Your guide to becoming an Accredited Employer: part one

Did you know that Immigration New Zealand (INZ) has made changes to the minimum requirements businesses must meet to become an Accredited Employer? These changes will be effective from 4 July 2022. So, we’ve decided to break down the process into an easy-to-read how-to article series.

To become an Accredited Employer, INZ outlines the minimum requirements and commitments that businesses must meet to be able to hire migrants under the Accredited Employer Work Visa (AEWV) scheme. And depending on your business model, there might also be additional requirements that need to be met to attain this accreditation.

Here I dive into what the AEWV scheme is, the types of accreditation that exist for employers, and the minimum requirements businesses must meet to become an Accredited Employer.

What are the types of accreditation?

All business models have the same set of minimum requirements to meet to attain accreditation, however, INZ has outlined that franchisees, and Labour Hire Employers who are likely to place migrants under the supervision of a controlling third party, will need to meet additional requirements.

All businesses will be able to apply for two types of accreditation:

• Standard accreditation – if you intend on employing up to five workers on an AEWV at any one time.
• High-volume accreditation – if you intend on employing six or more workers on an AEWV at any one time.

What are the minimum requirements?

INZ requires all employers to meet a minimum accreditation threshold to ensure that only businesses that meet all of New Zealand’s employment, immigration, and business standards have access to migrant workers. These minimum requirements include:

• The business must be a viable and genuinely operating business with sufficient financial reporting, which includes having an NZBN and being registered with IRD.
• The business must be compliant with all of its employment and health and safety (H&S) practices including:
  • proving that the business has good HR practices in place, as well as proof that the business has demonstrated good HR and general workplace processes; and
  • Proving that the business has health and safety systems to manage H&S in the workplace.
• The business must also be compliant with other immigration, employment, and business standards including:
  • the business must not be on the “non-compliant employer” list;
  • completed employer learning modules and allow time for workers on AEWV to complete employee modules on Employment New Zealand;
  • cannot pass on recruitment costs; and
  • provide support for settlement to workers on AEWV.
• The business must conduct satisfactory job checks.

So, if your business depends on the skills of overseas workers and is serious about becoming an Accredited Employer, then these blogs are a must-read for you. We’ll go into detail about each stage of the process in our later blogs, so stay tuned!

If this article has raised any questions or concerns or you’d like to learn more about how we can help your business, please contact our workplace relations experts via our 24/7 HR Advice Line.