Must I use an employment agreement?

Yes. Every employee must have a written employment agreement that complies with the minimum entitlements under the various statutes that govern New Zealand employment law. The employer must provide the employee with a copy of their individual employment agreement. Failure to comply is a offence that carries a $1,000 fine per employee. Having a detailed and fit-for-purpose employment agreement avoids disputes and forms the basis of a healthy employment relationship and helps to keep you protected under law.

What are the consequences of not meeting employees’ minimum entitlements?

Employees can bring claims in the Employment Relations Authority or the Employment Court for breaches of their minimum entitlements. Penalties of up to $20,000 may be imposed for breaches of minimum entitlements.

What laws determine employees’ minimum entitlements?

Employment relations are governed by many laws, including Human Rights Act and Privacy Act, that are not specifically employment laws. The specific minimum employee entitlements are governed by the following Acts of Parliament:

• Employment Relations Act 2000
• Holidays Act 2003
• Parental Leave and Employment Protection Act 1987
• Wages Protection Act 1983
• Equal Pay Act 1972

What’s the problem with using a template?

Templates present a number of risks that occur more often than not. They require high levels of attention to detail, extreme care when entering or editing, version control systems, costly updating with each law change by an employment lawyer and don’t sync with associated offer documents, variations and disciplinary or termination processes. Manual processes are also slow and inefficient, especially at scale. That time it takes… you’re paying for that. It’s also not uncommon to see top tier law firms make costly manual entry errors and omissions caused by template use.

Can I use ChaptGPT to create an employment agreement?

No. ChatGPT is not an expert in context (i.e. New Zealand employment laws). It cannot provide real-time information or information beyond its last knowledge update in September 2021 (over 2 years old). Furthermore, that content is not written nor curated by an employment lawyer, not written specifically for use in an employment agreement, and it’s not specific or relevant to New Zealand’s jurisdiction nor current with the various employment laws and processes of New Zealand. ChatGPT is a chat bot that sources popular content from the Internet and uses it to answer questions using a predictive language model (i.e. how likely one word to follow another). It’s analogous to a calculator in that it requires skilled operation and understanding of the problem requirements to use it to assist in to solving problems – you’d need to know NZ employment law to ask it the right questions.

Are Employr’s documents legally valid in New Zealand?

Yes.  Employr is a New Zealand, owned, registered and based organisation maintained by Mark Donovan a specialist New Zealand employment barrister with approximately 20 years’ experience in employment law.

Is Employr a law firm?

No. Employr is founded by a qualified New Zealand barrister (lawyer) but is a Software-as-a-service business designed to make DIY employment agreements easy, risk-free, affordable and remove the need for a business to engage an employment lawyer when hiring.

Where is Employr owned and based?

Employr is a registered New Zealand company owned and operated locally and is compliant with and governed by New Zealand law.

How does the pricing work?

Employr charges a monthly fee, based on you business size, which provides you with access to all of its features and your current and historical employment relationship data. There is also one-off set-up costs based on business size.

What support is provided?

Our support team is available during business hours via, email or telephone to assist our clients with platform use and any technical issues all inclusive in their subscription.

Can I cancel Employr if I decide it isn’t right for my business?

You can cancel your subscription at any time simply by informing us your needs have changed. We stand by the value Employr delivers.

Where can I go if I have more questions?

If you have a burning question you can ask it in our contact form and we’ll endeavour to answer it the same working day.