Employment Records NZ: What Every Employer Must Keep and For How Long
Quick Answer: Under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 (HSWA), New Zealand businesses have a duty to ensure that visitors on their premises are not exposed to health and safety risks while on site. This duty extends to customers, contractors, delivery drivers, and any other person who enters the workplace — not just employees.
Key Takeaways
- The HSWA 2015 places a duty of care on NZ businesses (PCBUs) to protect all persons on their premises, including visitors.
- Visitor management obligations include hazard identification, briefing, access control, and emergency evacuation.
- A digital visitor sign-in system supports HSWA compliance by providing an accurate, real-time record of who is on site.
- Paper logbooks create compliance gaps — they cannot produce an accurate site headcount in a real-time emergency.
What the HSWA 2015 Says About Visitors
The Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 defines a ‘person conducting a business or undertaking’ (PCBU) as having a primary duty of care to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the health and safety of workers and other persons is not put at risk. ‘Other persons’ explicitly includes visitors, customers, contractors, and members of the public who enter or could be affected by the workplace.
What Visitor Management Obligations Does This Create?
Register all visitors on arrival: Know who is on site at all times. In an emergency evacuation, an accurate, current list of all persons on premises is both a legal and practical requirement. A paper logbook updated three hours ago does not satisfy this.
Brief visitors on site hazards: Visitors should be informed of relevant hazards before entering working areas. A digital sign-in system can deliver a site induction — including hazard acknowledgement — as part of the check-in process.
Control visitor access: Visitors should only access areas appropriate to their purpose. Digital systems can restrict access by visitor type and issue temporary passes accordingly.
Record contractor inductions: Contractors require more thorough induction than general visitors. Digital visitor management systems can track which induction a contractor has completed and flag when it needs renewal.
Maintain evacuation records: In a fire or other emergency, accounting for all persons on site is critical. A digital system provides a live headcount accessible from any device — including a mobile phone — during an evacuation.
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Why Paper Visitor Logbooks Create Compliance Gaps
Paper visitor logbooks are still common in NZ workplaces, but they create specific compliance gaps under the HSWA:
- No real-time accuracy — someone who left without signing out remains ‘on site’ on the record.
- Illegible entries — handwritten names and contact details are frequently incomplete or unreadable.
- Privacy risk — a paper logbook exposes previous visitors’ details to every subsequent visitor, potentially breaching the Privacy Act 2020.
- Evacuation failures — manually retrieving and cross-referencing a paper logbook in an emergency is slow and error-prone.
How CleverTime's Visitor Management System Supports HSWA Compliance
CleverTime’s Visitor Management System creates a digital record of every visitor, contractor, and delivery person. Sign-in is completed on a tablet at reception — capturing name, organisation, purpose of visit, and host contact. The system provides real-time site population reporting, digital hazard acknowledgement on sign-in, contractor induction tracking with expiry alerts, instant evacuation roll call exportable to any device, and automatic sign-out reminders.
To see how CleverTime’s Visitor Management System can support your HSWA obligations, book a demo with our NZ team.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are contractors the same as visitors under the HSWA?
No. Contractors are workers of a third-party PCBU performing work at your premises — distinct from general visitors. You and the contractor’s employer share overlapping duties of care for their safety while on site. Contractors require more thorough induction than general visitors, and the health and safety obligations must be agreed between the two PCBUs. A visitor management system that tracks contractor induction status separately from general visitor records helps manage this distinction correctly.
Does a digital visitor system satisfy NZ Privacy Act obligations?
A well-configured digital visitor management system satisfies Privacy Act 2020 obligations better than a paper logbook. The key requirements are: collect only necessary information, store it securely, and do not display it to subsequent visitors. CleverTime’s system meets these requirements — visitor data is stored securely in the cloud, is not visible to other visitors, and can be automatically purged after the required retention period.
What should a site induction include under the HSWA?
A site induction for visitors should cover at minimum: the location of emergency exits, the evacuation procedure, any specific hazards in areas the visitor will access, who to contact in an emergency, and any PPE requirements. CleverTime’s visitor sign-in process presents this information digitally and captures the visitor’s acknowledgement — creating a record that the induction was completed.