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Speaker 1: Heather do for Seel Huddle standing by to talk to

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Speaker 1: us shortly. Health New Zealand is asking staff to pay

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Speaker 1: back money that they received an error. The Nurses Union

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Speaker 1: reckons this is an attempt to save costs and it's

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Speaker 1: smarting because Health New Zealand itself still owes workers two

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in under payments. Chief people Officer at Health

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Speaker 1: New Zealand, Andrew Slater's with us, Hey, Andrew evening head,

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Speaker 1: how much money are you chasing?

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Speaker 2: I look, at any one time, we've got sort of

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Speaker 2: around about a million dollars in sort of errors that

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Speaker 2: we've identified at any one time that we are chasing

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Speaker 2: that we're working with people to either get paid paid

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Speaker 2: back or correct. That's across a ten billion dollar payroll.

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Speaker 1: The payments that you are trying to chase at the moment,

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Speaker 1: these are things that happened, according to the Nurses Union,

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Speaker 1: potentially as much as four or five years ago. Is

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Speaker 1: that right?

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Speaker 2: I understand that there are a couple of payments that

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Speaker 2: go back that far, but for the most part, our

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Speaker 2: payment specialists within our payroll teams, we've got over two

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Speaker 2: hundred people that work in payroll around the country and

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Speaker 2: we have dedicated roles that you know, every week check

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Speaker 2: you know, someone might leave and they have paperwork hadn't

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Speaker 2: come through and so therefore they've been overpaid a week

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Speaker 2: and we followed up. So it's normally about a million

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Speaker 2: dollars in that category.

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Speaker 1: And are people paying it back?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, looks for the most part our people are we

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Speaker 2: put in place payment plans. There's rules in the collectives

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Speaker 2: that allow us to do that. There's the Wages Protection

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Speaker 2: Act that we do, and this is just us making

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Speaker 2: sure that people are paid accurately and we're working with

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Speaker 2: tax payer money wisely, they have.

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Speaker 1: A fair point to be a bit annoyed about it, right,

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Speaker 1: because you owe them so much money and are so

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Speaker 1: late in paying it all.

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Speaker 2: Right, Look at Health New Zealand, we are incredibly frustrated

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Speaker 2: about that Holidays Act and pay that we owe our people.

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Speaker 2: You know on inception none of our payroll systems we're

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Speaker 2: compliant with the Holidays app. We've a team of people

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Speaker 2: working tirelessly every day to get that money out the door.

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Speaker 2: We've done thirty four thousand people you know. Today I've

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Speaker 2: been looking at getting out another one hundred and twenty

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Speaker 2: million and getting back through now we've calculated it correctly.

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Speaker 2: Over thirteen years old. This ship is a sue that's

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Speaker 2: been building.

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Speaker 1: How is it that you guys are struggling so badly

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Speaker 1: to just pay people properly? I mean it's twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 1: Like most of us can do this properly. What's up?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, Look, we have got over over twenty nine payroll

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Speaker 2: systems that came in from those former district health boards.

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Speaker 2: You know, we're still using paper timesheets, dot matrix printers

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Speaker 2: in some of our hospitals. Lay role has been invested in. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I know, I know, this is this is this is

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty four. We've got we've got a plan. We're

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Speaker 2: going to sort it out. We're going to we're going

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Speaker 2: to put it right. And that's what I'm focused on

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Speaker 2: making sure we do at the moment.

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Speaker 1: How long before you guys upgrade to compuse.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, So we've got our Auckland, our three Auckland district

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Speaker 2: have now got compliant payrolls the Holidays Act, and so

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Speaker 2: we're currently working on all of the other systems to

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Speaker 2: get the compliant and in those in those places where

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Speaker 2: we've got paper processes, dot matrix printers, We're going to

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Speaker 2: be working on that really rapidly. It took a long

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Speaker 2: time for us to get where we are. It's going

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Speaker 2: to take us a long time to climb out of that.

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Speaker 2: So over the next you know, we're chipping away at

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Speaker 2: sorting it out, putting it right. It'll be at least

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Speaker 2: eighteen months plus before we've before we've got it all

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Speaker 2: fully sorted out the Holiday's Act payments. So we're really

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Speaker 2: focused on getting that money out the door this year.

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Speaker 1: Yeah good, I'm pleased to hear that, Andrew. Thank you

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Speaker 1: very much. Andrew Slater, chief people Officer at Health New Zealand.

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