KEY POINTS:
It's great when theories work out in practice, and always amusing when academics struggle to write a theory to fit the facts. So it is with Professor Nigel Haworth's conclusion that a law allowing a genuine 90-day probation period of employment would be costly for business.
Professor Haworth, who wrote here last week, forgets to mention that there could be a cost to business only if businesses chose to make use of it. But there is no compulsion about such a law. No one would be forced to sign up for a job under probationary terms.
He also fails to mention laws of this very sort work out well in every other country in the developed world except Denmark. It works well in Australia and too many of our skilled people seem keen to get over there.
That virtually all OECD countries have such a law in place as successive governments of various shades have come and gone testifies to the fact that probationary employment periods are orthodox employment law and practice. That many European countries and those elsewhere have probationary periods lasting far longer than 90 days is further evidence of its success.
New Zealand businesses are keen to have such a law so they can employ someone they would not otherwise be prepared to risk.
A 90-day probation period would allow an employee and employer to agree for an employee to be taken on without the threat of a court case if it didn't work out. It would not and cannot extend to mistreating an employee. It would not allow or condone sexual harassment of staff or force people into unsafe work practices. Matters like that would be as unlawful as they are now.
And no employer wanting to stay in business takes on staff just to send them packing after 89 days. Any business doing that, what with all the costs and paperwork of recruitment and staff induction, wouldn't last long.
The practical reality at present is simply that when there is any doubt over the suitability of someone for a job, employers simply don't hire them. So much for the theory. We regularly hear of job applicants asking to be given a chance, but employers don't want to take chances on people for fear of being taken for a ride on the personal-grievance gravy train.
A host of people would love to be given a chance in employment that suited them: hundreds of skilled new immigrants currently driving taxis; those with chequered backgrounds ready to prove they have turned their lives around; those wanting to step up their career ladder needing to demonstrate they have what it takes.
The law favours lesser-skilled people and Maori the most. If there is no agreement, any 90-day law would not apply. How can that be unfair?
Whatever their reasons, people should be allowed to agree to choose to trial a new work arrangement. In effect Professor Haworth is suggesting employees who want to be given a chance, and are prepared to back themselves, should have no right to make that choice. Preventing adults from backing their own skills for 90 days is as paternalistic as denying people the option of cashing up a fourth week's holiday.
Everyone acknowledges that New Zealand must boost its productivity if we are to retain our standards of living, let alone raise them. Increasing the value of what we do leads to this, and to higher wages.
But the 90-day probation period isn't about productivity as such; it is about giving employers the confidence to take on people they would not otherwise take a risk on without the fear they may end up spending a lot of money on a wasteful personal-grievance claim if the person doesn't have the skill and attributes they said they had.
* David Lowe is employment services manager for the Employers & Manufacturers Association (Northern).
