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What the agreement must record
Where an employer and employee have agreed on hours of work, those hours must be stated in the employment agreement. That can be the number of guaranteed hours, the days of the week, the start and finish times, or the number of hours on each day — whichever the parties have actually settled.
Agreed hours are not the same as a maximum. Section 11B of the Minimum Wage Act 1983 separately requires the agreement to fix maximum weekly hours at not more than 40, excluding overtime, unless both parties agree to more.
The 2016 change
Before 1 April 2016 an employer could require an employee to be available without guaranteeing any work — a zero-hour arrangement. That is no longer lawful in New Zealand. The employment agreement has to record the agreed hours, and an employer cannot expect availability for nothing.
This is a real divergence from the United Kingdom, where zero-hours contracts remain lawful, and it is why a rota template or HR policy written for the UK does not transfer here. A casual arrangement is still possible — an employee genuinely engaged as needed, free to decline — but it is not the same thing as a contract that demands availability without hours.
Rostering beyond agreed hours
If you want an employee to be available for work beyond their agreed hours, that requires an availability provision in the agreement, and one is only lawful where there are genuine reasons on reasonable grounds and the employee receives reasonable compensation for being available.
Without a compliant availability provision, an employee can refuse work outside their agreed hours and cannot be treated adversely for doing so. The practical consequence for rostering is that agreed hours need to be visible while you build the roster, not discovered afterwards — see rostering software.
