Edited to add: This article was written in September 2014 and some of the information may now be out of date. In October 2018 we published an update to this article here. For further information or advice about CCTV cameras in the workplace, please contact us.
How do you feel when you see those signs at airports and public places telling you that there are surveillance cameras? I know I feel a little violated in one sense but a sense of safety in another - knowing that criminals may be seen, their acts of violence caught earlier and that the information recorded makes a crime easier to trace.
The sense of safety may be unwise given recent and sad circumstances culminating in the death of two WINZ workers in Ashburton. Were CCTV cameras operating and visible, if not would they have stopped the incident? Would staff have felt safer if they were installed? Would they have assisted in finding the perpetrator faster?
Cameras are often in public places for public safety and for the deterrence of criminal activity. But like the public concern over privacy issues and the broad public surveillance suggested to be undertaken by the government for national security purposes; does it make it OK without consent and how in a public place would that consent be obtained? What does this mean for workplace surveillance in New Zealand?
In New Zealand employers have the right to use video cameras in the workplace, as long as that right is exercised in accordance with the Privacy Act. The business should go through the following guidelines to develop three key documents prior to installation and use of CCTV.
1. An evaluation of whether you need CCTV and what form that system might take.
2. A business plan which sets out the CCTV strategy, and
3. A CCTV policy which clearly outlines how you will operate your system and the rules your staff should abide by when using the system.
Things you must consider when forming your CCTV strategy and policy are things that are outlined in the Privacy Act such as:
Have a look at these links to case notes and outcomes where employers have used surveillance of staff and seen to be contravening the privacy act.
Case 1
Case 2
If you have concerns about any of the suggestions above, we recommend you read the articles on the Privacy Commission’s website.
You may also want to review the guidelines on the use of CCTV to ensure you are not planning to breach any part of the Privacy Act and run into trouble or receive fines.
Does your workplace have cameras operating and how does this make you or your staff feel?
by Pru Bell
Emma Worseldine previously posted a blog on ‘Ever Wondered if HR in Australia is Different from here’ and how in Australia the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) has impacted on businesses with many big companies shaking off up to a quarter of their staff.
Change in organisations can occur from redundancies, restructuring, mergers, acquisitions and change of ownership or leadership. But what happens after the changes?
How do organisations move on from a massive upheaval?
For the survivors left behind there may be some short lived relief that they still have a job but then comes the uncertainty in regards to what their role will be like in a drastically changed organisation. Life as you know it has changed for everyone and organisations need to carefully consider and plan strategies for the organisation to move forward and to minimise disruption.
Vicki Daniel shares her four useful change management tips for organisations to reduce upheaval and provide support to downsizing survivors:
As change is constant it is something that an organisation may not be able to control however an organisation can control the impact and therefore the success of the change depending on the strategies that they put in place.
How does your company measure up against these suggestions in preparation for change?
We have all spent hours slaving over our C.Vs wondering if we are managing to capture how truly amazing we are. Some of us have also spent many hours sorting through piles of CV’s searching for a star candidate.
But is the age of the CV nearly over? There is increasing debate in the wider Business Community as to the value of CV’s in representing a candidates potential. I thought that it would be interesting to explore what this debate is all about and what it could mean for people who are doing the recruiting.
Where are CV’s going wrong?
There are concerns that while CV’s are able to outline candidates’ past achievements, skills and work experience they are not useful at identifying values, behaviour and talent – and these are increasing what organisations want to hire for!
These are the questions that CV’s often don’t answer. Nor can they accurately distinguish between skills (knowing how to do something) and competencies (behaviours which demonstrate an employee is doing it well with great ease and reliability).
What does this mean for recruitment?
If this is true what options do recruiters have to maximise their chances of getting a candidate who is not only competent but also works well with others and helps drive a productive culture? It is important to understand that CV’s are just one tool in the wider recruitment toolbox. Some of the other tools that can be used to help with selection include:
Interviewing is still an essential step in the process and questions should be based on competencies and behaviours.
There are a wide set of psychometric testing that can be helpful in gaining understanding into a candidates behaviours, values and potential fit into an organisation.
Reference checking not only verifies a candidates skills and experience but it is always helpful in giving some insight into a candidates personality, how they work in a team dynamic, their values and generally what makes them tick.
