Did you know there’s a psychological reason why humans make New Year’s resolutions? The idea of setting lofty goals full of positivity and enthusiasm stems from a universal human need to control the unknown and to guide us through another year.

While you might not be able to control the unknown (yes, 2020 was a great example of that), you can mitigate some foreseeable risks in your business. And, if there’s one area you should turn your attention to first, we think it’s workplace compliance – when your HR department is in order, you’ll have peace of mind, allowing you to focus on other company goals. Here, we point out four ways you can check the health of your HR department. Oh, and did we mention there’s a free HR audit tool at the end?

Let’s begin!

1. Employment records and agreements

Keeping accurate records for all your employees is one of New Zealand’s minimum employment requirements – in other words, it’s not an option. The Employment Relations Act 2000 and the Holidays Act 2003 require employers to record details about every employee’s terms and conditions of work, including wages and salary, leave, and entitlements.

Failing to have accurate records and a written employment contract for every employee is one of the most common mistakes our HR Assured team see when conducting an HR audit of a small business. An HR software like HRA Cloud will give you a good head start for your New Year record audit by allowing you to conduct, record, audit, and spot any gaps electronically.

2. Review your employment contracts for fixed-term and casual workers

The year’s start is prime time to review the employment contracts for any fixed-term or casual workers you employ. If your business ramped up staffing to meet the demands of a busy holiday season, you’d want to review this area of your HR closely. Let’s take a quick look at what makes the contract requirements unique for these non-permanent workers.

  • Fixed-term employees

You may hire fixed-term employees for seasonal or project work, or to fill a role temporarily. Like other employees, your fixed-term workers need to have a written agreement, but unlike other employment agreements, this one needs to explicitly state why they’re on a fixed-term arrangement and when this arrangement will end. If you want to extend a fixed-term worker’s employment, you’ll need to create a new agreement with the new dates and reason for the temporary position. Here is a word of warning: beware of the risk of repeated contract extensions that can turn a fixed-term worker into a permanent employee, making your employment agreement non-compliant.

  • Casual employees

Similarly, casual workers need their own written agreements – with a few twists. “Casual” is understood in employment terms to be a worker with no guaranteed hours or ongoing work, and the employment agreement must reflect this. A big red flag to look out for is if your casual employees have begun to regularly come to work on the same days each week without you having to ask them. If this is occurring, your employee might not be so casual anymore, and your casual employment agreement may be breaching the law.

The engagement of different employment types, from casual to fixed term can be a tricky and often misunderstood areas of law. It’s always a good idea to check in with an employment relations expert if you’re unsure about which employment rights and requirements apply.

3. Payroll reconciliation

Payroll reconciliation in January is critical if you want to avoid any messy reconciliation requirements later down the track. Specifically, you’ll be wanting to identify if any of your staff who were on annual leave had swapped their annual leave days for sick leave. Pay rates for sick leave can be different to pay rates for annual leave, so this is a vital thing to check. Remember, your employees are entitled to use sick leave days in place of annual leave days if they were unwell and unable to take their holiday.

4. Enforcing workplace policies

Having a perfect library of up-to-date workplace policies is one thing; enforcing them is another. Well-drafted workplace policies ensure that your employees are aware of the behavioural standards that apply in your workplace, as well as of your more general expectations of their behaviour when they’re representing your business in public. But policies, no matter how current and well-written, are meaningless if you don’t enforce them too. Often, we see employers who are great at sending out the policies, but not-so-great when recording every employee’s agreement with those policies. And that’s the important part!

An easy way to be sure every employee has read and accepted your essential workplace policies is sending them out at the start of the year. Most Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) will let you send these documents to an employee self-service portal where you can electronically record and review who has and who hasn’t acknowledged a policy. It doesn’t get more timesaving than that.

Free tool to audit your business

The above tips cover four ways to get on top of some quintessential HR requirements (before they get on top of you). If you’d like to take your 2021 HR health check a step further, download our free HR Compliance Health Check below. This tool will help you ensure your business is compliant with basic employment standards with a simple checklist.

The advice and tools in this blog will get you off to a flying start with your HR in 2021, but it doesn’t cover all potential risks and threats to your business. To learn if your business is 100% compliant, and what to do if there are any red flags, it’s a good idea to undertake a complete, in-depth, HR audit.

Get in touch with our HR Assured team to learn more about how we can help you to protect your business.