Agreements (Employment)

·       Permanent

·       Fixed-term

·       Part-time

·       Casual

·       Contractors

·       Collective Agreements

Your Employment Agreement is the important foundation for the well-being of your relationship with your employees. Every employee needs an employment agreement. We believe it should protect both the employer and employee in providing accurate and fair information and is something both parties can trust and understand. We can make it a positive document by setting out the agreement with a personal introduction, images and wording in the style of your business and culture. We can:

·       Review and update your current agreements

·       Add or adapt clauses that are specific to your business

·       Ensure you are compliant

·       Provide templates for your most common employment agreements (Permanent full-time, Permanent part-time, Casual, Fixed-term and Contractor)

·       Provide training on understanding the clauses and constructing the Agreement

Disciplinary Management

Disciplinary Management can be very complex under New Zealand rules and processes. This is where most employers and employees need guidance, support and access to solid HR experience.

You may be an employer needing to understand what options you have in managing an employee, process and outcome options. You may need to understand what is misconduct and serious misconduct and what responsibilities you have as a fair and reasonable employer. You may have received a Personal Grievance (PG) and need to understand your obligations, response and options. We can help you navigate through the process, and manage risk and costs. We can help you write communications, manage timelines, protect your culture, keep confidentiality and run the process for you. We can also support you in a mediation process to achieve the best result.

You may be an employee who is going through a disciplinary process and need HR support. We can help you with understanding the process, and communications, and advise what options you have. This could be a formal process such as raising a PG or mediating a solution that is confidential to both parties. We also understand the need for wellness support as these processes are sometimes very stressful and can impact family and work.

Employment Relations (ER)

Employment relations is a constantly changing environment and expert HR advice should be sought before making any decisions. We have extensive experience in many facets of ER including, PGs, Mediation, Employment Law, Employment Advice, Legal Representation Advice, NZ law, Employment Agreement Interpretation, Restructuring, Redundancies, Resignations, Abandonment, Settlement Agreements, Suspension, 

Engagement :-)

We understand the importance of engagement in the workplace and how your people decisions and communication can impact your culture, moral, productivity and attitudes.

There are a number of systems and processes that you are able to measure engagement with and benefit your people decisions. Please do contact us to discuss more

Health & Safety

Your business and all staff should be committed to providing and maintaining a safe and healthy workplace for all staff.  Everyone is encouraged to play a vital and responsible role in maintaining a safe and healthy workplace in your business. We have experience in managing and building a strong H&S culture. Your H&S culture is led by everyone and is not hierarchical but requires strong leadership and engagement. we are experienced in providing H&S leadership skills ranging from processes, documentation, policy, practices, training and soft skills of how to positively reinforce that H&S is a vital aspect of a successful business and culture.

We have access to H&S qualified consultants who support MasonHR. This may be used in specific business H&S regulations and practices, processes, documentation, investigations and audits.

Job Descriptions

A well-defined Job Description (JD) can set up a positive working relationship in your business. It will provide the role and the employee with a clear idea of what the job involves, and the types of skills, experience and attributes needed for the role. It can define the role and responsibilities, so the employer and employee have a document that is open, honest and promotes the very best for performance, retention, training and engagement and can adapt to the changing business needs. We recommend every employee has a JD attached to their employment contract. If you are hiring for a role then your JD is an important explanation of your role, business and culture.

We can support you in managing your JDs and have expensive experience in writing, measuring (Hay evaluation) and managing performance.

Leadership

Leadership can be defined as something that is a constant learning experience and where a culture of excellence, kindness, trust, performance and customer service is the norm. Leadership development and identification is a skill that we would be honoured to be involved in with your business.

Payroll

When you need support with your payroll and to ensure compliance with the rules in NZ please contact us.

You may be an employer needing to understand if your payroll complies with the NZ rules and regulations, for example, the correct payment of leave entitlements has been a complex problem for many employers You may need to understand how to manage a final pay or how to pay a bonus etc, how public holidays work and if you have a roster. How to pay sick leave, benefits, ACC, jury service, annual leave accruals, part-time headcount and the rules around KiwiSaver. We have experience in different payroll systems and the process with your Finance department.

You may be an employee and need to understand how to read your payslip, your benefits, your leave entitlements, KiwiSaver, and how they really got to that final pay number.

Performance Management

Sometimes even the best of us need Performance Management. This could be lifting your star performers even higher or managing those performers who need to move out of the poor level of performance. Starting with a good Performance Management Policy and Employment Agreement we can support both sides of the table.

You may be an employer needing to understand the importance of process, performance measurement, timelines, what formally you need to do and writing a PIP (Performance Improvement plan). This may mean assessing, and measuring roles, and responsibilities and developing achievable targets and outcomes you may want to consider or prefer.

Or you may be an employee needing support and guidance through the process, review documentation and what options you may have and what outcomes you may prefer.

We provide policies, training, process, timelines, advice, support and coaching.

Policies

Policies are an essential foundation for your business, and culture as they ensure a common understanding of the required conduct and responsibilities for the employer and employee. In times of confusion or friction, a clear policy is very important to provide clarification and enable a positive solution. We usually prefer to wrap all the HR policies in Company Policy Handbook, which provides all the policies and procedures, it is simple, easy to access and can be updated and communicated easily. We also make it a positive-looking document with images and wording in the style of your business and culture.

