Looking to hire your next star employee? Hiring part-time employees rather than full-time employees is becoming more common. Part-time employees can fill a particular gap in your business’ productivity without requiring the same commitment as a full-time employee. It’s a middle ground between casual and full-time and one that works for many businesses.

Remaining compliant while hiring the right part-time employee for your job opening can be tricky. However, it can become easier using an AI-powered hiring tool. These tools can sort through and shortlist applicants, so you can focus on interviewing quality candidates, rather than those that are missing the mark.

If you’re ready to hire a part-time employee for your business then we’re here to help. Download the guide by filling in the form on the right, and learn more about part-time employment, assessing your business’ needs, the benefits of hiring a part-time employee, their entitlements and more.

What is a part-time employee in NZ?

A part-time employee is a permanent employee that works less than full-time but has regular and guaranteed hours/days of work. Generally, they work less than 30 hours a week. However, there is no legal definition under New Zealand law. 

Full-time permanent employees, meanwhile, are typically considered to work more than 30 hours a week, while casual workers are not guaranteed any work and instead only work when their employer asks them to (and they agree).

Common roles that people do part-time hours for include: 

• Retail assistants
• Baristas
• Waitstaff
• Call centre workers
• Tutors
• Administrative assistants

Do you need a part-time employee?

Assessing your business needs

Understanding whether you need a part-time employee starts with assessing your business needs. You’ll need to evaluate your current team’s workload, your hiring budget and the seasonal demand (if relevant for your business) for a new employee.

There are a few cases where hiring a part-time employee over a full-time employee may make sense. These include:

• Hiring someone for maternity leave cover
• Managing changing workloads
• Hiring for a specific skill gap within the business
• As a cost-saving measure, where hiring a full-time employee may stretch operational budgets too thin

Tasks suited to part-time roles

There are a range of roles that are well-suited to being completed by a part-time employee. These include:

• Administration 
• Customer service 
• Retail
• Seasonal labour

A part-time role may also suit an employee’s life situation. For example, less hours might suit them if they’re a parent. With part-time roles, you can offer flexible working arrangements, like an after-hours role. This can also help you cover more hours in the day if your business serves customers outside of working hours.

Benefits of hiring part-time employees

Workforce flexibility and cost-effectiveness

Part-time roles can help your business stay agile while reducing staffing costs. If your business experiences fluctuations in demand, having a part-time employee can help cover peak seasons without overhiring for quieter periods. 

If your business does find itself experiencing unexpected demand, then having part-time employees that can fill in during those periods allows your workforce to be flexible and adapt fast.

By hiring someone part-time, you’re also only paying their entitlements based on hours worked. This can help save on staffing costs. You may find you are able to save money on overheads elsewhere, such as office space costs. 

Attracting diverse talent pools

Not everyone is in a position where they can work full-time. Hiring a part-time employee can open up your talent pool, and attract different types of employees, such as students, parents and/or those who are semi-retired. 

Part-time roles often appeal to experienced and skilled employees who can contribute to your business positively but need flexible hours. If you only hire for full-time roles, you may be missing out on these candidates 

What is required for part-time employment agreements

There are a number of considerations when putting together an employment agreement for a part-time employee. We’ve collated a list of them here.

What must be included in a part-time contract

Putting together a part-time employee agreement? There are defined requirements for what must be included in a written employee agreement.

You’ll need to include:

• The names of the employee and the employer
• A description of the work they’ll be performing
• Their place of work
• Agreed hours/indication of the hours they’ll work, including:
  • Number of hours
  • Start and finish times
  • Days of the week the employee will work
• The wage rate or salary
• Their leave entitlements 
• Information about public holiday pay
• How problems in the workplace can be resolved
• Information about the workplace change process
• Information about any applicable trial or probationary period
• Terms of dismissal

Legal compliance for employment agreements

Next, you’ll need to ensure the contract meets the requirements of the Employment Relations Act. We’ve created a handy factsheet to help you stay compliant when writing out an employee agreement.

If you’re looking to make things simpler, a digital contract system can help you streamline compliance. That way you don’t have to do everything manually.

Leave and entitlements for part-time employees

Annual holiday entitlement (pro rata)

In New Zealand, annual leave entitlements are calculated based on the weeks a part-time employee works, pro rata. For example, a full-time employee accrues four weeks of annual leave per year. If a part-time employee works two eight-hour shifts a week, then they are entitled to four weeks of two eight-hour shifts per week in leave.

Sick leave, bereavement and public holidays

Part-time employees are eligible for sick leave and bereavement leave. To be eligible for sick leave and bereavement leave, employees must have worked with you for at least six months. Furthermore, they must have worked at least 10 hours a week with you, and at least one hour in every week or 30 hours in every month.

