How redundancy in New Zealand should be handled.
With wonderful timing, theres a really great blog on the Herald Website from employment lawyer Bridget Smith. She went to see the film Up In The Air with George Clooney – which funnily enough we also went to see the other day. Its about a guy who fires people for a living as a consultant, because the bosses are too cowardly to do it.
In it she highlights the important points you need to know about how the process should work here.
Which is different in every way to what happened to hubby last week oddly enough.
While there is no set process for a redundancy, the Employment Relations Act 2000 requires consultation with potentially affected employees about a proposal, before any final decisions are made.
In addition, the common law makes it clear that consultation is more than notification and the process must not be a sham.
Basically, the process under New Zealand law requires an employer to provide potentially affected employees with a memorandum which outlines what is proposed and why.
The employees should be provided with sufficient information in order to be able to provide feedback on the proposal, including possible alternatives and this feedback, including any possible alternatives, must be considered by the employer prior to any final decisions being made.
Hmmm – mustn’t be a sham.
A memorandum explaining what is proposed and why? Nope – didn’t get one of those.
Sufficient information provided? Nope – not yet.
So, New Zealand employees can breathe something of a sigh of relief. The chances of a Corporate Downsizing Expert (or Mr Clooney for that matter) beaming into your office, out of the blue, via video conference, and advising that you have been made redundant, are slim to none.
Not so slim it seems.
Certainly if your employer has any familiarity with employment law in New Zealand and wants to avoid litigation in the form of a personal grievance. Because the reality is, in that situation, even George Clooney would struggle to soften the blow.
I agree: the people in charge of these redundancies (and hubby hasn’t actually been told who was going to make the decision) should have spent a bit of time asking a lawyer what they needed to do instead of messing it up so badly. I cant help but hope they lose their jobs when the next lot of heads have to roll.
It seems management hasn’t quite figured out that if you get rid of all the staff that actually do teh work and make the money, they won’t need managers.
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IBM New Zealand redundancies – they are not rumours.
IBM New Zealand has refused to comment on rumours it is making 34 staff redundant in Wellington and merging its northern and southern region sales teams.
Spokeswoman Courtney Allen said IBM “continuously re-balances skills and capabilities to meet the changing needs of clients. While many of our competitors were contracting in response to the global financial crisis, we hired consistently throughout last year with over 80 appointments,” she said.
The leadership team was continually changing to meet the needs of clients and business, Ms Allen said. “This is business as usual for IBM.”
The subsidiary employs about 1000 staff. It last reported a reduced profit of $13.7 million on sales of $391.4m in 2008.
IBM’s United States parent this week cut nearly 1000 jobs from its worldwide work force of 400,000. The New Zealand subsidiary of its biggest global rival, Hewlett-Packard, this week reported a $8.9m loss and a 10.5 per cent drop in sales.
Dismissing the crap from the spokesman as absolute BS, which is what it is, I can confirm that IBM have made 30+ people redundant, with almost no notice and an appalling lack of anything approaching the legal standards for doing so.
Hubby is one of those people.
They were told on Wednesday (the same day believe it or not that we got confirmation of my brother’s residency), and were given till just Monday as a “consultation period”. Although there is no statutory legal minimum period that employers need to give for this “consultation” – 1 week is the standard that has been formed by case law. 3 days is unreasonable, and is grounds for seeking a Personal Grievance.
I cant say too much, as oddly enough, hubby is one of several people it seems who are doing just that. Its been a hatchet job: badly handled by people who really shouldn’t be allowed to keep their jobs, and basically its one almighty cock-up.
We understand that this has been done so quickly to keep the news out of the paper. So glad that didn’t work (and no – it was NOT me that told the Dom Post!)
And this isn’t business as usual for IBM. IBM New Zealand operates in a world of its own, and one that is frankly an embarrassment to the rest of IBM, if it was actually important enough for the rest of IBM to care what was going on down here. IBM as a company has always been clear that technical staff are not treated as lower class workers than management. If you are a technical specialist, which lets face it – IBM does kinda rely on – you can rise in the company as far as your skills will take you. Not so in New Zealand, where managers get easily offended at technical staff getting paid more then them, and and are not above lying through their back teeth to cover up their own lack of effort and skill.
