When it comes to employing staff from New Zealand as an international business, you’ll be faced with a number of options to do so compliantly, an ANZPEO being one of them. The option you will choose will depend on the unique requirements and circumstances of your business.

What is a Professional Employer Organization (PEO)? 

A PEO is a company that businesses typically outsource some or all of their payroll and administrative functions to. A PEO such as ANZPEO will act as a third-party intermediary that handles all tasks associated with payroll, employment support and compliance when hiring staff who are based in another country, in our case that country is New Zealand.

By taking on the role of employer of record for our clients’ employees, they’re able to expand and operate in New Zealand without having to set up a local entity in the country to do so compliantly. It also ensures that each employee is being taken care of compliantly according to New Zealand employment law, their visa and working permit rights have been met, and payroll is processed accurately and promptly. All other administrative duties, such as employee management, compensation and progress management, is taken care of by the client company.

Engaging a PEO to establish a local entity in New Zealand

Ordinarily, to operate a business in New Zealand, you must establish a local entity in the country to allow you to source and employ staff legally, which expensive, risky and time-consuming.

But with the help of ANZPEO, you could enter the New Zealand market much faster because you wouldn’t have to cut through the many lines of red tape that allows you to do it legally. Engaging a PEO helps to minimise your risk exposure and gets you to market substantially faster than if you were to establish a physical entity in the country.

Let’s look at the different sizes of companies…

3-5 staff members 

ANZPEOs will likely make a lot of sense for New Zealand companies who aren’t yet big enough to have an internal HR department and international businesses wishing to hire specialist talent in New Zealand. PEOs give these kinds of start-up, entrepreneurs and service-oriented companies the ability to focus on drumming up new business without crippling HR overheads getting in the way of their growth.

Owners of fast-growing companies with very small teams will see the value of a PEO because they tend to have the resources to work quickly and adapt to company changes efficiently.

10-70 staff members 

For a company of 10-75 employees that wish to expand into New Zealand, then ANZPEO can help them get off the ground by becoming the employee of record for their newly hired staff members and relocated employees in New Zealand.

International companies of this size can often be experiencing growing pains, are stretched for resources and don’t necessarily have the internal know-how to fully understand and adhere to New Zealand employment law.

Working with ANZPEO means we’ll partner with you and take on all such functions as payroll, risk management, onboarding and entitlements and compliance so that you can concentrate on other important areas associated with your expansion into New Zealand.

70+ staff members 

When a business employs around 70-200 people, key departments will weigh up whether or not a PEO service makes sense from a financial perspective or whether they’ll need to hire a full-time HR team to take care of certain administration functions.

For global companies of up to 200 wanting to do business and employ in New Zealand, then they might want to engage an external employer of record to help them get off the ground. Because no matter how many staff they employ in their home country, hiring an entire HR department for a New Zealand office of 10 employees will not make sense financially. Though growing their HR team may be necessary once they eventually take off in New Zealand.

For businesses of this size, they often have well-resourced and experienced HR and accounting departments so the first instinct may be to relocate staff from their office to their new expansion country. But, merely relocating a portion of your US-based accounting team to undertake payroll and other administrative functions in your new New Zealand office can have disastrous consequences. Firstly, New Zealand law is inherently different to the United States. Secondly, when the business starts to take off in New Zealand, that once adequate HR department may soon be inundated with new business.

ANZPEO | Do you need help expanding your business into New Zealand? 

Speak to someone from our team today about how we can help your international business employ and operate in New Zealand efficiently and compliantly.