Understanding employment legal requirements
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3 min read
When you hire someone you take on responsibility for managing an employment relationship. Getting the basics right around employment and health and safety is critical for your business and makes for a positive and well understood work environment. Ensuring you have good workplace and employment processes means you are more likely to have a positive and productive relationship with your team. It also reduces your business risk.
Specialist help is recommended to manage legal requirements but it helps to understand the basics.
What are the basics?
The basics around employing people fall into two broad categories – employment obligations and keeping people safe and well whilst working in your business. For dairy farming there is often a third obligation to employees and that is the provision of healthy housing when your employees live on farm or in accommodation which you own.
Meeting consumer expectations
In addition to legislative obligations, we are seeing increasing consumer expectations that our products are produced using ethical and sustainable labour. Large dairy customers such as Nestlé and Danone require that dairy supply chains are compliant with this expectation and, in the future, we expect to see a greater emphasis on proving this.
Currently, the best way for dairy companies and dairy farmers to meet consumer expectations is to follow all New Zealand employment laws and maintain the necessary paperwork. Businesses should also consider that in the future consumers may seek a greater interest in the number of hours worked by people in the supply chain.
Most employers are doing the right thing in the dairy sector but there is still room for improvement in some areas. It’s important dairy farmers hold themselves and others accountable for doing the right thing to ensure the sector remains attractive career option for people.
Health and Safety
Our research shows over 10% of farm employees don’t feel comfortable refusing to carry out a job if they feel unsafe, and 15% felt vulnerable to bullying or harassment at work in 2023. As an employer it is important to create a workplace where your team feel safe and are comfortable raising health and safety concerns with you. A team that feels physically and emotionally safe will perform better, and reduce risks. This will help you retain your team and attract new members. Have a look at our health and safety section to understand your legal obligations and learn more about creating a safety culture on farm.
Hours of work
Under the Wages Protection Act 1983, employers must keep time, wage, and leave records for their employees. This helps employers meet their obligations related to pay, including meeting minimum wage requirements, and leave entitlements. There are also special requirements for employers who have team members on work visas. Our research shows over 12% of employees don’t regularly complete records of hours they’ve worked. Refer to the following sections to ensure you are meeting your legal obligations and discover options you can consider to manage hours worked.
Accommodation
On some dairy farms accommodation is provided as part of the total remuneration package. If you provide accommodation the rules of the Residential Tenancies Act apply, and accommodation must meet the Healthy Homes standards. For more details visit our accommodation section.
Employment agreements
It is a legal requirement that all employees have a written individual employment agreement. Our research shows that most dairy farm employees have this, however 7% reported not having an employment agreement. Visit the employment agreements page to learn where to get these agreements from and what should be included.
Getting started
To get started we recommend giving our Employment, Legal and Admin section a read, take the Workplace 360 assessment to see how you are tracking and identify any improvements you can make. There are also the below organisations who can provide support in this area.
Accommodation
Employment Agreements
- Employment NZ
- Federated Farmers
- Federated Farmers - employment and other guides
- Federated Farmers - farming salaries
Health and Safety