THAT is what is “Business as usual” in IBM New Zealand. We have seen so many people shoved out in the last year or so because a manager didn’t like them: their “face doesn’t fit”. Hubby himself got a bad personal review last month for no other reason than a manager of his was upset over his high salary, and the fact the he wanted a pay rise.
All in all its a shambles. IBM NZ has been becoming more and more toxic as a workplace, and to be honest we knew it was only a matter for time before something like this happened.
Its things like this that mean so many people leave New Zealand. Working for people who just don’t know what they are doing can be very depressing. While there is a huge amount to come to New Zealand for, screwing up what was a brilliant career really wasn’t the plan, and should not be a cost of emigrating here.
So, now what do we do?
Well, not much really. We have an emergency fund which will cover 2 months worth of bills and living expenses, on top of another months pay and nearly 2 months pay in redundancy (at a reduced payment because IBM is not being exactly fair and honest about hubbies salary. Again.)
I cant stress enough the need to make sure you have these funds behind you, especially if you are taking high paid work in New Zealand. Tall Poppy Syndrome is a huge problem here, and if you are good at your job, and/or get paid a lot of money, there are some very short poppies here who will do their best to get rid of you.
We are far from the only ones that have been affected by this: its actually fairly standard. And certainly in high paid IT circles – it seems to be pretty much the only way to get a pay rise. So be prepared. Then if or when it happens, you have the distinct pleasure of being able to sit back and not in any way beg for a job from the people who just shat all over you.
Trust me – that is a nice feeling!
So, hubby has already started the process of having endless coffee meetings, phone calls and interviews. No point in waiting around! Oddly enough although IBM NZ claims it doesn’t need hubby any longer – they still expect him to work out his notice. Again, very different from IBM UK who have the sense to get disgruntled staff off the premises pronto.
And we wait for the lawyers to do their thing.
If you happen to be affected by this – we recommend an employment lawyer in Lower Hutt: Mike Gould at Gibson Sheat. He’s not cheap, but he’s good, and it really is worth every cent if like in this case your employer has not followed the expected process or has bullied you in any way. You are entitled to seek legal advice if you are being made redundant, and if anyone in management claims you are making a threat by saying you will be seeking legal advise, please make sure you tell your lawyer this. If you really cannot afford a private lawyer, don’t forget Citizens advice, who can offer you information for free.
BTW – while NZ staff were given three days “consultation”, UK Staff were given 90 days. Says it all about how New Zealand companies are run.
Mike Gould: Gibson Sheat:
04 569 4873
mike.gould@gibsonsheat.com
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Squandering skills
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work
The Herald on Sunday today had a small article in their Career10 section, about how the ‘in demand’ skills of migrants are being squandered – or rather being ignored in the first place. [Sorry, no online copy that I can find]
It’s an all round in-offensive article that doesn’t really go anywhere. However it does provide a couple of useful pointers;
1. There is a mentoring scheme called OMEGA running for new migrants who don’t have a job yet. Only it’s limited to Auckland. Ho hum..
Still, OMEGA has the right idea, and it’s better than nothing. They run a number of different scheme’s to help new emigrants link up with employers and get some experience, understanding and knowledge of the Kiwi workplace.
I’m not familiar with OMEGA, more reading to come, so I’m not in a position to endorse it as such. They are there though, and in place to help new migrants. Something that’s rare and very welcome.
2. Kiwi employers tend to give preference in jobs to people they know. This is something we’ve mentioned previously, and the general thing is that most NZ cities are so small, anyone knows pretty much everyone else, or is related to them. {For example, a German migrant friend of ours was appearing in a Terry Pratchett play being put on by a local amateur dramatic society. We went. It was good, I talk about this to a colleague at work the next day. His aunt was playing one of the lead witches. It just works like that.}
Since many Kiwi companies are (relatively) small, they are indeed interviewing someone as if to invite them to join their family. They want to have confidence you will fit in with everyone else. Rather than being particular on exactly which industry certifications you’ve got in the last few years. Of course the down side is that if you’re new to the country, you wont know many people. And many people wont know you.
While you first job may not be ideal, it gets you working, bring money in, and starts to get you connected with others in the industry. This is when the whole ‘contacts’ and knowing people kicks in.
So my take? Don’t worry that much about not knowing people from the start, it’ll happen once you’re working and your next job can be that ideal one it would be great to land.
Which is exactly where OMEGA can fit in, helping people start even if it’s just a stepping stone to the job that really spins your wheels.
Immigration New Zealand is still misleading people about Work To Residence Visas.
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
Lincoln Tan is reporting on the continuing trauma being caused to people who are being led to believe that a Work To Residence Visa will automatically mean you get Permanent Residency.
It won’t. And this is a prime example of why outlawing blogs like this is morally repugnant. INZ are misleading people, and it’s illegal to advise people what they should be doing. The Immigration minister should hang his head in shame.
The agency issued 2261 work-to-residence visas and permits last year despite 44 per cent of those immigrants already here on such visas failing to find employment.
But Agnes Granada of the Migrant Action Trust said the system was frivolous and totally irresponsible because it was destroying people’s lives.
“The work-to-residence permit is not a straight work permit, and migrants come here on the promise of permanency once they can get employment – but when there are no jobs for them, it becomes a trap.”
Make sure you too are not misled by either INZ itself, or your “licensed immigration advisor”. It is not in their interests to ensure that you understand what a work to residence visa is. They want your money, and if you get stuck here having sold everything up to make the move – you will find you are on your own.
Please, please, please understand that until you have Permanent residency – you do not have permanent residency.
It’s as simple as that. No matter what you are told by INZ or Advisors – that’s the simple fact. A work to Residency visa, work visa, or silver fern visa is NOT a residency visa. If you have any of those – be exceedingly careful of selling up everything, and be prepared to lose the lot if you do not keep some funds back to get home. Because INZ won’t give a toss about you once you have to go home.
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Cadburys – it’s not a Kiwi Icon.
I got a tweet today regarding the takeover of Cadburys by Kraft saying “Cadbury no longer a kiwi icon??”
Errrm – it never was. It may be popular in New Zealand – but it’s British. As in started life in 1824 in Birmingham.
Cadburys in New Zealand may produce some iconic kiwi sweets – but could we possibly keep Cadburys itself as a “British Icon” please? It’s not even as if New Zealand Dairy Milk bears much resemblence to the real thing.
There’s an article here about what the takeover means for the Dunedin Factory – with some interesting comments.
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Commuting to Auckland
Filed under: Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work, Life in New Zealand
Having tried our inaugral flight into Masterton a number of months ago, I had to go up to Auckland for the day last week. So I decided to try out the Masterton commuter flight.
Now, I had to pay $600 for the return trip booked a week in advance, although looking now for just over a week in advance and you can get the same flights for $350 – at that price very comparable for the WLG-AKL flights. Either way, when you factor in parking, petrol etc. even a $600 return flight is better than driving into Wellington.
So what does the time table for the day look like?
0630 leave home - about the same time I’d leave to get the train into Wellington.
0650 arrive at airport, park, walk to terminal building, check-in, drink some tea, have a comfort break, read some of my book generally use up spare time 
0700 start boarding board plane
0701 finish boarding plane
0705 plane takes off
0815 arrive Auckland airport (early!)
~0900 arrive Auckland CBD
(1800-ish leave Auckland CBD – now I typically leave earlier than 1800 as traffic starts building from approx 1600 making the taxi journey too time consuming at over an hour – ha! how relative ‘bad traffic’ becomes when you are in NZ!)
1900 flight leaves Auckland
2015 Arrive Masterton
2016 disembark plane, walk through arrivals hall, walk out into carpark, start car
2017 drive out of car park
2030 arrive home.
Which makes for a slightly long day, however if I tried to get an 0700 flight from Wellington to get me into Auckland for the same time, I’d have to leave home by about 0430 to allow enough time to drive, park, check-in and wait in the departure lounge! Plus getting a 1700 flight back would have me home by about the same time, only I’d get two hours less work done up in Auckland. On this occasion it meant I could have a (business) lunch with a colleague.
Now because we’re in a small plane we’re also not flying as high, about 20,000 feet. So after levelling out from take off at Masterton – there’s an immediate view of Tongariro ahead, and the Pacific coast to the right. Which just makes you wonder why you’re on a flight to Auckland instead of heading to the beach – but ho hum.
The really good views this time were actually on the flight back. Like these of Tongariro;
And this;
oh, and this rather good view;
It’s a budget day today.
Filed under: Banks, Cost of living, Mortgages in New Zealand
I don’t think it’s a huge secret that we have splurged a bit this year –after being very careful with our budgets and spending for several years. There has been some work on the house to do, spoiling ourselves outrageously with a new TV and sound system, and spending a small fortune on coffee, eating out and hotel stays in an effort to deal with the stress of handling jerks at Immigration.
We have managed to do it by taking a Mortgage Holiday – basically we are so far ahead on our mortgage payments that we decided to take a break and relax for a while.
But that has to end, and we now have to get back to the serious job of telling the banks to get stuffed. So we need a budget day – to get back on track and see where we are and what we need to do.
It can be very scary having days like this – especially if you have the feeling of impending doom that goes with knowing you have spent way more than you have earned – but it’s got to be done.
So we started out by looking at what we actually spent over the last year. It’s a quick enough job for us, as we can print the information off our accounts and then just add it into our spreadsheet. You can download a copy of that from here if you want to.
(Note: sorted.org.nz has a budget sheet you can fill in, but a friend of mine used it lately and it actually wasn’t that impressive. A good alternative to mine is available on Moneysaving expert).
Honestly – it wasn’t actually that bad. Almost all of the overspend was on the “Splurge”. When we take that into account – even though I have not been as careful with money this year as usual – we were still not far off target.
Our biggest issue for the next year is that like a lot people, our fixed bills are going up, and yet our income is not. We have had to take out some extra insurances, IBM are now too bloody tight-fisted to pay for home internet for their staff, electricity – well – when did that last go down in price – and our Doctors bills went through the roof thanks to the jerks at INZ.
Oddly enough – and to my utter shock – our transport costs came down by about $400! That’s mostly because petrol has come down, and Hubby works at home as much as he can (and IBM have not yet made that against company policy).
Once we saw how bad (or not) it was – we then made some decisions about what we feel we should or could cut back on. As usual – we have checked our electricity and phone supplies, and we are not changing them right now.
We have also set a date to do a review in 2 months time to check on things. We wouldn’t normally have to do it so soon, but this is because we have been lax this year – and need to get to grips with things. For us, this is also the first time since we came to New Zealand that we will have the same spending requirements over the whole of the next 12 months. In the past, when the family have been here – they share the bills, but when we are on our own – we pay for it all. From here on in, the bills should be the same all the time, and that will actually make it easier for both us and my parents to keep on track.
Anyway – we are done – and I’m off for a coffee.
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Avalon’s Money Thread – Negotiating Wages.
I think it’s worth remembering that by and large – we are coming out here as Skilled Migrants. Which means we have skills that New Zealand needs. How many of us have skills on a list that says they are in an extreme shortage here? So why are we accepting lower wages
I picked up a piece of advise about negotiating on house prices – which (bear with me) works really well on wages to.
If you tell the company what you will accept – they will not pay a penny more (generally speaking – anyway). If you say to the company – offer me what you think I’m worth, then you get to know their top price. Bear in mind – if they don’t get you to do the job – who else are they going to give the job to? It takes a strong constitution to do this but it can be worth it – it worked out for us anyway.
When we were looking at comparison wages – we wanted 3x UK total package. It may sound like a lot – but many goods here can cost more than 3x UK prices so I personally think its only fair. We accepted way less than that (nearer 2x), but have now moved on and got almost 3x. The next move is on the way – and we aren’t looking to move down the scale!
(Edit: This is a Lot harder to do right now obviously – Ive already blogged about how Hubby didnt get the expected and promised pay rise when we was made a Permanant Employee at IBM. But bear in mind – the recession won’t least forever, and the cycle will come round again when you will be able to negotiate better wages).
I’ve often thought the biggest weapon employers have in keeping wages low is our utter reluctance to tell others what we earn. We seem to think it’s a dirty word or something. It takes some “constitution” but it’s certainly worth asking co-workers flat out what they are being paid.
We are in the fortunate situation here that Hubby’s job has quite a small “community” of people who do it – and they are often having coffee with each other (coffee – really is the source of all goodness in life
)- so they all know a/ what’s going on among the various employers, and b/ what the salaries are. OH has just been offered an op by a recruitment firm – so his first step was to buy a coffee for the guy who took the job 12 months ago when it was last offered. He knows what the guy was being paid, and what he had to do for it. Makes a big difference in deciding whether to go for it or not, and how much you would want to do the same job.
Avalon’s Money Thread is a series of posts which were originally written in 2007 for an Immigration Forum. They came about by answering questions that forum members asked, about how to cope with the often difficult financial situation they face in New Zealand. They formed the basis of what was eventually to become the book Avalon’s Guide: after another year or so of drinking way too much coffee and finding out way more about taxes, money and investing that any sane person should.
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Avalon’s Money Thread – Will you have to take a lower wage?
We also had to take a large pay cut when we first came here – but it didn’t take us long to find out that Hubby had been ripped-off because we were not Kiwi’s. Apparently the lady who hired Hubby was dancing around the office because “she had got this really great guy dead cheap!” It was pointed out to her that if he were that great – it wouldn’t take long for him to leave! But the theory is that if they hire a migrant – they have got your loyalty for at least a year. So, on the basis that we knew the value of his experience – we went shopping for better offers, and got 3! All of which would pay nearly the old UK rate!
You CAN make decent money over here. It’s just not true to say that it can’t be done. OK, so not everyone can earn big bucks, but then that’s the same anywhere. We were earning good money compared to most people in the UK, and we are here too.
I honestly do not believe that you have to earn less to be happy or that by taking a lower salary you are somehow automatically gaining a “lifestyle”. Why can’t you have both? What you may have to do is spend less than you earn!
I can and have been very happy on no money, and I’ve been miserable and very poor while earning very good money. However, I also manage to be pretty contented and happy while earning a decent and fair wage. It’s just wrong to pay a migrant less than a Kiwi for doing the same job. The same as its wrong to pay men and women different wages for doing the same job.
Any company will pay its employees the least it can get away with. (Sometimes its called exploitation – why do we accept it?) It doesn’t mean we have to take it if there’s a better choice elsewhere. I feel (imho only – its just a feeling – not based on ANY factual evidence – just what I’ve picked up) that there’s quite a con going on in convincing migrants that they will have to take massive pay cuts to come here. Whether its because you “have no NZ experience” or “we cant afford high wages here”. Fine – we have no NZ experience – but hey – we have UK experience and by and large – if you want to be a “world player” you need that experience – so pay for it! In Hubby’s job for example – NZ experience just means you know the worst way of doing the job. UK experience means you may have some idea of how it’s SUPPOSED to be done!
NZ has apparently got a booming economy and a surplus of cash (edited to add – even now that it doesnt – we can afford to pay our MP’s a salary in excess of $100k plus upto $50k in tax free “expenses”). Why should the shareholders be the only ones getting a cut? The workers should be fairly and equitably paid. I hope one day that migrants will get paid a fair wage for doing the job and not get talked into “necessarily” earning lower wages than they deserve.
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Hubby’s views a different perspective
Filed under: Hubby's Views, Jobs & Work, Life in New Zealand
When we first arrived in NZ, I got a new mobile phone. Since I was working for Telecom, this meant it was the latest 3G camera phone with everything you could want (Sanyo 7400). A far cry from the five year old Nokia 6310 I had just a month previously; A black LCD screen, no camera and I was doing fancy things by using the InfraRed connection to my laptop, so the phone worked as a modem for me to send email while I was on the train.
So I was full of the joy of a new phone, taking photo’s of random stuff on my way to work. Below, Civic Square with Wellington City Council offices in the background and the Majestic centre (where I now work) towering over.
HMNZS Wellington, now sunk as a scuba diving destination.
That didn’t last long, on account of my commute being a 2 minute walk from the appartment to the office. So then I started taking photo’s of stuff generally out and about.
Suffice to say, my photography skills are not that great – unlike the folks over at Wellington Daily Photo, who find all sorts of interesting things to take pics of.
However, one of the joys in my job is having meetings at the top of tall buildings. And on a good day admiring the view from them. So to follow will be posts from an alternative point of Hubby’s views.
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