HR software firm MyHR has found there\u2019s an uptick in its clients hiring casual employees rather than permanent staff heading into the winter season, with 31% of hires in April being brought in on casual contracts.<\/p>\n
MyHR Chief Evangelist Sylvie Thrush-Marsh said the biggest challenge with seasonal employment was suddenly having to deal with far more staff, including paying them correctly and on time, and making sure people are aware of hazards and safety obligations.<\/p>\n
She said failing to do things properly could prevent a business from building trust with staff or could \u201calmost invisibly erode\u201d trust that has been built up and could potentially lead to grievance claims or enforcement action.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you\u2019re trying to get people into the organisation really quickly and up to speed really quickly because they\u2019re only there for a short period of time, it\u2019s really important that your staff trust you and that you trust them.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith seasonal staff, you have a bunch of people you haven\u2019t had very much time to build up kind of a trusting relationship with so there\u2019s more room for things to be misread or misinterpreted. You have the potential for challenging situations to arise and to escalate quite quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The West Coast\u2019s Fox Glacier Guiding hires a seasonal workforce each year, sometimes hiring 16 to 20 people in a single intake.<\/p>\n
Chief executive Rob Jewell said it often hires through referrals of friends and family who have enjoyed working there in the past but has to ensure each new hire has appropriate documentation, onboarding and training.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe operate in a quite a regulated environment so all of that is super important to ensure we\u2019ve got good quality standards in place and everyone\u2019s brought on properly. We also operate our own staff housing, so that\u2019s included in amongst all of that.\u201d<\/p>\n
David Milne, the Labour Inspectorate compliance manager for the northern region who\u2019s been overseeing the adventure sports sector, said the law protects workers and allows businesses to compete on a level playing field.<\/p>\n
Employers hiring migrant workers must not demand to keep their passport, make them deviate from their visa conditions and get them to work while they did not have a valid visa, Milne said.<\/p>\n
No staff member could be asked to pay a premium for their job and no money could be deducted without their permission, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn some instances, employers provide accommodation for seasonal workers. Where this occurs any deductions for board and lodging must be agreed to by the employee and must be reasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Sergel is Newstalk ZB\u2019s business reporter, covering the daily life of business and the business of daily life. He\u2019s been covering business, politics, local government and consumer affairs for over a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HR software firm MyHR has found there\u2019s an uptick in its clients hiring casual employees rather than permanent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522839,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[192,665,682,2108,27126,138,10166,3595,258989,186,6309,3116,21534,4042,12472,5812,5829,58460,111,139,69,384,39175,258988,6633,1516,30606,223,8229,6035,61,8222,102,4478],"class_list":["post-522838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-are","tag-around","tag-being","tag-book","tag-break","tag-business","tag-businesses","tag-by","tag-complying","tag-currently","tag-do","tag-employers","tag-enjoying","tag-hiring","tag-laws","tag-make","tag-many","tag-midwinter","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-people","tag-seasonal","tag-skifields","tag-snow","tag-staff","tag-sure","tag-the","tag-they","tag-things","tag-to","tag-warned","tag-with","tag-workers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522838"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522838\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522839"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}