Poor record keeping leads to fines and other consequences for employers

The Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment has reported that its Labour Inspectors have found that 28% of farms visited were failing to meet their record keeping obligations.  This included failing to keep good wage, time, holiday and leave records. Farm employers were also failing to have employment agreements which complied with the legal requirements and employers were failing to pay their employees all if there entitlements, for example working on public holidays and being paid time and a half plus a day in lieu.

As well as fines imposed on the employers in default the Labour Inspectorate and Immigration New Zealand were imposing up to two year stand downs for employers being able to sponsor new visas to recruit migrant labour.

Keeping the proper records and paying the proper entitlements does mean that paperwork has to be done and kept up to scratch for the consequences of not doing those legal requirements can be far reaching and expensive.