Employees, Contractors and Volunteers

Posted 18 February 2017 by Mike Johnson Volunteers, Contractors;

MBIE's Inspectorate are starting to take harder lines in these areas.  They have issued a position statement to clarify when "volunteers" are actually employees and therefore need to be paid minimum wage and need an appropriate visa, etc.  In particular consider these three things:

1. Do you control their working hours?
2. Does your business benefit from their work? and
3. Do they expect some reward (even if it is just a bed and food for the night)?

All three and they may well be classed as employees.

Similar concerns are being voiced about people engaged as contractors when the real relationship is as an employee (albeit on a fixed term arrangement).  In this case it's probably more important to ask if you both control their hours and how they do their work?

If you have any questions we should be able to help - don't take the risk of falling foul of MBIE or the Department of Immigration.