Leanne Watson: Business Canterbury CEO on the proposed changes to the Holidays Act

There's hopes the holiday law changes will benefit Kiwi businesses. 

The Government's drafting legislation and will put it out for consultation in September. 

It includes proposing moving annual leave from an entitlement system to an accrual system and linking sick leave to hours worked. 

Business Canterbury CEO Leeann Watson told Mike Hosking that the system hasn't kept up with modern day work practices. 

She says it's not fit for purpose and changes are needed, so this is a step in the right direction. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Change also, as I mentioned, coming potentially to the Holidays Act.
So we're looking at pro rate sick leaver switch from
an entitlement system to in a cruel system and you
will leave. This is the this is the idea of
the workplace relations Minister Brooklyn Velden, who's telling us businesses
had struggled since the previous government decided to double sick
Legley and Watson, CEO of Business Canterbury, is with us
Lee and very good morning to you, wanting make broadly

(00:21):
do these ideas make sense?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
They do. We have educated four years for the holiday
to be reviewed properly and to make sure that it
is fit for purpose for the modern workplace. So the
review was originally launched in twenty nineteen, but not a
lot of progress is made. So we are glad that
this's back on the agenda for the government.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
How can you launch a review in twenty nineteen and
not really make any progress? How does that work?

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah? Not sure about that. But what we do know
is this current act requires an advanced calculus degree to
work out what leaders owed to staff calling huge frustration
and miscalculations and unintentional errors. And it's not just you know,
for small booths who don't have dedicated HR departments. We've
seen it across you know, big, small, private and public organizations.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Is it sick and annual?

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yes, it is, and I think it's it's probably probably
one of the ones that causes the most frustration, in
particular for small business is the sickly And sometimes what
people don't necessarily realize or you know, they don't understand
what the impact is, so when they change to ten
sick days rather than win it is two weeks. How

(01:32):
that plays out is someone who works one day a
week effectively is entitled to ten days sickly, which is
going to cause, you know, put huge risk and pressure,
particularly on small businesses who you know, as we know,
are facing plenty of other risks and stress right now.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
The two things on that six side of the equation
one is the ADMIN one is the cost Is that fair?

Speaker 2 (01:52):
Yeah? And it's yes, yeah. And just the pure complexity
of it, so you know, the calculations are particularly challenging
for or businesses who employ casual, part time stuff. And
you know, we know the government can't even figure out
how to do it with to fart or over two
billion to staff of a miscalculation. So you know, it
suggests that they have slightly larger HR departments than ninety

(02:15):
seven percent of businesses in the country who employ less
than twenty stuff. So we know it's complex when we've
seen larger organizations, you know, were sophisticated, you know, payroll
systems and HR departments who have not understood the complexities either.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
So there's another one of these things that we were
talking about early childhood a moment ago, and everyone agrees
that the it's shambalic, it's overregulated, there's too much paperwork.
This is the same thing, shambalic, over regulated, too much paperwork.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Yeah, and it just hasn't kept up with modern day
work practices, you know, we know, you know, casual and
part time workers, you know, very much prevalent in all
workplaces nowadays, and so you know, things like the sick
leave is a pleasant example where it's just not fit
for purpose and it is definitely needing to be changed. So,
you know, while we still need to see some of
the d tail and the exposure draft, the signals from

(03:02):
the minister is Sidney a step in the right direction.

Speaker 1 (03:04):
Staff LeeAnne, always a pleasure to have you on the program.
Appreciate it very much. Leanne Wat's in the CEO of
Business Canterbury. Yet another thing weird that you can have
so many problems that everyone agrees as a problem, and
yet nobody does anything about it, or the last government
at least launched an inquiry back in twenty nineteen, and
as you heard lindsay, a moment ago achieved basically nothing.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
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Speaker 1 (03:28):
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