Finally it is becoming increasing important to do some Social Media screening. What a person has available in social media can speak volumes about them as a person.
My Conclusion
While it may be true that C.Vs do have their limitations if you use them in conjunction with a wider set of recruitment tools you can still get a good picture of whether a candidate has the necessary values, behaviour and talent to be a good fit in your organisation.
If you want to read the full article on suggesting Recruiters stop reading CV's, go here
by Emily Coe
Not only do indispensable employees underpin your company’s culture, they are often also the face of your company.
A recent blog by Christine Lagorio highlights 6 traits of indispensable employees.
You may find you identify and agree with these six, but there may be other attributes that more closely align with your company’s culture.
Taking the time to consider the traits your current key staff have that really drive your business and then extend those thoughts to pinpoint the type of culture and customer experience you are trying to create can help to define the foundation for your next successful recruitment.
Consideration of these factors can then guide every step of the process from the tone of advertisement copy, interview structure and reference checking in recruitment through to developing the company vision and employment strategies that can make your company ‘sing’.
The key traits identified in this blog were:
Are you attracting and retaining those indispensable employees?
Are you able to identify the key traits of your best employees that you may like to replicate in your next recruit?
by Rosie Bown
Recruitment how hard can it be?
This is a question that is often levelled at Recruitment Professionals but let me tell you it is not as easy as linking A with B.
If you have ever had attempted match making with your friends you would understand that finding workaholic Barry or fun loving Mary the perfect partner is not as easy as it would first seem.
While a poor attempt at matchmaking might end with some entertaining first date stories or the obligation to indulge in some evenings of wine and tears unfortunately the risk of not finding and selecting the right candidate for a role in your business can be much more costly.
That is why it is so important to get recruitment right. Recruiters play a critical role as a bridge between companies and the talent that defines them and if they are able to find and engage the right people they can help set companies up for success for years to come.
So with this in mind what does make a good recruiter? Well recently there was a fun and informative article that talked about what makes a modern recruiter.
This article talks about the Modern Recruiter being part artist and part scientist with the ability to be a matchmaker, marketer and salesperson as well as having the ability to research, analyse the data and utilise technology. Hmmm something to aspire to!
Whether you agree with the article or not it is a timely reminder to review how you are undertaking your recruitment.
Are you investing the time, energy and resource into attracting, selecting, engaging and retaining the very best talent for your business?
by Emily Coe
Like most things to do with employment, it isn’t as straightforward as it seems as Fonterra recently experienced.
The employee, Mr Richardson, applied for a job as a tanker driver and was asked to declare any convictions on the job application. The application made it clear he could be dismissed without notice if he provided misleading information about his criminal record.
He thought, wrongly, that he didn’t have to declare all of his convictions, including excess blood alcohol, driving while disqualified, oh and theft as a servant. Sentencing had included imprisonment. He thought the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act 2004 said his prospective employer didn’t need to know about these things.
Fonterra dismissed their employee of one month when they received a copy of his criminal record. Mr Richardson challenged this decision in the Employment Relations Authority. He received 13k in lost wages and 5k in compensation. He did not get his job back.
The former tanker driver’s dismissal was found unjustified because his appointment was unconditional. He had started work. His employment agreement did not state he may be dismissed if something unsatisfactory was found in his criminal record or if he misrepresented his record.
The application form warning was not enough. His employment agreement stated that it replaced any prior representations and agreements – this is quite a common clause and can be a useful one, but not for protecting employers from employees who have serious convictions and who do not read the Clean Slate Act.
This case shows the importance of a robust recruitment process with good background checks but also that well written offer letters and employment agreements are crucial.
Make sure you give job applicants enough information about what they need to declare. The Ministry of Justice has good printable information – attach this to your application form. See there website here. In summary, the job applicant must meet all of the following criteria under the Act:
• no convictions within the last 7 years;
• never been sentenced to a custodial sentence e.g. imprisonment, corrective training, borstal;
• never been ordered by a Court following a criminal case to be detained in a hospital due to their mental condition, instead of being sentenced;
• not been convicted of a "specified offence" (e.g. sexual offending against children and young people or the mentally impaired);
• paid in full any fine, reparation, or costs ordered by the Court in a criminal case;
• never been indefinitely disqualified from driving under section 65 Land Transport Act 1998 or earlier equivalent provision.
