Association CEO, Marisa, has engaged with the Minister for Small Business, Andrew Bayly, sharing member feedback on the biggest challenges on our wish list to address.
At the Association, we structure our support for the sector around three pillars, Skills, Training, and Development; Environment and Sustainability, and Cost of Business and Regulation – this is the where the key focus lies for the Minister.
Member feedback shared with the Minister included challenges around navigating employment law and Holidays Act requirements, immigration complexity and restrictions, managing rising labour and food costs (and availability), generating revenue, working from home impacts for hospitality, how Government can create regulatory efficiencies or assist small businesses navigating regulations, staffing and recognition of our skilled workforce, and much more.
We also raised the following points:
- It has been positive to see the Fair Pay unwound and 90-day trial periods extended.
- The Holidays Act is still causing issues and we acknowledge this is on the radar for change.
- If there was a once size fits all system for confirming business details this could cut down on the time spent processing various regulatory applications. There is one for food safety, one for liquor licensing, outdoor licensing etc.
- There are the obvious costs to running a business: lease or mortgage, rates, utilities, overheads – these are the big things that everyone thinks of. However, what really determines whether or not a business in our sector will succeed is all the little 1% costs that stack up – and a lot of that comes from regulation and lost productivity dealing with licences.
- One of the key issues members raise is managing the complexity of the regulatory environment.
We will meet with the Minister again in the coming months to further advance some of our proposed solutions for hospitality and will keep members up to date and involved in those discussions.
You can find review some of the selected member feedback below.
Restaurant / Bar owner, Hawke’s Bay
What is difficult?
- Finding Staff
- Food Costs
- Employment law and how strongly weighed it is towards the employee
- Minimum Wage Increases
What would make it easier for you to do business?
- Helping to make the accreditation process easier to bring in staff from overseas. It is currently taking approximately 100 days to get this approved which means businesses are short staffed even though they have a candidate ready and waiting to start work.
- Food costs need to be regulated.
- Slow down the minimum wage increases. They have jumped more than ever before in the past few years, whilst employers have been suffering through business closures with Covid and Cyclone Gabrielle.
Cafe owner, Canterbury
What is difficult?
- I think a lot of small business people are good operators but find the administrative demands of meeting all the Employment Compliance, Health and Safety Compliance, and Food Safety Compliance etc beyond their level of time and expertise. We are very fortunate to have such a skilled and dedicated Association to help us, but many small businesses are working independently and have no support. Either the compliance must be minimised or the Government need to have dedicated people to help small business meet the requirements through free training and mentorship.
What would make it easier for you to do business?
- An even playing field between our obligations to our employees and their obligations to us. At present it is completely out of balance and weighted almost exclusively for the wellbeing and rights of the employee and against the employer. This has caused many fair employers unnecessary stress, time and money and needs to be rectified if we want small businesses who hire staff to thrive.