Covid-19 – Unlocking!

Posted 20 April 2020 by Mike Johnson covid-19, information, Health & Safety, immigration, funding;

Monday 20 April 2020

Jacinda did it!  Perhaps not surprisingly we are coming out of Lockdown on Monday night (27^th) – but please all be very careful how you do this.  It is all about safety.  Make use of the time to prepare carefully.

Apology – a correction to Friday’s update – legal requirements to move
Government-funded Consultancy
Health and Safety on Return to Level 3
Partial Return
Immigration Update

Correction

First, I must ask your forgiveness – in my haste on Friday I got one thing wrong.  I gave you four things you had to do to be operating legally and have your people legally in place.  In fact, the first and third of these are not legal requirements – registration with the Regional Business Partners Network is only a requirement if you want funding for consulting support in getting there.   Likewise contacting your industry association is not a legal requirement – but it may help you identify practices that would be considered legal.

Government Funded Consultancy

For those of you wanting to make use of the Consultant funding, my service is called:

HR Advice on Changing staff numbers, hours, pay or tasks under the Covid-19 Support Category

And if you want to make sure you get it, please tell me as soon as you have applied to the RBPN.  I can set my systems up and chase them if necessary.

Health and Safety on Return to Level 3

I do not provide H&S advice – it’s just too voluminous- but there are many around who can give you the help you need – try your own H&S advisor or have a look at the Employers’ Chamber website https://www.cecc.org.nz/

Partial Return

There will be many companies seeking to return to work partially, come the lifting of Level 3. Sometimes who will or will not be needed and for how long will be easily dictated by skill sets and availability.  But often there will be many different choices as to how to make your people resources fit your work needs.  You will almost certainly need to do the following, and we now have a week to finalise this:

1. Work out who you think you need and for how long and how you intend to pay
2. Make that as a suggestion to your staff – the more detail you give them the better
3. Allow comments and suggestions – sometimes the people you want won’t be available
4. Don’t make any unilateral decisions on changes to employee’s terms of employment
5. Keep communication channels with staff open.

Immigration Update

There have been some significant temporary visa relaxations for levels 3 and 4 – I do not presume to tell you what they are – but check this Lane Neave site:

https://www.laneneaveimmigration.co.nz/relaxation-of-visa-conditions-for-all-workers-delivering-essential-services/

 

Essential HR here to help – and working from home. For ongoing help, you can contact Mike on 027 2808546 or mike@essentialhr.co.nz or Beccy on beccy@essentialhr.co.nz or 027 2909070 – and if you phone our landline 03 6590377 you can leave a message that gets delivered to us automatically.  Please bear with us if you can’t get straight through – we are getting many calls!  I’m happy for you to pass this on to others.

If you need to conference call, we are all set up with Zoom.

 

As Jacinda has just said –
“Let’s finish what we started”
– stay safe.