Workplace Analysis Task – Sample Answer
Employment Relations 801 – Workplace Analysis Task
Introduction
Naturally Baking Limited specialises in supplying organic baking ingredients to retail outlets. Initially the business supplied only the local market, but due to increased demand they are now expanding to supply the national market. Ariana and Pieter are friends who have owned the company for five years.
The business has employed family and friends to repackage the ingredients, put orders together, advertise and market their products and distribute the packed orders. Ariana and Pieter realise they cannot continue to operate as a family business with the increased demand for their products. They have decided they will need to employ more staff. Ariana, Pieter and Pieter’s father, Dave, will manage the different business departments.
Pieter, Dave and Ariana realise they do not know much about the legal requirements of employment relations. They are unclear about holiday, health and safety and employment relations. Ariana’s friend, Tu, is a human resources consultant giving them professional assistance.
May and Margaret are staff at Naturally Baking who raise a number of employment issues. An analysis of the workplace employment issues identified a number of potential solutions. The information for this analysis was gained from the workplace analysis section of the course, and the address book in the ‘Who’s in the Mix?’ section.
Method
The forum group split into two sub-groups – the ‘employer group’ and the ‘employee group’. In researching the information, the groups addressed the prescribed questions. They chose a facilitator to direct discussion and the group members worked together to research the task questions and deliver feedback. A reporter collated and wrote up the findings of both groups and presented the integrated findings of the two sub-groups. It was a collaborative task.
Employment relationships
The New Zealand Department of Labour defines the nature of employment agreements as:
- “permanent, where an employee is employed for an indefinite duration;
- fixed term, where an employee is employed for a specific time period; or
- casual, where an employee is only expected to work from time to time.”
(Accessed December 2006 from http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz/relationships/builder/guideclause.asp)
There are a variety of different employment relationships at Naturally Baking. Ariana and Pieter are partners in the business. They are paid a salary and a percentage of the profits. Dave is a manager and probably permanent but this is not stated.
Tu, the Human Resources Consultant, is employed on a contract for services. He bills for the hours he works as a consultant. He is an independent contractor, not an employee. It is unclear whether staff are employed on fixed term or permanent employment agreements, but they are employees on contracts of service. Margaret is part time.
Relevant employment legislation
There is a variety of legislation relating to employment rights and responsibilities. The Employment Relations Act governs the negotiation of employment agreements, and the process by which disputes and grievances that arise within the employment relationship are resolved. There are a number of protections established for bargaining and dispute resolution, and the concept of good faith applies to everyone. The Act sought to redress an imbalance in bargaining power by focusing on the employment relationship, rather than the employment contract. Its objectives are to build productive employment relationships through the promotion of good faith in all aspects of the employment environment and of the employment relationship.
In order to achieve its stated objectives the Act:
- recognises and promotes unions by providing that only registered unions may bargain for collective employment agreements
- requires employers to provide information to new employees negotiating an individual employment agreement (IEA)
- requires employers to give new employees an opportunity to take independent advice before accepting an IEA
- requires all parties to the employment relationship to conduct themselves in good faith; this concept is defined differently at various points in order to meet different situations and one of the remaining criticisms of the Act is that this creates uncertainty
- provides wide definitions of the parties to the employment relationship, including employers and employees, unions (both those directly involved in the employment relationship at issue and other unions that might be involved in negotiating the same collective employment agreement), and other employers where they are involved in negotiating the same employment agreement (for example, where a number of unions and employers meet to negotiate an employment agreement that will cover a whole industry)
- allows the Employment Relations Authority to informally investigate cases (something ordinary courts never do)
- obliges the Authority to encourage the parties towards mediation wherever practical (it is only if either party is unhappy with the outcome of this process that they can access the more formal jurisdiction of the Employment Court).
The Human Rights Act protects the right of people to be treated fairly and without prejudice. It makes it illegal to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their sex (including pregnancy and childbirth), marital status, religious or ethical belief or political opinions, colour, race, ethnic or national origin, disability, age, employment status (such as being unemployed), family status (such as having the care of children), or sexual orientation. In addition, employers may not advertise in a way that suggests that they will discriminate on any of those grounds.
The Holidays Act 2003 sets out the minimum number of holidays an employee is allowed annually. These include annual leave, public holidays and special leave. From 1 April 2007 New Zealand employees are entitled to four weeks’ paid annual leave after they have been employed full-time with the same employer for one year. Part-time, casual and fixed-term employees are entitled to a proportion of this leave calculated on the basis of their own work arrangements.
The Equal Pay Act made it illegal to provide different salary or terms and conditions of employment to someone on the basis of employees’ gender alone. Opportunities and payments must be based on criteria applied equally to all eligible staff with substantially similar qualifications employed in the same or substantially similar work.
