Employee rights and responsibilities

Minimum employment rights

The law protects you by setting out the minimum that your employer must give you. They cannot give you less than what is in the law even if you’ve both agreed to it.

Employment agreement

Your employer must:

• give you a written , also known as a contract, and keep it up to date
• let you get advice or support from someone you trust before you sign the agreement.

Negotiating and accepting as an employee

Pay and wages

Your employer must:

• pay you at least the for each hour you work, including overtime, if you are 16 years or older
• pay you in cash, unless you’ve agreed to receive it a different way, like by direct credit
• not take (deduct) money out of your pay unless it’s lawful, reasonable, and you asked for or agreed to it in writing, or it’s required by law (for example, tax and student loan payments)
• not make you pay to get or keep your job (a fee like this is called a ‘premium’)
• not tell you where or how to spend your pay.

Pay and wages

Breaks

Your employer must:

• give you regular rest and meal breaks:
  • for an 8-hour day: 2 paid 10-minute rest breaks and 1 unpaid 30-minute meal break
  • for a 6-hour day: 1 paid 10-minute rest break and 1 unpaid 30-minute meal break
• provide appropriate facilities and breaks if you want to breastfeed at work.

Rest and breaks

Holidays and leave

Your employer must:

• give you 4 weeks of paid annual holidays after you’ve worked for your employer continuously for 12 months (unless you qualify for, and agree to, pay-as-you-go holiday pay)
• give you 12 paid public holidays if they fall on a day you would usually work (unless your employment agreement says you have to work)
• pay you at least time-and-a-half for working on a public holiday
• give you a paid alternative holiday if you worked on a public holiday and it’s a day you would usually work
• give you 10 days of paid each year, after you have worked for your employer for 6 months either continuously or for enough hours
• give you 3 days of paid for certain family members (and 1 day for other bereavements) after you’ve worked for your employer for 6 months either continuously or for enough hours
• give you 10 days of family violence leave each year after you’ve worked for your employer for 6 months either continuously or for enough hours
• give you parental leave to care for a new child if you meet the work requirements
• give you leave for .

Leave and holidays

Safe and fair workplace

Your employer must:

• provide a safe and healthy workplace, with proper training, supervision and equipment — you have the right to stop working if you believe it is unhealthy or unsafe
• not demand to keep your passport
• provide a workplace that is free from bullying, harassment and unlawful discrimination
• not treat you adversely (badly or unfairly) at work, for example:
  • dismissing you without good reason
  • paying you less than others for doing the same, or similar work, because of your sex
  • taking action against you because you made a protected disclosure (‘whistleblowing’)
  • breaking the terms of your employment agreement or not giving you your legal

You have the right to raise a personal grievance if you believe you've been treated unfairly at work.

Personal grievances

Bullying, harassment and discrimination

Your rights and obligations – WorkSafe New Zealand(external link)

Flexible working

You have the right to ask for flexible working arrangements at any time, for example, changes to your hours, days or place of work. Your employer must consider your request. They can only say no for certain reasons.

Flexible working

Union membership

Your employer must allow you to join a union if you want to, without any pressure from anyone to join or not join.

Union membership

Redundancy, work changes or restructuring

Your employer must talk to you in if there will be any changes to the workplace that could negatively affect your hours or role, for example:

• changes to your current employment agreement, like fewer hours or days of work
• restructuring
• redundancy.

The basics of workplace change

Redundancy

Employment records

Your employer must keep records about your employment history with them, for example, when you worked, for how long and what your wages were. You can ask to see your employment records at any time.

Record-keeping

Resigning

You can resign at any time by telling your employer that you’ll be leaving and working the notice period set out in your employment agreement.

There’s no set legal notice period, so if your agreement does not say what it is, then it must be reasonable.

Giving notice

Learn about your rights in our free learning modules

Learn about your rights and responsibilities as an employee through our Employment Learning Modules. They're free to access.

