Remote and hybrid work is now normal in New Zealand knowledge work, and it has settled into something more varied than either the pre-2020 default or the fully remote model. What has not settled is how well organisations manage it.
The statutory right to request
Employees have a statutory right to request a variation to their working arrangements, including hours, days and place of work. The right applies from the first day of employment.
The employer must deal with the request as soon as possible and no later than one month after receiving it, and may only refuse on specified grounds. Those grounds include inability to reorganise work among existing staff, inability to recruit additional staff, detrimental impact on quality or performance, insufficiency of work during the periods the employee proposes to work, planned structural changes, and burden of additional costs.
Refusal must state the ground relied on and explain the reasons. A refusal that does not engage with the actual request, or relies on a general preference for people being in the office, is vulnerable.
Health and safety does not stop at the door
Where an employee works from home, that is a workplace and the employer’s duty applies so far as reasonably practicable.
A proportionate approach:
- A self-assessment checklist covering workstation setup, seating, screen position, lighting and electrical safety.
- Providing or contributing to equipment where the setup is inadequate.
- A way for people to report issues or discomfort.
- Emergency arrangements — what happens if someone working alone at home has an incident.
Psychosocial risk is the more significant remote hazard. Isolation, blurred boundaries between work and home, and the loss of informal support are all recognised, and they fall within the same duty as physical hazards.
What determines whether hybrid works
The policy matters far less than management practice. The organisations that struggle usually have the same problems:
- Meetings that assume everyone is in the room. A hybrid meeting where remote participants cannot hear or contribute is worse than either extreme. Either everyone dials in individually, or the room has equipment that actually works.
- Information shared in person and not written down, which systematically disadvantages remote workers and produces two tiers.
- Proximity bias in promotion and opportunity. If the people in the office get the interesting work, the policy is decorative.
- Anchor days that nobody enforces, so people come in and find nobody there, which teaches them not to.
- Managing by presence rather than output. Managers who cannot describe what good performance looks like fall back on watching people, and that does not work remotely.
Onboarding is the hardest part
New employees learn a great deal informally — how things actually work, who to ask, what the norms are. Remote onboarding loses most of that.
What helps: more in-person time in the first weeks specifically, an assigned buddy, explicit documentation of things that would otherwise be absorbed, and deliberate introductions rather than leaving them to happen.
Security
Remote work expands the attack surface. The practical controls:
- Multi-factor authentication on everything, email first.
- Company-managed devices where practical, or clear rules for personal devices.
- Automatic updates enabled.
- Guidance on home network security and public wifi.
- Clear rules about what may be entered into AI tools, since staff use them whether or not there is a policy.
Where personal information is handled remotely, Privacy Act obligations follow it, including physical security of documents and screens in a shared household.
Working from overseas
Employees asking to work from another country raise issues most employers have not considered: tax residence for the employee and potentially a permanent establishment risk for the employer, immigration and right-to-work in that country, employment law that may apply locally, and ACC and insurance coverage.
“Work from anywhere” sounds simple and is not. Take advice before agreeing to it.
Put it in writing
Where an arrangement is agreed, record it — days, location, equipment, expectations about availability, and whether it is permanent or trialled. Ambiguity here produces disputes later, particularly if the business later wants to change it.
Employment New Zealand publishes guidance on flexible working requests, and WorkSafe publishes remote work health and safety material. Both free.
General information only, not legal advice.
