A working from home policy for NZ employers: hours, safety, equipment and privacy

What the policy covers

A short policy that answers the questions people actually ask works better than a long one. Cover these, in plain words:

• Eligibility. Which roles can work from home, how often, and how someone asks. Where a role cannot, say why, so the answer does not look personal.
• Hours and availability. The core hours people are expected to be reachable, how they show they are working, and how quickly they should answer during those hours.
• Breaks. The same rest and meal breaks as in the office, taken away from the screen.
• Equipment and costs. Employment New Zealand says you can supply equipment, ask the employee to provide it, or pay an allowance, and that general utilities such as electricity are generally the employee's own cost. Say which you do. Our article on the working from home allowance covers when an allowance is tax-free.
• Health and safety. The workstation check, how to report discomfort or an incident, and who to call.
• Privacy and security. What you collect about people working at home, what you never collect, and how work information is kept safe at home.

If someone's place of work moves to home for good, Employment New Zealand says their employment agreement should be updated to reflect it. A policy sits beside the agreement; it cannot take away anything the agreement gives.

Wage and time records do not change at home

Section 130 of the Employment Relations Act 2000 requires a wages and time record showing the hours each employee worked each day in a pay period and the pay for those hours, and section 4B adds a general duty to keep records detailed enough to show you met minimum entitlements. Neither depends on where the work is done. When you cannot see people start and finish, the record has to come from them.

That matters most for two groups. For hourly staff, every hour worked at home is paid, including the half hour spent answering emails before the official start. For salaried staff, section 130(1C) lets usual hours stand in for the record, but section 130(1D) still requires you to record any extra hours needed to show you met minimum entitlements, such as the adult minimum wage of $23.95 an hour from 1 April 2026 for every hour worked. Long evenings at the kitchen table are where that check matters.

So set one simple rule: people working from home record their start, finish and breaks each day, on the day. Rest and meal breaks under section 69ZD apply at home as anywhere, for example two 10-minute paid rest breaks and a 30-minute meal break in a work period of more than 6 and up to 8 hours.

Monitoring and the Privacy Act: ask for hours, not screenshots

Monitoring software that takes screenshots, counts keystrokes or switches on a webcam collects far more than you need to pay people and plan work. The Privacy Act 2020 limits that. Information privacy principle 1 says you may collect personal information only for a lawful purpose and only if it is necessary for that purpose. Principle 3 says people must be told what is collected and why. Principle 4 says it must be collected fairly and without intruding to an unreasonable extent on their personal affairs, which counts for more when the workplace is someone's home.

The Privacy Commissioner puts it simply: you can only collect what you need for your legitimate functions, you should be open about what you collect and why, and you cannot collect information just because you can. Covert collection is unfair unless there is a particularly strong reason. Employment New Zealand adds that any monitoring of people working from home must comply with the Privacy Act.

For most employers, the hours each person worked, and what they worked on, answer every question the business genuinely has. Ask for that, say so in the policy, and say what you do not collect. Our article on clock-in apps, GPS and biometrics covers location tracking and scanners from the employee's side.

Health and safety at home: the workstation and isolation

Section 36 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 requires you to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health and safety of your workers, and WorkSafe says this includes workers who work from home. Section 58 requires you to engage with workers on health and safety matters that affect them. Workers have duties too: under section 45 they must take reasonable care and co-operate with any reasonable health and safety policy you have told them about.

What is reasonably practicable at home is less than at the office, because you do not control the space, but WorkSafe's guidance gives a sensible starting point:

• discuss the home workstation and environment before agreeing to the arrangement;
• apply similar furniture and equipment standards to a home workstation as in the office;
• offer advice on setting up a workstation, help with furniture or equipment, or a home workstation assessment; and
• have a way to report work-related discomfort or incidents, and act on what is reported.

Isolation is a risk as well. Employment New Zealand says employers should make sure people working from home have plenty of opportunities to stay connected with colleagues, and WorkSafe publishes guidance for businesses on managing the mental health risks of working from home. Regular contact with a manager, team time that is not about tasks, and a clear point at which the working day ends all help.

Handling requests to work from home

Place of work is one of the working arrangements an employee can ask to change under Part 6AA of the Employment Relations Act, alongside hours and days. Any employee can make a request at any time. It must be in writing, and you must reply in writing as soon as possible and within 1 month. You can refuse only on the grounds the Act lists, such as a detrimental impact on quality or performance, or an inability to reorganise work among existing staff, and you must explain the reasons for the ground you rely on.

A policy helps here, because it sets out in advance what you can usually agree to. Treat it as a starting point rather than a reason to say no: each request still has to be considered on its own facts. Our guide to flexible working requests explains the process from the employee's side.

Once people are working from home, the hours record does the work the office used to. Team timesheets from jobtracker.co.nz lets each person log their own start, finish and breaks from any device, or run a timer, and choose to share the hours they log for you. You see the hours by person, project and task for any period, and who has not logged anything this week. It does not track location, take screenshots or watch activity, and you never see the pay or rates in anyone's own account. It costs $6.99 a seat a month, GST included, for at least three seats.

Hours from home, without watching anyone