The Holidays Act often causes confusion and frustration among New Zealand employers due to its intricate provisions and varying interpretations. Ensuring compliance can seem overwhelming.

In this article, we speak with experienced Holidays Act remediation consultant Liz Monrad to explore the complexities and challenges of navigating this detailed legislation

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How did you end up providing Payroll / Holidays Act services / consulting?  

My initiation into Payroll was via a Workforce Management Project.  I was the Project Manager implementing a new rostering system that integrated with payroll.  

Therein lies my first introduction to payroll in 2012.  

There was a lot of learnings on the Workforce management side, with even more so to come with my first experience in Holidays Act Remediation in 2017.

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What are the top two / three challenges you face when dealing with Holidays Act remediations?

1. Understanding Compliance

Payroll manages so much more than the Holidays Act.  Last count there were some 25+ pieces of legislation that could be attributed to payroll depending on the business you are in, and at times some of that legislation conflicts.

On top of that is Employee Agreement obligations. That's a lot of compliance, which requires a lot of experience.  Navigating the various legislations is complex, and particularly challenging for those outside of payroll.  

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2. Resourcing, timing and structure of Projects.  

Remediation and Rectification projects cannot be done in isolation. Nuances between the two need to be well understood by all of payroll, BAU and the Project Teams.

If not, you can end up in the position of needing to recommence remediation from day 1 of having rectified your system.  

Projects are often initially resourced from within, with expert resources often being considered only when things are not going well.  

Early engagement with expert resources brings the experience of prior remediations to the table which is not something your BAU teams will necessarily have at the onset of the project.

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3. At the very basic level, any system can achieve compliance.  

That said, all Software solutions all have strengths and weaknesses, and depending on business complexities and the nature of the workforce, you can very quickly go from being compliant to being non-compliant.  

Often this means having more manual processes supporting your software.  To that end Payroll needs to be seen as part of an ecosystem where integrated HR, Workforce Management and Payroll Engines all contribute towards achieving compliance.

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If there was one thing you could change about Payroll Products or the Holidays Act what would it be?

I think all payroll people want the same thing...simplification of the Holidays Act. It needs to be easier for all to comply, and should not be such an overhead to businesses.  

Imagine being a small business owner doing payroll remediation and discovering you have an issue that you must now remediate 6yrs prior.  

The cost of remediation could very well outweigh continuing in business. Then think about this playing out across the NZ economy.  The cost to comply needs to come down.

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And lastly, what does a Saturday look like for you (hopefully not working)?

Swim, Bike, Run...Triathlon is my happy place.

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Do you need help with a Holidays Act Remediation project or programme?

We have a network of New Zealand's most experienced Holidays Act Experts like Liz ready to help you with this complex legislation.

‍Get in touch with us here to start a conversation about getting you the talent you need, fast.