​Why you need wage and time records

On 28th June, Style Hairdressing was ordered to pay $16,000 by the Employment Relations Authority for failure to keep wage and time records, failure to pay an employee as per their employment agreement and for breaches of the Wages Protection Act.  The law requires all employers to keep wage and time records that are easily accessed or in other words read and understood. In this case the employer did not have any time records for the employee in question.  There had also been verbal variations to the employment agreement but the parties could not agree on what was agreed!
So, you probably want to know what you need to do to avoid getting fine for something that seems so trivial? 

Here are some guidelines:

1. Make sure that all employees have a signed employment agreement before they start
2. If changes are made to the hours of work in the agreement make sure to record them in writing.
3. All employees should have a timesheet or system for telling you how many hours they worked.
4. This should be signed by the employee and the employer and kept on file.
5. Make sure that whoever does your payroll payments understand what employees are entitled to in Holiday Pay and overtime.
6. Make sure that you follow what is set out in your employment agreements in terms of resignations, restructuring and business sales.

 
These requirements can seem quite onerous if you are a small business owner and keeping up to date with all the changes in employment agreements can be hard.  We suggest that you keep a diary of employment matters – conversations, hours worked, good and bad performance, days absent – so you have a record to rely on. If you need a hand with any of these matters or need help designing a system to manager employee records, give us a call today. 

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