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Question Details: Our 19 year old has been working in hospitality for more than a year, and is a shift manager in her current job. She wants to work somewhere else in the hospitality industry and they have asked her to work a "trial unpaid shift" of 4 hours at a peak trade on a Saturday night. Surely if they even needed a trial shift 2 hours is long enough. Is it legal to require her to work this trial unpaid?
Filed under Employment Law | 4596 View(s)
Community Law Wellington & Hutt Valley
Yes, employers are entitled to require prospective employees to undergo work experience or assessment tasks as part of the recruitment process.
An assessment task should be a genuine assessment of your daughter’s ability to carry out the key tasks of the job she’s applying for. It must also be of a limited duration.
There aren’t a lot of legal rules about assessment tasks and trial shifts. While under the employer’s control, the prospective employee has the same health and safety protection, and protection from discrimination, as any employee.
If your daughter believes that the trial shift is of a longer duration than appropriate, or is not a genuine assessment of her capabilities to do the job, she can talk to her prospective employer about her concerns. If she’s really unhappy about the assessment task she can choose not to do it, but this may effectively withdraw her application for the job.
You can see advice for employers on assessment tasks from the Labour Group of the Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment here: www.dol.govt.nz.
Answered 5 Mar 2013. The IMPORTANT NOTICE below is part of this answer.
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