task force’ looking at ways to attracting more Kiwis into the primary industries.  The reality is, even with very bright minds from around the country wo...

Who Are the Most Employable?

Around the team table this week we’ve been mulling on a range of ‘employable skills’ conversations that we’ve had over recent months, including… One job seeker who has decided to make a significant career shift, chase her ‘dream job’ if you like – she wanted to know the key skills she should work on in order to best position herself to chase the dreamConversations over the past year with candidates who have been displaced due to Covid-19; and Even more conversations wit...

Are You Ready for 1 June?

Start your new team members well from the start, and reap the rewards!  There are so many reasons to have a clear, structured orientation programme in place before anyone new joins your team.At a ‘compliance’ level, it’s critical that you get your orientation right when a new team members start; your business is at risk if you don’t have accurate and up to date employment documentation in place for all team members.  But a successful orientation with new team members ...

In the Media for the Wrong Reasons

The Cost of Poor Consultation When making changes to a team member’s terms and conditions of employment you need to have a substantive (good and legal) reason and you must follow a fair process.  This article from Stuff demonstrates the cost of getting it wrong. The former cafe worker says she was told to “take it or leave it” when her hours were almost halved. https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/124945069/cafe-owner-ordered-to-pay-former-employee-33k-after-slashing-work-hours?cid=app-iP...

Too Many Needles

Last week was one where ‘overwhelmedness’ was a bit of a theme.  The first couple of days of the week were spent with a bunch of smart business leaders from the agri-sector, all taking the time to step outside of their respective businesses to look collectively at how we could solve some ‘in business’ challenges.  A number of challenges were raised, and the group think around solving some of these issues was fantastic, but on reflection, it occurs to me that most-if-n...

Privacy Act 2020

Privacy means different things to different people. A right to privacy can mean a right to be left alone, a right to control who sees information about you, or a right to make decisions about your personal life without government intervention. The most recent Privacy Act has brought change that affect businesses, and this mean that as an employer you must:  Not destroy personal information if someone asks for information held about themReport serious privacy breachesCheck personal informati...

Employment Law Breaches Cost Canterbury Employer an Additional $26k

Canterbury employer Christopher Gray, has been ordered by the Employment Relations Authority (ERA) to pay $26,000 in penalties for employment law breaches. This is in addition to $54,000 he was ordered to repay to 13 former employees last year. Having a business is hard, even harder to make it work. It is not uncommon to see an employer making poor decisions out of ignorance, gut feeling or based on past experience.  Check out the full article here, but if you’re in doubt about your legal...

Are your staff truly casual employees?

Our recent work alongside a client from the dairy industry reminded us that it is very important to employ workers on the correct contract. They had employed a wife of a Farm Manager on a casual contract as a calf rearer. She stayed on that casual contract for over 18 months and carried out a wide range of farm duties in addition to calf rearing, including milkings, farm maintenance and moving stock.  During that time she worked nearly every week, and normally work 4-5 days of a week. Her h...

Covid- 19 Vaccine in the Workplace

With the rollout of Covid-19 vaccinations well underway in NZ, employers need to be aware of the implications for their workforce. The vaccination programme offers light at the end of the tunnel, and business leaders have a critical role to play in encouraging uptake within their organisations. Current indications are that 70 per cent of the population will need to be vaccinated in order to achieve herd immunity. This article provides an overview of the recommendations on how to approach Co...

Minimum Wage Increases Alert!!!

The minimum wage is increasing form $18.90 pr hour to $20.00 per hour from 1 April this year So before that date please make sure you have; Checked whether you have any worked that are affected by thisMade the appropriate changes in your payroll system so that this is actioned on 1 April 2021Informed all your workers who are affected that they will be receiving an increase For more information check out this link from Employment NZ , and if you need to check out if you’re meeting your obl...

Possible Changes to Sick Leave and Holiday Act

The government is currently considering a number of changes to the holidays act. These include:Increasing sick leave from 5 days to 10 daysAllowing employees to take bereavement leave and domestic violence leave form their first day of employmentExtending bereavement leave to include more family membersRequiring all employees to receive payslips that included information on their leave entitlementsGiving new employees 1 days sick leave from their first day of employment and then accruing their s...

Life in Our Zero Carbon Future

Wherever you live and work, your life will be impacted by the Climate Change Commission's low-carbon blueprint.  You need to read this article if you’re a: TeenagerCar driverBlue-collar workerOffice workerFarmerFirst Home Buyer https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/climate-news/124161285/compact-cities-lowmethane-sheep-and-evs-life-in-our-zerocarbon-future?cid=app-iPhone...

Keeping Your Business Safe

The Employment Relations Authority has ordered a small Snell’s Beach Cafe business to pay its workers $136,800 for incorrectly dismissing their staff due to the Covid-19 lockdown, even though they had a clause in their employment contracts that said they could dismiss their staff if the business was “interrupted by unforeseen events beyond its control” including a heath pandemic! That’s a big payout for a small business, so it’s important to understand where they went wrong! ...

New Covid-19 Short Term Absence Payment

The government has just announced a one-off payment for businesses to pay their employees when that have to stay home while they wait for Covid-19 test results. The payment of $350.00 can be claimed when an employee: Needs to miss work to stay home while waiting for Covid-19 test results (in line with public health guidance)     AndCannot work from home The payment can be claimed once in any 30-day period, unless a health practitioner instructs an employee to get another test. It ...

Boost Your Productivity & Happiness

Have you noticed that the standard answer to the questions ‘how was your day?’ or ‘how are you?’ is no longer ‘fine/good’, rather, it’s invariably ‘busy’.  Some wear their busy-ness like a badge of honour, some thrive on being busy, many are constantly chasing their tales. Regardless, the simple truth is Life. Is. Busy. In our household we have two adults who work full time and two teenagers at school.  We’re all busy.  We never get it all d...

Management & Leadership – let’s keep talking about this…

In our first newsletter of the year we challenged you to think about whether 2021 would be the year when you decided whether you would be a manager or a leader – which really was an unfair question because we then went on to say that to be successful you actually need to be both. This is a theme we want to hold on to in 2021 because for many of our clients we see a lot of investment and effort put in to the development of leadership competencies, and we see business not paying enough attention...