IMMIGRATION LAW UPDATE RACHAEL MASON
The remotest of remote Remote working, where the employee is based outside New Zealand, presents significant challenges for employers and HR professionals in ensuring the health and wellbeing of employees as well as ensuring effectiveness in their roles. Rachael Mason, Partner at Lane Neave, explores ways to support remote workers.
in most cases is to exhaust all avenues for enabling their entry to New Zealand. Make sure you get good advice about what options are available to secure a border exception. Sometimes, the easier and more certain route for securing a border exception may be through a family-based category rather than an employer-led category. This may be the case if either the candidate or their partner is a New Zealand or Australian citizen or resident or if their partner’s employer can make a stronger claim for an exception.
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The introduction of the transTasman bubble also offers further opportunities for potential entry to New Zealand. In some cases, your candidate (or their partner) may be able to secure entry to Australia, which then opens up the option of New Zealand entry via the bubble. A lot of moving parts need to be considered, so getting good advice is very important.
ver the past year, many employers will have had employees who have been affected by the border closures due to the COVID-19 pandemic, where they are stuck offshore and unable to gain re-entry to New Zealand. A further scenario is where candidates have been offered employment before or during the border closure and cannot enter the country, so they have started their role working remotely offshore. New Zealand employers have already made good progress in successfully enabling remote working.
Employees stuck offshore – is a border exception possible? If you have an employee who is stuck offshore, the first consideration 38
HUMAN RESOURCES
WINTER 2021
If you are thinking of making an appointment for someone who is offshore, consider getting advice about the possibility of successfully securing a border exception before making an offer so you and your employee can have realistic expectations about what the next few months may hold.
Supporting employee wellness for remote workers overseas
While some roles may be carried out remotely, we have worked with several employers (and their employees) who have struggled with the effects of working remotely. Some of the issues encountered include time differences, leading to fatigue (which can then lead to issues of effectiveness, increased risk of errors and so on); IT issues such as connectivity problems and security; greater difficulty assimilating with the New Zealand business culture; challenges in building relationships and working collaboratively with internal colleagues and external stakeholders. In addition to the above, the overall impact on employee wellbeing due to the cumulative nature of all these issues and the effect that sustained work in another time zone can have on their personal, family and social lives cannot be underestimated. If you have employees (or prospective employees) stuck overseas who currently do not have an option to secure a border exception, you can do some things to help support their wellbeing. Bridget Romanes, Global Mobility Specialist and Principal of Mobile Relocation, has delivered virtual wellbeing programmes for