Online learning

Minimum employment rights always apply

Your employment agreement sets out the terms and conditions of your job. It can be an individual agreement or a collective agreement if you are a member of a union.

Your employer cannot avoid giving you your minimum by putting something different in your agreement.

You are entitled to your minimum even if:

• they’re not mentioned in your agreement
• your agreement tries to trade minimum rights off against each other
• your agreement gives you less than what’s required under the law
• you do not have a written agreement (by law, your employer is required to give you one).

Negotiating better terms

Employers can offer their employees better terms and conditions than the legal minimum rights.

If your employment agreement includes terms that are better than the legal minimum rights, your employer must honour those terms.

The following table shows some minimum employment rights with examples of where employers and employees have negotiated better terms and conditions in their employment agreements.

Employee responsibilities

You also have responsibilities at work. You must:

• be at work and willing to work during the days and hours and at the times that you agreed to in your employment agreement
• only be away from work for a valid reason — for example, if you are sick, bereaved or already agreed with your employer to have time off.

Follow all lawful and reasonable requests

You must follow all reasonable requests from your employer as long as they:

• are lawful
• are within the scope of your job and your employment agreement
• do not expose you, or anyone else, to a serious risk to health and safety from an immediate or upcoming hazard (unless risk is a recognised part of the job, for example, if you are a firefighter).

Keep yourself and others safe

You must:

• take reasonable care of your own health and safety and ensure that your actions do not cause harm to yourself or others
• comply with any reasonable instructions, policies or procedures on how to work in a safe and healthy way.

Your rights and obligations – WorkSafe(external link)

Exercise reasonable care, skills and knowledge

You must take care when doing your work. This means doing the job to the best of your abilities. If your employer followed a good hiring process and trained you in everything you need to know, you should have the skills and knowledge needed to do your job.

You should use your skills in a way that protects your employer’s assets and property (‘assets’ are things your employer owns, like equipment or office furniture).

Behave reasonably

You must behave reasonably while at work, and in some cases when you’re not at work, especially if your actions could make your employer look bad. Check your organisation’s rules and policies — for example, a code of conduct — which will outline things like:

• dress standards, including any uniform requirements
• expected behaviour at work
• use of email and social media while at work.

Workplace policies and procedures

Misconduct

Act in good faith

You and your employer must deal with each other in good faith. This includes being open, honest and responsive towards each other.

Good faith

Be trustworthy and protect information

You must:

• respect your employer’s confidentiality and not share private work information outside of work
• be loyal to your employer. This means acting in their best interests and not breaking the trust between you. For example:
  • do not ask for or accept rewards, like travel points, from other people for work you do, unless your employer agrees
  • do not try to take your employer’s customers for yourself while you’re still working there.

Your rights and responsibilities when working more than 1 job

You can have more than 1 job unless your employment agreement says you cannot — for example, some employment agreements have a clause that stops the employee from working for someone else (sometimes called a ‘secondary employment provision’).

Your employer must have a genuine reason based on reasonable grounds (this means a real, sensible reason) to include something in your employment agreement that says:

• you cannot work for another person, or
• you need your employer’s consent to work for another person.

They must put the reason in your employment agreement. Examples of genuine reasons include:

• to protect your employer’s commercially sensitive information
• to protect your employer’s intellectual property rights
• to protect your employer’s commercial reputation
• to prevent a real conflict of interest that cannot be managed another way
• for health and safety reasons to do with your job, for example, making sure truck drivers get enough rest between journeys.

Your responsibilities if you have more than 1 job

You must meet your responsibilities to all your employers.

If you have more than 1 job, this means making sure:

• your work hours and tasks do not make you so tired that it puts you or others in danger
• you do not use your working time and resources from 1 job to do tasks for your other job
• that working more than 1 job does not stop you doing each job well.

If you’re working more than 1 job, you may have to pay more tax:

Tax codes for individuals – Inland Revenue(external link)