The topic of employee wellbeing has grown louder over the last few years. Now, it’s about to be even louder. While not officially law, the Holidays Amendment Bill has now passed its third reading and is currently awaiting Royal Assent, which means it’s safe to say that it’s on its way.

Last week, I had a fascinating experience that took me right back to the early days of my employment relations bargaining career, which commenced just over 42 years ago.

Retaining staff, inspiring teams to produce their best work, and having a collaborative environment all begin with a positive work culture. In any business setting, things go wrong, conflicts arise, and communications falls flat. These directly impact employee job satisfaction and will also lead to low levels of productivity.

Without much time to prepare or plan, the pandemic demanded that we change how we operate on a day-to-day basis. In the beginning, change may have felt clunky and awkward as we all tried to figure out how to do everything differently.

The Holidays Act 2003 will shortly undergo some of the biggest changes since it came into force on 1 April 2004. The Government established a Holidays Act Taskforce to review the Act and suggest improvements to address what was seen as a complicated and ambiguous Act. There were concerns that there was widespread non-compliance particularly around the payment of leave, primarily because of issues with the way the legislation was interpreted by payroll systems. This was particularly problematic for employees who did not work a 5 day / 40 hours a week pattern.

A recent decision by the Court of Appeal has potentially changed the way employers calculate and pay annual holidays, after the meaning of the word “regular” was defined in the context of the Holidays Act 2003 (the Act). Specifically, the Court considered whether productivity or incentive-based payments should be excluded from the ordinary weekly pay calculation contained in s 8(2) of the Act.

A recent decision by the Court of Appeal has potentially changed the way employers calculate and pay annual holidays, after the meaning of the word “regular” was defined in the context of the Holidays Act 2003 (the Act). Specifically, the Court considered whether productivity or incentive-based payments should be excluded from the ordinary weekly pay calculation contained in s 8(2) of the Act.

Remember that this year Boxing Day, 26 December 2020 and 2 January 2021 are public holidays that fall on a Saturday. These public holidays are Mondayised, which means they are moved to the following Monday.

There are really three options about the naming of parties in employment litigation, vis that there is a total prohibition on naming parties, that there is a default setting where parties are generally not named but an application can be made by a party for names to be published, and finally the publication of names more or less automatically except where a party can persuade the court or tribunal that withholding names is appropriate.

The resurgence of COVID-19 in New Zealand’s community has raised some new (and old) questions for businesses as they try to navigate levels 3 and 2 again. We’ve put together some answers for some of the issues businesses most frequently tell us they’re grappling with: