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Employees can ask to change their work arrangements, place, hours, or days. Employers must consider this.

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If we are totally honest, many New Zealand businesses view a compliance training programme simply as a 'tick box' exercise. In fact, for many it goes further than this, it actually gets in the way of day to day operations. Yet, the regulatory landscape has changed significantly in the last few years and so it really has become something that can no longer be simply ignored. Beyond this need, as organisational reputation is of more and more importance in the informed business age, being an employer who does the right thing by their employees is arguably more critical than it has ever been.

The Impact of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015

HR professionals will be more than aware of the new Health and Safety legislation that came into place in April 2016, and the need to make the whole organisation understand their responsibilities. This theme is discussed by John O'Rourke, Health and Safety Consultant at MinterEllisonRuddWatts. John observes that, "Since the harmonisation of Health & Safety regulations, safety is given much higher priority in Australia than in New Zealand, and the fines associated with incidents have been increasing significantly. Of course, in New Zealand you will find that most, if not all, large organisations take their Health & Safety responsibilities very seriously.

However, it can be difficult to put those systems in place and be systematic in the approach for smaller SMEs."

Making Compliance Training and Reporting Simple

Since a compliance programme should be a key priority for all New Zealand businesses, regardless of size, can this be established without costing too much time or money? The simple answer to this is 'yes'! The best way to achieve compliance, whatever the size or complexity of your business, be it big or small, is through an online program. Taking your compliance program online has real benefits to your business. Let's have a quick look at a couple:

Firstly, it saves you, that is the business owner, HR, Learning and Development or Training department time. The beauty of online learning is that once it is setup, the system can run and manage your roll-out as if by magic. Automatic scheduling facilitates welcome and reminder emails, significantly reducing the time required to administer your compliance program.

Secondly, you can prove that learning has taken place. This is vital to any compliance program. Keeping records and tracking that everyone in your organisation knows their responsibilities can seem onerous, especially when using traditional classroom training and paper records. Moving it online means you can accurately report that the training was completed, and when coupled with online testing can confirm that an acceptable level of knowledge transfer took place.

The Full Advantages of an Online Program

The great news of course is that once your online training program is up and running the annual programme practically takes care of itself, meaning you can focus your attention where your business or organisation needs it most.

The above just gives two of the reasons why you and your organisation can benefit from an online compliance program. To find out more, read this article which discussed the 'Top 10 Reasons for an Online Compliance Program'.

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Do you really need a compliance programme?

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If we are totally honest, many New Zealand businesses view a compliance training programme simply as a 'tick box' exercise. In fact, for many it goes further than this, it actually gets in the way of day to day operations.

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Much has been said about how an employee's wellbeing has a direct correlation to their performance and productivity.

But some companies still overlook the emotional component when creating their employee wellbeing plan, said Ofer Leidner, co-founder and president of Happify, a science-based software platform for employee happiness and emotional wellbeing.

"A core number of companies are starting to realize there's another layer to the overall employee wellbeing that has been previously neglected - the emotional wellbeing component," he said.

" For years, corporations have invested a tremendous amount of time and money in physical fitness, but have neglected emotional fitness."

He cited a study done by Gallup that found that the total cost for lost productivity due to stress and behavioural health can go as high as US$550 billion annually.

Clearly, he said, emotional health is a major issue and the smartest companies are the ones that address it in a preventative way.

"They are pre-empting the problem by giving employees access to benefits and plans that help them develop skills like resilience, grit, gratitude and more," he said.

"By providing highly accessible and scalable solutions to help people address their emotional wellbeing, these companies are taking steps to prevent employees from developing elevated levels of stress."

He said that the most effective emotional wellness plans have four major characteristics:

1. Accessible - Plans need to be accessible to employees anytime, anywhere;

2. Personalised - Plans should be adaptable to each personality and employee;

3. Scalable - Programmes should leverage widely used technology to both scale service and easily measure outcomes of results in order to reach a large number of employees; and

4. Engaging - Methods used should ensure that users remain connected and interested in the program.

"Gamifying a stress management plan doesn't inherently make the plan more effective," said Leidner when asked about Happify's use of gamification in their programmes.
"But, it makes the plan more enjoyable and encourages people to use it more often, which, in turn, creates better results."

"A gamified plan is like a treadmill with a television. The television doesn't make you run better on the treadmill, but it does make the treadmill and more fun and thus, more likely that you'll use it."

He also added that when creating their emotional wellness plans, employers should watch out for certain peak stress times during the year.

Some peak stress times they have identified in their research include the holidays, summertime when most workers go on vacation and those left behind have to take on extra work, and during budgeting season when finance and accounting departments usually work longer hours.

"Employers need to recognise when different departments are sensitive to increased period of stress and then develop plans to pre-empt these periods," he said.

"For instance, ahead of budgeting season, employers should deploy specific strategies that help reduce the cognitive and emotional load on the staff."

"If these employees will feel isolated during this period, find opportunities to foster connections between them and different departments to help generate the benefits of socialisation and personal connections," he added.

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Why you should have an 'emotional wellness' plan

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Much has been said about how an employee's wellbeing has a direct correlation to their performance and productivity. But some companies still overlook the emotional component when creating their employee wellbeing plan, said Ofer Leidner, co-founder and president of Happify, a science-based software platform for employee happiness and emotional wellbeing.

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How well are you living? - Sovereign - Wellbeing Index

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Sovereign want to help New Zealanders take charge of their health but first we needed to identify the challenges facing our country so we can seek productive change.

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Ethics

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Professional integrity and ethical behaviour is crucial for personal credibility and professional success within the business world.

As personal credibility will allow you to build effective relationships based on mutual respect and trust, delivering to deadlines and achieving results. Professional integrity means that you will operate in a professional and ethical manner within the workforce, regardless of whatever situation you're faced with.

HRINZ has its own code of professional conduct and ethical behaviour that all members must agreed to. The standards and ethical behaviour states:

"The role of human resources practitioners is to provide professional knowledge, advice and support to their employer on the most effective use of the organisation's human resources. Human Resource practioners are concerned with the achievement of the goals of the organisation as an industrial, commercial or public enterprise and as a social entity.

Human Resources practitioners should have a clear understanding of the economic, financial, political and other factors which influence an organisation's success so that, as members of the management team or as professional advisers to management, they can take an active part in decision making at both strategic and operational management levels. In the public interest and in the pursuit of its objects, the Human Resources Institute of New Zealand is committed to the highest possible standards of professional conduct and competency. To this end, members are required to exercise integrity, honesty and appropriate behaviour in all their business, professional and related personal activities.

HRINZ Members must act ethically, within the law and must not encourage, assist or act in collusion with employers, employees or others who may be engaged in unethical or unlawful conduct. Human Resources practitioners working within an organisation should ensure that they work first and foremost for the organisation and not for any one individual."

To view the full code of professional and ethical behaviour please click on the link below.

HR Tool Kit:
HRINZ Code of Conduct

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Professional integrity and ethical behaviour is crucial for personal credibility and professional success within the business world. As personal credibility will allow you to build effective relationships based on mutual respect and trust, delivering to deadlines and achieving results.