<\/p>\n
\nThere is currently a seven-week waiting list to access the Ministry of Innovation, Business and Employment’s mediation service.
\nPhoto: 123RF\n<\/p>\n
An employment lawyer is advising businesses to bypass the government’s free employment mediation service.<\/p>\n
There was currently a seven-week waiting list to access the Ministry of Innovation, Business and Employment’s mediation service, which was supposed to be a way to avoid drawn-out disputes between employers and their employees.<\/p>\n
“Don’t wait,” Rotorua employment lawyer Michelle Urquhart said, adding the cost of accessing private services was well worth it given the risks associated with leaving a dispute to fester.<\/p>\n
MBIE advised availability was limited due to high demand and apologised for the inconvenience, though wait time was an improvement from the peak 11-week wait in February.<\/p>\n
“There has been a sustained demand for employment mediation services, with a 12 percent increase in mediations delivered in 2024\/25 compared to the previous year,” MBIE director Pele Walker said, adding full-day mediations rose by 25 percent over the past three years, which reduced overall mediator availability.<\/p>\n
“Mediators report that the complexity of issues being brought to mediation has increased, contributing to longer sessions and more time needed to reach resolution.”<\/p>\n
Urquhart said it was more than an inconvenience for businesses, as the longer it took to resolve an issue the more complicated and costly it became.<\/p>\n
“Having to wait more than two months for mediation – which is meant to be an early intervention service – is far from ideal in the current economic environment,” Urquhart said.<\/p>\n
She said the delay means an increasing number of businesses were turning to independent specialists – or not dealing with the issue at all.<\/p>\n
“The second option is a lose-lose for both parties,” she said, given current labour market conditions.<\/p>\n
“No one wants to be looking for a new job. For an employer, it can cost up to 1.5 times a person’s salary to replace them, including recruitment, onboarding and lost productivity.”<\/p>\n
She said the parties involved in a dispute should seek help quickly, even if they have to pay to use private services.<\/p>\n
“A dispute will initially impact the people directly involved, but it doesn’t take long for it to start impacting wider teams, productivity, morale and ultimately, the bottom line.<\/p>\n
“Getting on top of the concern early, having calm conversations, and developing a resolution plan that works for everyone is critical to moving forward before too much damage is done.”<\/p>\n
Urquhart said businesses could find a private employment mediator online through the Arbitrators and Mediators Institute or the Resolution Institute.<\/p>\n
MBIE also offered an early resolution service with most cases resolved within 15 working days, though urgent cases, such as those involving strikes or collective bargaining, continued to be prioritised.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There is currently a seven-week waiting list to access the Ministry of Innovation, Business and Employment’s mediation service.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59004,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[943,28,3011,134,3,2294,3010,3008,3009],"class_list":["post-59003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jobs","tag-audio","tag-business","tag-current-affairs","tag-jobs","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}