In a perfect world, no offer should be made until you have their criminal record in front of you, but that is not always realistic to keep your preferred candidate. So make sure your offer has a condition in it that says you must be satisfied with the results before the employment relationship can commence. If you really cannot wait for this, then make sure your employment agreement gives you an out clause. If you are unsure, seek advice.
The other learning from the Fonterra case is that even if the criminal record shows that they are obviously unsuitable to drive your tanker, follow a fair and procedurally correct disciplinary process or it will cost you time and money. Again, seek advice as soon as the issue arises.
If you are not already checking criminal records of prospective employees, you may want to reconsider and get their consent to do so. Granted, it is not uncommon to hear managers laugh and say if we did that we wouldn’t have anyone employed in our business. Jokes aside, not all convictions will be a bar to employment – one excess breath alcohol oops a few years ago may be overlooked, but a recidivist with a string of traffic convictions surely has a problem with following the rules. Possibly not who you want in charge of your 44 tonne tanker!
by Shelley Spencer
A few weeks ago we published a blog about the importance of candidate care when recruiting and consideration of an applicant’s frustrations when applying for in excess of 100 positions, and on many occasions the applicant received no communication in relation to their application.
Considering other points raised in the article I want to share more thoughts about issues related to hiring an ageing workforce. The writer of the article was 55 years old and had made 115 applications for jobs over a 2 year period.
The numbers are stacked towards New Zealand having an ageing workforce. New Zealand has an increasing proportion of people in the older age group and a declining proportion of children.
This information quoted from the Department of Statistics is salient: “The proportion of the population under 15 years of age has declined from around 33 per cent in the early 1960s to 21 per cent in 2009 and is expected to fall to 18 percent by 2031.
The population aged 65 years and over has increased from 11 per cent of the total population in 1991 to 13 per cent in 2009. It is expected to reach 21 per cent by 2031. The number of people aged 65 years and over is projected to increase from around 550,000 in 2009 to 1 million in the late 2020s, when they will outnumber children.”
These predictions are only 15 years away!
It is time to start thinking about the impact these changing demographics will have on your organisation going forward.
Ask yourself
A more mature team member can offer a wide range of experience and wisdom. A report by OCG Consulting states that “Mature employees represent a valuable and often untapped source of increased productivity for organisations. Their research has found that older workers have a strong drive to work, as well as a growing financial imperative to do so following the blow to their savings during the GFC. Yet despite this, ‘grey workers’ are underrepresented in the workforce and overrepresented in the joblessness rate.”
Some key findings from the report on the impact of an ageing workforce on NZ Business are.
The bottom line is you want the best person for the role based on experience, attitude and fit. But as the labour market tightens you may want to keep the above in mind as you do your workforce planning.
If your business is based in the top of the South you may be interested in the latest newsletter from the Health Action Trust and a symposium that has been initiated by the Trust that will be run in Nelson on 4 September 2014. (To subscribe to the newsletter email: sue@healthaction.org.nz)
See details of the content for the symposium in Nelson or to register here.
Finally to share a cheeky comic strip from the latest Health Action Newsletter:
I was reading an HR discussion forum on LinkedIn a few days ago about some of the strangest requests asked by employees and some of their funnier moments working in HR. From some discussions with colleagues and after some further interesting reading here are my favourites! These stories range from unbelievable to truly bizarre.
Did you hear the story about the shop assistant who asked for two cheques to receive his redundancy payment, one to show his wife and the other to fund his escape to Spain with his girlfriend? And another where a person (not an employee) asked the HR Manager to take a particular employee to task because this employee was having an affair with her husband!
Then there is the employee who bought his parents as his support people to a disciplinary meeting to discuss the allegation of him viewing pornography on a work computer. Imagine the awkwardness for all parties concerned but particularly the employee when his parents asked to view the evidence! On the upside this prompted a very quick confession and apology from the employee to save the humiliation of his parents seeing what he had been viewing.
Stories about creative leave requests are also very common such as when an employee requested to use three days bereavement leave to travel for the death of her cat that lived with her mother on the other side of the country. She thought that HR would sympathise and act on her behalf to request this from her manager. Or how about the employee who wanted to take special leave to attend the funeral of Princess Diana. But my favourite, the employee who asked to use family medical leave to cover his jail time!
