Trusted Support in a World of Change.
New Zealand Businesses Today
Meet Some of the Everyday People in Business
The business owners below represent some of the many companies we believe in and partner with. Their stories have been repeated up and down the country for years, but we suspect with increased regularity as time goes by. If you see something of yourself in these stories, don’t hesitate to reach out for help to put things right.
“I thought my first employee was such a sure bet – well presented with a great CV and I knew her mother from the tennis club. But after her 90 day trial ended she turned into someone I hardly recognized. She started turning up late for her shifts, her language and demeanor changed, she made much less effort with her personal presentation and hygiene, and probably the worst thing was the till wouldn’t balance. I felt trapped in a sinking boat and I didn’t know how to fix the problem I had created.”
Hair and Beauty Company
“Covid has been the biggest catalyst for change for our business since we started. And we are enthusiastic about our future! But managing staff as we change their roles, and having had two lock-downs now, has not been fun. Our people seem to know more than we do about their entitlements and our obligations. It is really taking the shine off what would otherwise have been a very exciting time.”
Soft Furnishing supply, Delivery and Installation
“I thought the right thing to do was let my admin person know I would need to restructure her role. She’d been with me for 14 years so I felt like I owed it to her to give her what I thought was fair warning. Plus I wanted her to be able to pursue any other opportunities that came up. I had no idea I had shot myself in the foot with the right process around making a role redundant. It was a very expensive lesson!”
Residential Plumbing Company
“If I knew the impact of one bad employee on my whole team from the start, I would have been clearer minded about dealing with it when it first started. He always had plausible excuses for not coming in, or spending too long on a job, or even too short on a job. But by the end of the year he held such sway over all my guys, it felt like no one respected me any more and everyone just did what they felt like.”
Group Home Builder
“If I’d known it would be so stressful to run my own business, I doubt I would have started. I go to sleep with a knot of anxiety in my belly because I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I think the unpredictability of my staff means I feel like I’m on a treadmill that is going too fast, and I don’t know how to get off.”
Commercial Painter
“I feel like I have to pay for the unfortunate personal circumstances my staff find themselves in. When they work for you, and things go wrong in their lives (which they seem to with great regularity) you are the one that has to pick up the pieces. I know a lot of business owners wouldn’t bother, but I am not like that. I want to help them, but not like I find myself doing all the time.”
Panel and Paint business
Frequently Asked Questions
Your suite of documents will be selected from our considerable library of resources, and tailored for your needs. We will spend time before we produce your documents to understand your business, your opportunities and your gaps. After creating your documents we offer a masterclass to take you through what we have produced, and why we have supplied each document, so you (and anyone else you nominate to join the meeting) understand what tools you have purchased and how to make best use of them. None of this comes for free online.
We fully expect our clients’ businesses will grow. We will be taking a lot of the pain out of recruitment and onboarding, and your business should start to really hum once you have your HR systems in place. We will absorb the addition of new staff members until your annual review where we re-evaluate the package we put you on. At that stage you might prefer to opt for more or fewer hours in your subscription for the following year.
You cannot relinquish your key decision-making responsibilities, no matter who is advising you. You can certainly choose to follow another course of action rather than taking our advice. You will be doing so with more knowledge and insight as to the potential consequences of your decisions than if you had not belonged to FixHR and sought our support in the first place.
We are not a law firm. Rather than providing legal advice, FixHR provides pragmatic commercial solutions and ongoing support in the workplace relations space. There are plenty of law firms in the market already! Our niche is prevention. When a business owner has his or her systems set up correctly, and knows how to follow lawful processes as they recruit, onboard, manage and exit their staff, the chances they will ever need an employment lawyer are reduced many times over.
Sorry to say, this may happen. You can follow every detail of lawful procedure and your staff member may still feel aggrieved and choose to lodge a claim against you. FixHR clients will forward the threat or claim to the HelpLine and we will handle it from there using your subscriber-hours. (This is the benefit of a monthly subscription.) We will make every effort to settle the matter before mediation. If that is not possible, we will act as your advocates, as part of your subscription with us. On the rare occasion that we cannot settle the matter in mediation, we will facilitate your connection with our lawyers of choice at a significantly reduced fee due to the relationship we have with them. We will remain with you every step of the way, and any time you are paying the lawyer does not come off your annual allocation of time with us.
Please leave a message. Our support is available from 8:30am – 5:30pm, Monday to Friday, but it is possible we are helping another client and can’t answer your call. We will get back to you as quickly as possible. We have a goal of a three hour turn-around during business hours.
We do not want to be taking money for nothing! Toward the end of our first year together, and going forward just before every anniversary, we will review your access to the HelpLine and assure ourselves you are on the right package. We will send you an email to advise you of this exercise along with any recommendations. Of course, the onus is on you to use the service you are subscribed to and FixHR won’t be required to refund you for any hours that are not used at the end of the contract term.
If you require more than the hours you have joined for, as per our terms and conditions, we are available at an additional hourly-rate which will be invoiced on top of your subscription amount. Additionally there is an opportunity every year to increase your subscription if needs be.
For legislative updates or important industry information, we will include MUST READ in our subject line. Please note that we will be emailing you from time to time with less critical information which we hope you will find helpful, short and interesting.
If you need to cancel our agreement before the end of the initial contract term, it is possible to do so by paying an early termination fee equal to 25% of the remaining subscription fee. There can be good reason to cancel an agreement, but we wouldn’t expect there to be any issues with the service delivery. If that were the case, please give us a chance to put it right before you leave.
There is the slim possibility that you have an employee who is resistant to moving onto more modern documentation. If this were to occur, we would coach you through the conversation to have, and/or write the letter to your staff member soliciting details about their concerns. Ultimately you cannot make someone do something they are not willing to, but we will be accumulating evidence that you have done your best to treat your staff in a reasonable and fair manner for if there is ever a challenge or review.