Latest / Best of Business / Paul Mackay: Business NZ employment specialist on the Government's changes to sick and annual leave

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Paul Mackay: Business NZ employment specialist on the Government's changes to sick and annual leave · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talks'd be follow
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  Speaker 2: Businesses across the country welcoming the end of the holiday's Act.
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  Speaker 2: It's going in the bin government unveiling what they call
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  Speaker 2: a far simpler streamline replacement. Employers say the current system
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  Speaker 2: lead to costly payroll errors millions in payback in some cases.
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  Speaker 2: Paul McKay is a business New Zealand employment specialist with
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  Speaker 2: me on the line, Paul, good evening, good evening, Hell
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  Speaker 2: are you good? Thank you? Can we just clear something
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  Speaker 2: up first of all about part time workers because we've
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  Speaker 2: had two points of view on this this evening. Part
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  Speaker 2: time workers in sick leave before and after this change
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  Speaker 2: as it's as it's proposed. Are they better or worse off?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they're proportionately the same because out of the old
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  Speaker 3: system were advantaged by the fact that they've got ten
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  Speaker 3: days leave entitlement. If they were only a one day
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  Speaker 3: week a worker, then they would actually have the ability
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  Speaker 3: to take ten weeks of leave off, as opposed to
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  Speaker 3: the lu likes of you and I who would probably
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  Speaker 3: get ten days which was probably about two weeks worth.
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  Speaker 3: But proatering it the way it's going to be happening
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  Speaker 3: will mean that it will be proportionately the same for
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  Speaker 3: absolutely everybody.
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  Speaker 2: So you get off, you basically get out. Will you
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  Speaker 2: put in kind of thing that's the idious and what.
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  Speaker 3: About learn you leave based on ours and depending on
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  Speaker 3: the number of hours you work, there's about the leader get.
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  Speaker 2: And it will start accruing. This is for sick leave
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  Speaker 2: and for annually a whole bunch of other stuff will
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  Speaker 2: start occurring earlier from the day that you actually start working,
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  Speaker 2: rather than having careered six months or twelve months. Will
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  Speaker 2: there cost business and do you know how much, Well.
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  Speaker 3: It won't cost in the sense that it's it's accruing.
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  Speaker 3: It has always been the case, except that the way
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  Speaker 3: it was taken in terms of a title, it's meant
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  Speaker 3: there was a lot of other rules. We're simplifying what
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  Speaker 3: we the government are simplified by saying your crew leave
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  Speaker 3: or you earn leave as you go, and it's just
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  Speaker 3: simply effectively money in your bank and you will take
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  Speaker 3: out from that bank of leave when you and that's
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  Speaker 3: the balance that's what's left. So there's no kind of
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  Speaker 3: an a lot more simplicity attached to this.
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  Speaker 2: Why did it get so complicated?
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  Speaker 3: Well, let's go back to nineteen forty four when the
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  Speaker 3: Holidays Act was first started. We had a very different
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  Speaker 3: working environment and basically it was Monday to Friday.
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  Speaker 1: If that.
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  Speaker 3: Now we have a vast array of very complex working
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  Speaker 3: arrangements and the Act based on the week's approach just
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  Speaker 3: simply doesn't cope.
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  Speaker 2: So from here we've got the legislation has to go
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  Speaker 2: through the House. That's going to take a couple of
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  Speaker 2: years and then it'll be well a couple of years
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  Speaker 2: after that before we actually see change.
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  Speaker 3: We're being a bit plastimistic on when it gets into
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  Speaker 3: the house. We're hoping that we'll be in the house
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  Speaker 3: by the end of the year, or least by the
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  Speaker 3: end of the term. But yes, two years after that
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  Speaker 3: before it's finally effective, because there's still it's not just
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  Speaker 3: the rules, it's about putting the rules in place inside
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  Speaker 3: the computers that do the calculations and the payroll people
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  Speaker 3: that need to be trained. All of that needs to
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  Speaker 3: be done well as well.
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  Speaker 2: Is there anything changing to public to holiday public holiday pay?
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  Speaker 2: You know? Is that and will it make it more
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  Speaker 2: expensive or would it make it more expensive to stay
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  Speaker 2: open on public holidays potentially.
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  Speaker 3: Not necessarily because it basically it's going to be the
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  Speaker 3: same calculation for every form of leave. That reducing the
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  Speaker 3: current crop of calculations for all different sorts of leave down.
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  Speaker 3: There may be the occasional time when, especially when people
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  Speaker 3: have uncertain hours or variable hours or casual where there
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  Speaker 3: has to be some extra calculation done in terms of
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  Speaker 3: what hours have been done with what people have earned.
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  Speaker 3: But in general and overall, we see this as being
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  Speaker 3: a far simpler and more cost effective.
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  Speaker 2: We'll appreciate your time serving Paul McKay, whose business is
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  Speaker 2: the OE Unemployment Specialist.
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