Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Max Whitehead: Employment Relations Expert on the new phone case management service for those on the Jobseeker benefit

Transcript

Max Whitehead: Employment Relations Expert on the new phone case management service for those on the Jobseeker benefit · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Mandatory monthly phone calls have been introduced by the Ministry
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of Social Development between those on a job seeker support
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: benefit and case managers. The service is aimed at eighteen
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: to twenty four year olds, with case managers getting in
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: touch with their clients. Do we call them clients at
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: least once every twenty eight days. Any job seeker that
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: misses their call without a good reason could face sanctions.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Joining me now as employment relations expert Max Whitehead, Max,
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Good morning. What do these case managers actually make a difference?
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Do you think?
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  Speaker 2: Oh? Right, I think most certainly. There's nothing like getting
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: a bit of a nudge every now and again. Hey, hey,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: wake up, you've got a potential job here. Why don't
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: you give it a call. I think it's a brilliant idea,
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: and I think that something that I think as taxpayers,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: should have expected to happen a long time ago. Yeah,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: keep on the ball of those people that we're paying
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: to sit at home.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I was quite surprised to hear that less than
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a third of those that are getting that job seeker
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: support benefit actually receive the case manager service at this point.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Well, they meet and I would hope that our you know,
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the public servants who we pay to look after these
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: people will respond to this even more. But I believe
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: we're going to put on a lot more staff to
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: enable this to happen. And look, Ryan, it's only fair,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: you know, the taxpayers. These are people that go to
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: work every day. These are the people that are subject
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: to employment law. Do you know what the employment law requires?
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: That they are communicative and responsive. Now, surely somebody is
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: sitting at home, not even to go to work every
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: day should be subjected to the same rules, and that
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: is to be responsive to a phone call. And I'm
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: certainly very much in favor of it. And a phone
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: call is exactly what they needed, just to give them
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: a little wake up because some of these young people
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: are not too disciplined when they come out of school
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: and getting them ready for work a disciplinary Hey, you
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: need to come and do so and so otherwise you
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: in up to go and get cut I think is
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: the right way to go.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Max White here the employment law specialist with us this morning. Max,
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  Speaker 1: thanks very much for your time.
• 2:08
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• 2:11
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• 2:14
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