Sick leave entitlements are not pro-rated. For example, even if an employee works three days a week, they receive 10 days’ sick leave per year. They can also carry unused sick leave through to the next year and can accumulate a maximum of 20 sick days. 

Like sick leave, bereavement leave is not pro-rated. It is provided to eligible employees, using the same eligibility test as the one for sick leave mentioned above. Part-time employees are able to take a minimum of three days of paid leave if a member of their immediate family or household dies, or one day of paid leave if someone close to them, outside of their immediate family, passes away.

For part-time employees, holiday pay applies if the holiday falls on a day that they would typically work. For example, if a holiday falls on a Friday and one of their two working days is a Friday, then they would be entitled to holiday pay. However, if it falls on a Thursday and they do not work Thursdays, then they would not be entitled to holiday pay for that specific holiday.

Managing leave entitlements and holiday pay can be a headache, even for an experienced HR team. You can make life easier using employee management software that automatically calculates leave entitlements based on hours and days worked.

Pay, tax and record-keeping for part-time staff

Minimum wage and pay accuracy

Part-time employees, like all employees, must be paid at least the minimum wage. In New Zealand, this is $23.50 per hour (accurate as at publish date).  

PAYE, KiwiSaver and ACC deductions

As part of paying your part-time employees, you’ll need to tax their Pay As You Earn (PAYE) from each pay. As an employer, you’re responsible for deducting and paying PAYE income tax on your employee’s behalf. You’ll need to report PAYE details to the IRD within two working days of a pay run.

You’ll also need to ensure you’re paying any KiwiSaver contributions required to your part-time employees and keeping a record of these payments. Finally, you’ll need to make sure you deduct any Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) levies from their wages. 

Payslips and wage records

You must maintain accurate payroll records for all part-time employees for six years. You may also be required to provide payslips to your employees, depending on their employee agreement

By making accurate record-keeping part of your process, you can better prepare for any potential audits. You should be keeping details of all wages paid, time worked and leave records.

Employment Hero’s all-in-one HR, payroll and hiring platform makes it easier to deliver payslips on time and keep accurate records of payroll runs. If you’re expanding your workforce or just looking to manage compliance, then we’d love to hear from you.

Step-by-step guide to hiring a part-time employee

Define the role and job requirements

We’ve taken you through the requirements for hiring a part-time employee. Now for the exciting part — the actual hiring. 

You’ll want to start by outlining exactly what you’re looking for so you can put together a job description that outlines the role. In this you should include:

• The key skills and experience you’re looking for
• The hours/days the part-time employee will be expected to work
• The flexibility available within the role (for example, is it a work-from-home role, or can it work around school drop-off and pick-up)

By highlighting these details in the job description, you can diversify your talent pool.

You may want to consider whether the role requires a probation period or trial shift. Depending on your industry and the role, a probation period can help both you and the successful candidate decide whether the role is the right fit for them. 

Under New Zealand law, there is no limit to the length of the probationary period. However, it’s typically between three and six months. You’ll need to include a clause in the employment agreement describing the conditions of the probationary period.

Write a job description that attracts the right candidates

After outlining the requirements of the role, it’s time to turn those into a job description that intrigues quality applicants. Given it’s a part-time role, your job description should include inclusive and clear language that highlights the flexibility available with your company.

It’s also worth noting what career growth is possible with your company. This is still a priority for many part-time workers and showcasing these opportunities within your job description can help bring in the right people. If you’re looking for assistance with writing your job description, then you can use our free job description template. 

Choose the right sourcing channels

So you’ve written up a job advertisement, designed to find you your next star employee. Now, it’s time to decide where to advertise. You can use a few sources, including job boards, social media, internal referrals and even sourcing recommendations from the community. We’ve also got a database of quality candidates that you can search, to make finding quality applicants easier.

Screen and shortlist candidates

So you’ve advertised your new role and the candidates should be rolling in soon. Once they do, you can assess and shortlist candidates to move onto the interview stage.

You can assess and shortlist candidates based on:

• How closely their skills/experience match up with your requirements for the role
• The results they’ve achieved in previous roles
• How they portray themselves in their CV and cover letter (and whether they seem like a cultural fit)

Looking to take the stress out of the shortlisting process? Our AI-powered hiring tool is here to help. It can help you source, assess and shortlist candidates, so you can focus on learning more about each candidate through the interview process. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by the thought of wading through countless CVs, this tool is for you.

Onboarding part-time employees with confidence

Getting the onboarding process right can help you retain quality candidates for longer. From the get-go, you should outline clear expectations for the role, so the new hire knows how they can succeed in the role. We recommend providing them with easy access to your company’s policies and systems. This time is also crucial for helping the new starter feel part of the team. A team lunch or event can make all the difference.

