When Your Employee Leaves Without Notice

What happens if your employee resigns one day and never comes back to work? They may say, “I’m outta here,” never to return, completely disregarding their obligation to give you a period of notice before they leave. This can be frustrating. The whole point of an employee giving notice is

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You Can Have More Than One Employer

It is possible to be employed by more than one person at the same time for the same work. This situation can arise in situations where you are initially employed by one company to work for another closely related company. It might also arise if you are contracted to work

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Employers Are Not Judges

How sure must you be that you have your facts right before dismissing an employee for misbehaviour? You usually can’t be 100% certain that they did what you have alleged. If you didn’t see it with your own eyes, you will need to rely on what others say they saw

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Does Your Employer Own Your LinkedIn Connections?

How would you feel if you had to delete all your LinkedIn connections when you left your job? Given the importance of online networks nowadays, it is worth considering whether your employer could ask you to do this. And while you might asking you to de-link yourself would be an

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Make Sure Your Trial Period Has A Start Date

Here’s yet another way a trial period can go wrong. In a recent case before the Employment Relations Authority, an employer had done seemingly everything required to comply with the 90-day trial period law: they included a trial period clause in the agreements; they ensured that the agreements were fairly

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Don’t Confuse Poor Performance and Misconduct


A crucial element of a fair dismissal is that there are good grounds to dismiss. Employment lawyers like me tend to talk a lot about ensuring you have a fair process. Yet you can have a perfect process and still unfairly dismiss your employee if you didn’t have good reasons

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Is A Support Person Allowed To Speak?

One aspect of what it means to be a fair employer is allowing your employees to have support and advice during disciplinary meetings. But depending on the nature of the person who your employee has brought along with them, their presence can either: help the meeting go smoothly by supporting

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Can My Employer Look At My Private Email?

We are swimming in digital conversations. Whether they be over text messages, instant messages, email messages, Facebook messages. They are part of our daily habits and routines. And we expect those means of communication to be accessible to us everywhere we go. Even at work. And that is where the

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You Can Be Working While You Sleep

Getting paid to sleep? It seems too good to be true. But it’s no joke. Depending on where you sleep, and whether you have obligations as part of being at that place while you sleep, you may well be working while catching your z’s. How can sleeping be work? It

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How To Dismiss An Employee When Their Visa Runs Out

Record numbers of people are immigrating to New Zealand. If you run a business that is in constant need of more staff, that is great news for you. But when hiring for vacant roles, you must be careful to observe the laws about who can and cannot work here. In

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