There could be a book written about all the interesting recruitment situations HR and management have encountered, but a very memorable one is where a dog followed in a candidate to their interview and went to sleep under the desk. Towards the end of the interview the dog got up and trotted off out the door. The interviewer could no longer contain their curiosity and had to ask the candidate why he bought the dog to his interview, to which the candidate replied that he had never seen the dog before in his life and thought he belonged to the interviewer! Turns out it was just a random dog off the street who went exploring. What great poise both the interviewer and candidate demonstrated and they both kept calm and carried on!
From being asked to keep the bathrooms clean to creating a smoking area for medical marijuana users, managers and HR professionals will deal with many interesting employee situations in their working career and handling these situations will require a considerable amount of diplomacy. You just never know what the day will hold for you tomorrow!
What are some of your funniest stories?
There has been some commentary recently around the gifting of annual leave from one work colleague to another. The particular case in point was an overseas employee who has used up all their annual leave caring for a terminally ill child. In this case work colleagues had banded together and gifted one day of their unused leave to their colleague.
France has recently embodied a law permitting this, but in NZ is this legal?
The short answer is that the Holidays Act is silent on this. In other words there is nothing to prevent an employee cashing up some (up to a week) of their annual leave and gifting the cash to their colleague. In this case it would be an arrangement outside the employment relationship.
We would suggest such arrangements would need to be done with the knowledge of the employer, who may choose to exercise a little more discretion to the employee who used all their entitlement. Such arrangements do create precedents and a cautious approach would need to be used to ensure a discrimination and/or disadvantage action didn’t follow.
Inevitably you would need to think about;
Another option is for the company to provide additional paid or unpaid leave but this would need to be done on an equitable basis due to the precedent it sets for other employees who may find themselves in this situation.
In the US this is already in place as voluntary ‘shared leave’ where the recipients and donors need to meet certain eligibility requirement and there is a push now for Australian legislation to match the French law.
Gifting annual leave is seen as an opportunity for people in the workplace to gather together to do something to help and it is very charitable in terms of social behaviour. If it was successfully implemented there may be benefits that extend from workers to the workplace including enhancing the company’s reputation possibly without very much cost.
However legislating the donation of leave is seen to be extremely progressive and in line with the developments in France to try and get the work life balance better along with working less hours per week.
Wonder whether this will gain any momentum in NZ?
In last weeks blog we talked about “promances” and emotional relationships in the workplace either having a positive or negative impact on business.
Recently I was reading a Greg Savage blog where he covered the scenario when the owner and founder of the business stays too long in a role that eventually over time he/she is no longer suitable for. He used the example when the founder insists on remaining in the GM or CEO role when in reality that person is a poor leader. Owners in the wrong job have cost companies millions of dollars in value he believes.
We have experienced examples where people have been promoted to levels beyond their competence. Indeed we see it when a person who is expert in their craft or skill but frankly just doesn't make a great strategic or people leader.
We see examples of this often in self-made businesses or indeed family run businesses where the business founder or a member of the family holds a senior role in the family business simply based on their relative position in the wider family hierarchy. For the good of the business something has to change…but it is a difficult topic to bring up and resolve. For many it is simply because they are too immersed in the operations and day to day bump and grind that they do not have the time to step back and distinguish the wood from the trees.
It takes courage to step aside and relinquish control to others who may be much more experienced or skilled at taking the company forward, or indeed inviting others into the company to provide expertise and insights that may threaten or challenge the perception of control.
Surrounding yourself with expertise or capability is not an admission of failure… indeed it is often the inspired decision that triggers a transformation within a business.
The mark of a good leader is one who has the humility to recognise their individual weaknesses or blind spots and then surround themselves with people that may be savvier than them. It takes a certain person to suddenly realise and accept that their views and assumptions can be challenged and then, even more so, have that courage to adopt the view, as the saying goes ‘None of us are as smart as all of us.’
The best example I have seen was by the founder of Silverstripe in Wellington. A now international web development company who from small beginnings have become quite famous globally… their feats include helping build the Democrats website back in 2007 that helped get Obama elected as US President. One of the founders stepped back from heading the company when he realised he was not the right person to lead the company into the next phase of evolution and moved himself into marketing and development.
It’s not a failure to step aside… in some cases the failure would be not to.
by Paul Bell
