November 2023 news
14 November 2023
Accredited Employer Work Visa
If you have become an accredited employer for overseas recruitment, from the 29 October you are no longer able to include a 90-day trial period in employment agreements. You can read more about this on Immigration NZ website.
Closedown periods
With the Christmas/New Year break rapidly approaching we are receiving queries about closing practices for the days between Christmas and New Year statutory public holidays.
Some businesses will observe an annual closedown. This applies when the business customarily closes down for this period each year. There are specific requirements under the Holidays Act, and in most cases you will have included a ‘Close Down’ clause in your employment agreements. This should detail your obligations around the notification period, what happens in terms of employees using annual holiday entitlement and what happens if they don’t have the annual leave entitlement or don’t have enough leave to cover the period. We have content about this at Close down periods (healthypractice.co.nz)
If you don’t customarily close down over this period but have decided that this year you would like to close, you need to do this in consultation with staff. You can direct your staff to use entitled leave with at least 14 days’ notice if you can’t come to agreement, but you may find that you will have to pay your staff for the days that you have chosen to close.
Annual Holidays
You and your staff will be planning their summer holidays and for some managers it will be a juggling act managing staff expectations about leave and having sufficient staff to provide services.
In general, annual holidays should be taken by agreement. When there are popular periods for leave like around Christmas and Easter, you need to be sure that you have a fair process for dealing with leave requests and allocation. We would recommend having a leave policy and an application process and we have sample templates at this link Annual holidays (healthypractice.co.nz)
Calculating holiday pay for permanent employees can be confusing. The rate of holiday pay must be paid at the greater of the employee’s ordinary pay or average weekly earnings over the last 12 months. Annual holidays (healthypractice.co.nz) The payment is different for employees returning from parental leave Annual holidays (healthypractice.co.nz)
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10 June 2026
Privacy updates and training
Due to recent changes, this month we wish to remind you of the update to the Privacy Act 2020 with a new principle called the Information Privacy Principle 3A (IPP3A). For practices’, the new principle means there are additional notification obligations when receiving personal information about a patient from a third party. Under IPP3A, if your practice receives patient information from another provider (such as a lab, hospital, specialist, pharmacy or ACC), you must take reasonable steps to let the patient know their information has been collected. This change applies to any information collected on or after 1st May 2026.
15 May 2026
Welcome Winter!
Winter is on the way, and with it usually comes the usual run of coughs, colds, and other bugs. Most practices will already have their usual measures in place but now is a good time to reinforce the basics and lead by example, particularly when it comes to staying home if you’re unwell. It is also a good time to check that expectations around leave, sick leave and wellbeing are clear heading into winter.
16 April 2026
Easing fuel and living-cost pressures, in practice
While we cannot control the wider economic environment, making clear, practical decisions in response to the current economic pressures can ease the load on our practice and our staff. Rising fuel prices and the broader cost-of-living pressure are not only having financial implications, they are also impacting how we feel about normal day-to-day ‘necessities’, which may be affecting stress levels and causing rising anxiety for some. It is important to focus on what we can change – how we can make small adjustments to support staff, reduce avoidable stress and keep the practice functioning well. own.
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