You don’t have to do business alone

Your culture matters. But New Zealand Employment Law Applies.

There is a conversation we are having increasingly often with business owners, and it starts well before somebody receives an employment agreement.

It starts with who gets through the door in the first place. We work across an incredibly diverse range of New Zealand businesses.

Occasionally we walk into an organisation and feel as though we have boarded a plane and landed in another country. The business owner, leadership team and workforce may predominantly come from one ethnic, national, cultural or religious community.

There is nothing inherently wrong with that.

Culture can be one of the great strengths of a business. Language, heritage, community, family and shared values can create extraordinary loyalty and belonging.

But sometimes we then hear:

“We can’t find enough good people.”

“There aren’t enough people like us.”

“The business isn’t growing.”

“We need somebody who represents our people.”

Or a candidate is dismissed almost immediately because their name, appearance or background clearly doesn’t represent the preferred group.

That’s when we ask a very simple question:

What do you mean by that?

Because there is aline between celebrating your culture and allowingethnicity, nationality, religion, race or another protected characteristic to becomethe gatekeeper to employment. And in New Zealand, that line is governed by the laws of thisland.