New Employment Agreements for 2020 | |
A new version of the ECC has been developed following changes in legislation, case law and best practices. Our in-house legal team has modified our Individual Employment Agreements to accommodate these changes and provide the best protection for business owners.
The Updates
Legal content changes
- 90 Day Trial Periods / Probationary periods
- Rest and Meal Breaks
- Domestic Violence Leave
- Domestic Violence Policy
- Conditional letter of offer
- Training Bond Agreements
- Zero Hours;
- Availability periods.
- Cancellation policies
Functionality changes
- Personal Terms Schedule Wizard
- Job Descriptions Builder
- Updated letters
Employment Relations Amendment Act 2018
From May 6th 2019 if you have more than 19 employees you can no longer use the 90 Day Trial Period (90DTP). Employee being defined as someone who is engaged under the Employment Relations Act - full time, part time, fixed term or casual - not contractors. Nothing about the rules of the 90DTP have changed.
The alternative is the traditional Probationary Period. This is included in our permanent full time, part time and fixed term agreement templates as an alternative clause to the 90DTP. You also need to complete the review cycle dates and termination notice period in the Personal Terms schedule if you wish to use this. The wizard will assist in this if you open that schedule.
Rest and Meal Breaks must now be defined and taken by all employees. You can no longer compensate staff to skip breaks even with agreement (unless you are in very specific & limited industries such as nation defence).
Minimum standards are:
Hours of Work |
Rest Break
10 mins paid
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Meal break
30 mins unpaid
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Rest Break
10 mins paid
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2 –4 hours:
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In the middle
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4 –6 hours:
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Rest period 1/3 through
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meal 2/3 through
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6 –8 hours:
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First rest period half way between start and meal.
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Meal –half way through work period.
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Second rest period half way between meal and end.
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8 hours:
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Repeat the above pattern
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Our agreements refer to the rules as defined in the Personal Terms schedule where we provide 3 examples.
Domestic Violence – Victims’ Protection Act 2018.
Following the introduction of the above act on April 1st 2019 we have added both a policy and a clause to cover for this.
Legally you do not need to put anything into your employment agreements since it's a statutory right for employees anyway, but it does demonstrate good faith and the recency of your agreements.
The policy is more useful - see the letters section of the software. This defines the rules legally for both parties when claiming this type of leave. Remember the employee needs to have worked for the company for 6 months before they can claim this.
Job Descriptions Builder
In addition to the database of Job Descriptions there is now also a template builder to assist the user in building their own. The builder provides a structured framework guiding the user through the common elements to a job description and stores your documents for use with your Agreements or you can download to MS Word®.
New and updated Letters
Letters of offer and confirmation of employment now have options for conditional offers, ie. to make offers of employment based upon a candidate attaining/acheiving certain criteria. There is also a new Industry Training Bond as well as a standard training bond agreement to be used if the Employer wishes to bond an Employee to re-payments if they resign after the company pays for certain industry training or qualifications.
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