If you’re onboarding a few employees at once, or just want to make sure your onboarding process is hitting the mark, then onboarding software can help you deliver an experience that helps every employee start on the right foot.

Managing part-time employees effectively

Scheduling, communication and flexibility

Part-time employees may not always work the same hours or shifts. While the flexibility of part-time employees is a huge benefit, you need to properly track the hours and days they’re working and communicate changes in hours/days effectively.

Digital time and attendance systems can help both you and your employee track when they’re working, so they can get paid accurately. Being able to scale up or down how much a part-time employee works helps with your workforce’s flexibility but to maintain compliance, you’ll need to record any changes accurately. 

Performance reviews and growth opportunities

Performance management should be a regular part of your workplace culture and this goes for part-time employees too. Much like with full-time employees, we recommend scheduling regular 1:1s, goal-setting sessions and performance reviews to help them develop and grow.

Part-time employees need feedback as much as any other type of employee. If you’re looking to complete a performance review with a part-time employee but don’t know where to start, then we can help. 

We’ve put together a performance review template to help you assess your part-time employee’s performance, provide structured feedback and provide them with the support they need to excel in your workplace. 

Updating hours or status: When to review a contract

Need your part-time employee to work more hours? Under New Zealand law, both you and your employee must agree to the change unless the employment agreement says you can change the hours of work. To formalise the change, the employment agreement must be updated to reflect the actual working conditions. 

A part-time employee may become a full-time employee when they transition to working the standard full-time hours for their role. Like any change to working hours, this must be done by mutual agreement, with the employee agreement updated.

To maintain compliance, you should formalise any changes made to hours or working arrangements, so no confusion arises down the line. If, at any point, an employee’s work situation is different to their employment agreement, then you should either enter into a new agreement or update the existing agreement. That way, both you and the employee are clear on the responsibilities and entitlements.

Common mistakes when hiring part-time staff

There are a range of common mistakes that you’ll want to avoid when hiring part-time staff, so you can stay compliant. 

These include:

• Confusing casual employees with part-time employees who are permanent
• Forgetting to formalise contracts
• Misunderstanding how to calculate the leave of part-time employees
• Allowing inconsistent hours without review
• Not updating employee agreements as hours change
  

Don’t get lax when it comes to hiring part-time employees. While they might work less than full-time employees, there are still many considerations around employment, as outlined above.

Retaining part-time employees long-term

Recognition, rewards and inclusion

Part-time employees shouldn’t feel like secondary employees. Instead, elevate them as equals to your full-time employees through both formal and informal recognition. This can look like praise in all-hands meetings and awards, or team inclusion, like scheduling team events during times where your part-time employees are working.

Scheduling flexibility and work-life balance

If you’ve hired an employee that requires flexibility, such as a parent or student, providing them with a work schedule that suits their work-life balance can improve retention. This is especially important if you’ve hired skilled employees to fill a particular need, as they may have specialised knowledge the rest of your workplace lacks.

For many part-time employees, the attraction of a part-time role lies within its ability to work around their outside responsibilities. For example, for parents, you may set their working hours so they can make school drop-off and pick-up. For those who are students, you could make their working days when they don’t have school or university. 

Development pathways and promotion opportunities

You should also look to provide your part-time employees with clear growth opportunities. By outlining the pathways available to them to progress, you can improve employee engagement and retention. This will ultimately help you save on onboarding and training costs.

An employee learning management system can simplify upskilling your employees so they are ready to move into new roles. We’ve built a tool for building high-performing teams through engaging, practical learning content that helps employees get ready for more.

Hire part-time employees faster

Ready to hire your next star part-time employee? Speed up the process with Employment Hero’s AI-powered hiring platform. SmartMatch makes finding quality candidates simple, streamlining the sourcing, screening and onboarding processes. Spend less time searching for a diamond in the rough and more time working on your business. To try our AI-powered hiring platform for yourself, get in touch today.

Looking for further support on hiring part-time employees? Download our helpful guide today to get started on your hiring journey. 

The information in this article is current as at 24 September 2025, and has been prepared by Employment Hero Pty Ltd (ABN 11 160 047 709) and its related bodies corporate (Employment Hero). The views expressed in this article are general information only, are provided in good faith to assist employers and their employees, and should not be relied on as professional advice. Some information is based on data supplied by third parties. While such data is believed to be accurate, it has not been independently verified and no warranties are given that it is complete, accurate, up to date or fit for the purpose for which it is required. Employment Hero does not accept responsibility for any inaccuracy in such data and is not liable for any loss or damages arising directly or indirectly as a result of reliance on, use of or inability to use any information provided in this article. You should undertake your own research and seek professional advice before making any decisions or relying on the information in this article.