Employer rights and responsibilities

What are employer rights

All employers have . You must use these rights in fair and reasonable ways that follow employment law.

You have the right to:

• decide how to run your business, including:
  • setting wages
  • allocating resources, and
  • restructuring in certain circumstances
• establish workplace policies and procedures, and consult with employees on these where necessary
• manage your employees, including:
  • giving them lawful and reasonable instructions to follow
  • assigning work, and
  • overseeing performance
• protect your intellectual property
• take action during collective bargaining if certain criteria are met
• appropriately manage performance issues and misconduct, including taking disciplinary action if needed
• dismiss an employee if you have followed all the dismissal rules
• add a clause in the employment agreement that stops the employee from working for someone else, if you have a genuine reason to do this.

Workplace policies and procedures

Restructuring and workplace change

Managing performance issues

Dismissal

You also have the right for your employee to:

• deal with you in good faith and not mislead or deceive you
• act in your best interests and not undermine the relationship of trust and confidence
• keep confidential information private during and after their employment, including trade secrets and other sensitive data.

What are employer responsibilities

As an employer, you must:

• provide work to your employees, and
• give them their rights by law — these are called minimum employment rights.

Minimum employment rights cover:

• employment agreements
• pay and wages
• breaks
• holidays and leave
• safe and fair workplaces
• flexible working
• union membership
• redundancy, work changes or restructuring
• record keeping
• acting in good faith.

You must give your employee their minimum employment rights even if they are not written into an . They cannot be reduced, taken away or traded off for other things.

Who employers have to give minimum employment rights to

All employees are entitled to minimum employment rights.

There are some employment rights that certain employees do not have when they are being dismissed — that is employees who:

• earn $200,000 or more a year (unless they have opted back in to dismissal protections), or
• are on a trial period. 

For more information, see:

Dismissal rules for high income earners

Trial periods

Contractors and volunteers

Contractors (self-employed people) and volunteers are not employees so do not have minimum employment rights. This is because they do not have rights under employment law.

They have rights under different laws instead, for example rights under the:

• Human Rights Act 1993
• Privacy Act 2020
• Health and Safety at Work Act 2015, and
• Contracts and Commercial Law Act 2017.   

Details of minimum employment rights

Below are the details of the minimum employment rights you must give your employee.

Employment agreements

You must:

• give your employees a written employment agreement, also known as a contract, and keep it up to date
• allow employees to get advice or support from someone they trust before they sign the agreement.

Employment agreements

Pay and wages

You must:

• pay your employees at least the minimum wage for each hour they work, including overtime, if they are 16 years or older
• pay your employees in cash, unless they’ve agreed to receive it a different way, like by direct credit (the bank account must be in their name)
• not take (deduct) money from your employees’ wages unless:
  • it’s lawful
  • it's reasonable, and
  • they asked for or agreed to it in writing, or it's required by law (for example, tax and student loan payments)
• not ask for or receive money from an employee to give them or keep them in a job (this is called charging a ‘premium’)
• not tell your employees where or how to spend their pay.

Pay and wages

Breaks

You must give your employee regular rest breaks and meal breaks. Rest breaks must be paid.

How many breaks you give your employee and how long they are depends on how many hours they've worked.

For example, for an 8-hour day, you should give your employee:

• 2 paid 10-minute rest breaks, and
• 1 unpaid 30-minute meal break.

For example, for a 6-hour day, you should give your employee:

• 1 paid 10-minute rest break, and
• 1 unpaid 30-minute meal break.

If your employee wants to breastfeed or express milk, you must provide extra breaks and appropriate facilities.

Rest and breaks

Holidays and leave

There are types of leave you must give your employee once they have worked for you for a certain amount of time.

For more information about each of these leave types and what employees are entitled to, see:

Taking annual holidays

Taking sick leave

Taking bereavement leave

Taking family violence leave

Public holidays

There are 12 public holidays each year.

You must pay your employee for a public holiday if it falls on a day they would usually work.

If your employee works on a public holiday, you must:

• pay them at least time-and-a-half, and
• give them a paid alternative holiday if it falls on a day they would usually work.

Public holidays

Parental leave and jury service

You must give your employee:

• up to 52 weeks' parental leave to care for a new child if they meet the work requirements
• unpaid leave for jury service.

Taking parental leave

Jury service leave

Safe and fair workplace

You must:

• provide a workplace that is healthy and safe, with proper training, supervision and equipment
• not demand to keep an employee’s passport
• provide a workplace that is free from bullying, harassment and unlawful discrimination
• not treat employees adversely (badly or unfairly) at work, for example:
  • dismissing an employee without following the rules for dismissal
  • paying an employee less than others for doing the same, or similar, work because of their sex
  • taking action against an employee because they made a protected disclosure (whistleblowing)
  • breaking the terms of the employment agreement or not giving employees their legal employment rights.

General requirements for workplaces – WorkSafe(external link)

Bullying, harassment and discrimination

Dismissal

Flexible working

Employees can ask for flexible work arrangements at any time. For example, changes to their hours, days or place of work.

You must:

• consider any requests for flexible working arrangements
• reply within the required timeframe
• only say ‘no’ for certain reasons (‘recognised business’ or ‘non-accommodation’ grounds).

Responding to a flexible working request

Union membership

You must allow your employees to join a union if they want to, without any pressure from anyone to join or not join.

Union membership

Redundancy, work changes or restructuring

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

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

The basics of workplace change

Redundancy

Record-keeping

You must keep complete and accurate records of your employees’ wages, time, holidays and leave.

For example:

• when your employee worked
• how long your employee worked for (for example, the number of hours), and
• what your employee's wages were.

Employees can ask to see their employment records at any time.

Record-keeping

Act in good faith

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

Good faith

In most cases, you must also follow a fair process and have a good reason for any action you take against an employee.

Fair process

Good reason

Negotiating better rights for your employee

You can give your employees better terms and conditions than their minimum employment rights. For example 5 weeks of annual holidays instead of 4.

If you do this, you must honour those terms.

Find examples of negotiated better terms and conditions here:

Employee rights and responsibilities

Learn about your rights and responsibilities in our learning modules

Watch our Employment Learning Modules to learn about your rights and responsibilities. They're free to access.

Online learning