The Minimum Wage Act sets a minimum wage for everyone over the age of 16 years and provides for an annual minimum wage order. This order sets the minimum wage for workers aged 16–17 years, and for adult workers aged 18 years and over. Employers and employees cannot contract out of the minimum level of payment that the Act prescribes. Regardless of what pay rate they may have agreed to, if it is less than the current minimum wage order, and the employee is over 16, the employer will be liable to make up the difference.
The Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 seeks to encourage injury prevention within the workplace. It is about making work safe for everyone. The Act promotes good employment relationships to achieve workplace safety by hazard management. It does not tell people how to work, but requires them to approach a situation with the framework and guidelines of the legislation in mind.
The Department of Labour states that the arrangements required in a workplace must acknowledge that:
- the primary responsibility for making a safe workplace is with the employer or any other person responsible for the work
- employees also have a responsibility for themselves and others
- good faith cooperation between employers and employees is needed to manage these responsibilities
- employee participation is essential to the whole process.
The Industry Training Act 1992 says that any agreement between an employer and employee about training is a part of their employment agreement. Agreements about training are therefore enforceable under the Employment Relations Act 2000. This gives them greater weight. The Modern Apprenticeship Training Act 2002 is designed to encourage those aged between 16 and 22 to complete apprenticeship training.
Employment relationship issues
The employers are recruiting new staff but are not clear about the requirements of the appropriate legislation such as the Employment Relations or Human Rights Acts. They need to know their rights and responsibilities under the legislation as they have already faced issues concerning the employment of youth and allegations of racial discrimination. They can get advice from the Human Resources Consultant and research the simplified versions of the legislation to resolve this.
Employing family members and friends is a risk management issue that can be resolved by having clear communication and reporting processes and a clear organisational structure. Family members and friends should not be reporting to each other. The company also needs clear details of ownership and documented processes for disestablishment.
All staff require written employment agreements that contain at least the compulsory components and may contain other conditions that suit the needs of the parties. A clear policy for grievance resolution and complaints needs to be written into the employment agreements. This policy needs to at least reflect the requirements of the Employment Relations Act.
Prior to the drafting of employment agreements the employers need to undertake a benchmarking exercise to establish staff remuneration categories. These should include wage bands to cover all existing staff. A clause entitling staff to an annual production bonus on their anniversary may be included in the employment agreements. It may also be useful to include a clause regarding staff overtime hours.
Managers could consider providing or funding industry-based training to encourage and improve industry related skills and knowledge. This may also improve staff retention and productivity.
Staff are not clear about their legislative rights and responsibilities as employees. Researching the relevant legislation regarding their employment rights and responsibilities and/or searching for information provided by the Department of Labour and Employment Relations Service is important. Awareness of their responsibilities under the Health and Safety Act to take all practicable steps to ensure their safety while at work is also important. This includes using suitable protective clothing and suitable protective equipment provided by the employer or suitable protective clothing provided by the employee. Who provides this could be a point of negotiation for the employment agreement. The employer needs to ensure that their staff are aware of employees’ obligation to ensue that no action or inaction of the employee while at work causes harm to any other person.
The existing staff believe they are entitled to more pay than new staff. These staff will want to negotiate the amount of the annual production bonus that may be included in the employment agreements.
Some staff want a pay rise which they can negotiate at any time, although some are interested in a union negotiating a collective employment agreement for them. This could include provision for a pay increase. Deciding between a collective or individual employment agreement is an individual decision of preference. Staff wanting a collective agreement need to find out which union can represent them and what employment relations services the union can provide. The union would need to discuss access to the workplace with the employer.
One person thought she was not being paid the same as her male colleagues but this does not appear to be an issue as she is not as experienced as them. Another person does not know about youth rates. He could seek employment relations advice from the Department of Labour or read information on their website. Pay parity with other workers within the sector should be achieved by the company’s benchmarking exercise but it would be useful if they communicated this to staff. There is an issue regarding the payment of part time employees’ holiday pay that needs to be discussed and resolved, as there appears to be a miscalculation of annual leave earned. Both the employer and the employee need to agree on the definition of a ‘week’ for those employees.
References
Fryer, Glenda, and Yvonne Oldfield (2001). New Zealand Employment Relations. (3rd ed). Auckland: Longman.
http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz/audienceinfo/employers.html#ea_who accessed December 2006.
http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz/holidays_act_2003/annual.html accessed December 2006.
http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz/relationships/builder/ accessed December 2006.
http://www.ers.dol.govt.nz/union/rights.html accessed December 2006.
http://www.legislation.govt.nz/browse_vw.asp?content-set=pal_statutes accessed December 2006.