We can adapt or create a policy to suit your needs. Some of our Policies are:

• Alcohol and Drugs

• Bullying and Harassment 

• Code of Conduct

• Communications

• Confidentiality

• Disciplinary 

• Diversity

• Recruitment

• Health & Safety

• Injury Leave (ACC)

• Just Culture

• KiwiSaver

• Leave - Annual, Public Holidays, Bereavement, Domestic Violence Leave, Study, Jury Service, Leave Without Pay

• Parental Leave 

• Performance Management (PIP)

• Privacy

• IT and Internet

• Sick Leave 

• Social Media

• Vehicle 

• Working from Home (WFH) 

Privacy

Privacy is something that every business should have a strong policy, education and practices on. Privacy can affect your employees, customers, contractors and business as a whole. This ranges from how and why we collect private information, store it, use it and respect reasonable limits. We can help you with compliance, management, policies and practices.

Recruitment

We believe in “Hire for Attitude, train for Skills”. Making a good people recruitment decision has many different factors and decisions to get to the end of the process and the best hire. We have extensive experience in the end-to-end recruitment process, policies, practices and onboarding. We have experience in hiring overseers in Australia, the USA, and the UK. We can work with you on how to manage your Recruitment agencies, costs and documentation. We also have experience in training your Hiring Managers in the best practices of recruitment, interviewing, documentation, timing, onboarding and promoting your employment brand and culture.

Remuneration ($$)

Remuneration (REM) is something we want you to get right in your business. We know how important people and money is in these changing times and the importance of employees feeling valued in relation to their remuneration.

With the right communication, process and planning it should be a positive tool you can use to build trust, engagement and motivation. We can help you design a yearly review process, and how to manage the correct salary for the role. How to define what is a fair increase, compared to the market, how it is measured and what others are doing out there. Compare role salary and responsibilities within and externally across similar industries. How to have salary bands for roles and also design the process for increasing salary. We can also help with other forms of Remuneration, like One-time payments, bonuses, and one-off Salay adjustments.

You may be an employee wanting to know when you are due a salary review or increase, better understand a bonus and what else is available. We can help you manage what is a fair increase.

Restructuring

Restructuring is an effective tool to help manage your business in times of growth or change, but it must be done with careful consideration, planning and following process. Starting with the terms in your Employment agreement we can support you in understanding, designing and timelining the process.

If you are an employer we suggest sitting down with you and constructing a plan with timelines, documentation and strategy that supports your objectives and abides by the necessary processes needed.

If you are an employee we suggest we sit with you and review the process, documentation and what options you may have and what outcomes you may prefer.

Strategy

Having worked with and in Senior Leadership teams, CEOs, and Board of directors we understand the importance of a business strategy and how that needs to be constructed, communicated and delivered within a business. We understand the importance of moving people parts and how they need to be linked to the business at all levels of decisions and leadership and employment and then measured for success.

We understand change is a constant in a business and have some simple and proven change practices that can help you with the strategy of managing successful change in your business. This may be regarding, restructures, new processes, new tools (soft and hard), new rules, or changes in leadership, people and environment.

Unions

We have had extensive exposure to Unions and how they work with your business. We understand collective agreements and how they fit correctly into your business. We believe in having a positive and proactive stance in working and communicating with unions, which benefits both parties. We can provide, support, advice and management with your union, employee (members & non-members), employer relationship and Collective Agreement.

Wellness

How is your Wellness Culture? Wellness is now one of the most important People factors in someone wanting to work for you or building trust in the workplace for your employees to be motivated and engaged. WIIFM - “what’s in it for me” is now one of the wellness measurements businesses need to understand for our employees.

• Benefits - You may want to have a range of benefits to enhance your wellness proposition for your employees. We can help you with the options available.

• Diversity - Diversity in the workplace can take many forms, from gender, age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, internal, external, pay and many others and should be seen as an asset to your business (we understand and promote Dyslexia). We will work with you on the policy of acceptance and inclusion of all employees in the workplace.

• EAP - Employee Assistance Programme (EAP). We have extensive experience in helping you manage an EAP scheme and the best way for your employees to get the best support from EAP. This can range from physical, mental, financial and personal issues.

• Environment - You may want to introduce more environmentally friendly processes into your business, such as WFH, recycling, carbon footprint, and travel and we need to be culturally prepared for constant changes. Covid, flooding and global warming are live issues that can have an effect on your business and what good HR can help you prepare and manage for.

• Leave - What types of leave are available to support your employees to ensure the best wellness? This can range from annual, leave without pay, sick leave paid and non-paid, changing working hours, bereavement, Domestic Violence Leave. We would work with you and your employees to get the best fit.

• Sick leave - We have extensive experience in successfully managing sick leave both general and complex. We can advise on how to manage employees who need long-term absence support this may be through serious illness, accident (ACC work and non-work) or general sick leave. It may be physical and mental related. We can help you with recidivist absence behaviour and the best way to manage it. We would suggest each employee is managed separately and a personal rehabilitation plan is constructed in conjunction with their manager, health professionals and whanau. We also can help with the documentation, timing and NZ rules that need to be abided to.