Claude for HR under the Employment Relations Act 2000

The ground rules before you start

Employment law in New Zealand is about process as much as outcome. The Employment Relations Act 2000 requires employers and employees to deal with each other in good faith, and before a decision that is likely to affect someone's continued employment, it requires the employer to give them access to the relevant information and a chance to comment¹. A well-written letter does not cure a decision that was made before the employee was heard.

Anthropic's Usage Policy lists employment eligibility decisions as a high-risk use. It expects a qualified person to review AI output before it is finalised, and requires people to be told AI was involved when its output is presented to them directly². That fits New Zealand practice. Use Claude to draft, organise and check documents, and keep the judgement about any individual with a manager who has read the evidence.

Claude can also be wrong about the law. Anthropic's help centre warns that its output can look correct and be badly mistaken³. Changes made by the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2025 have been in force since 21 February 2026, and Employment New Zealand publishes a summary of what changed⁴. A model may not know the current position. Give Claude the current text or guidance; do not ask it to recall the law.

• Claude drafts; a manager decides.
• Paste in the current guidance from employment.govt.nz rather than asking Claude what the law says.
• Never ask Claude whether to dismiss, discipline or select someone.
• Keep a human-readable record of what was decided and why.

Choose the plan and settings for personnel files

Personnel files are some of the most sensitive information a business holds. Under the Privacy Act 2020, an employer must protect personal information with reasonable security safeguards and is responsible for what it discloses to overseas services⁵. The Office of the Privacy Commissioner expects leaders to approve generative AI use, a privacy assessment before use, and human review of output before anyone acts on it⁶.

Use a Team or Enterprise plan for HR work. Anthropic's commercial terms, which cover those plans, say Anthropic may not train models on customer content⁷. Keep HR chats separate from everyday work. A dedicated HR Project shared only with the people who handle employment matters is a sensible boundary, and for a one-off sensitive question, an incognito chat is not saved to chat history^8,9.

• Business plan in the company's name, not a manager's personal account.
• One HR Project, shared only with people who handle employment matters⁸.
• Use initials or role titles in prompts where full names are not needed.
• Record the privacy assessment and who approved the tool.

Build an HR Project with your own source material

Create the Project from the Projects page with New Project, then add your documents and write instructions with Set project instructions⁸. Load the material that should govern every draft: your current employment agreement templates, your policies, your code of conduct, the relevant pages from employment.govt.nz saved as PDFs, and your standard letters.

Instructions matter here more than anywhere. A good set reads like this: write in plain New Zealand English; use a neutral, respectful tone; never state a conclusion about misconduct; describe allegations as allegations; always include the employee's right to a support person or representative; quote the clause of our policy that applies; flag any statement that needs legal advice. If you repeat a task often, such as a disciplinary meeting invitation, Claude's Skills feature can package the steps and wording so every manager produces the same structure¹⁰.

Employment agreements and offers

Each employee needs a written employment agreement. The Employment Relations Act 2000 lists what an individual agreement must contain, including the names of the parties, a description of the work, where and when it will be done, the wages or salary, and a plain-language explanation of how to resolve employment relationship problems, including the 90-day period for raising a personal grievance and the 12-month period for a sexual harassment grievance¹. The employer must keep a copy of the signed agreement, or of the intended agreement if the employee has not signed¹.

Before an employee signs, the employer must give them a copy of the intended agreement, tell them they may seek independent advice, and give them a reasonable opportunity to get it¹. Employment New Zealand points to a free employment agreement builder on business.govt.nz, which is the right starting point for a template¹¹.

Claude's role is the tailoring and the checking. Upload your template and the job details and ask Claude to produce the agreement for the role. Then ask it a separate question: compare this agreement with the required contents list I have pasted in, and list anything missing or unclear. A trial period clause is a good example. A trial period of up to 90 days must be agreed in writing before the employee starts work, and is only available for someone not previously employed by that employer¹. Ask Claude to confirm that the clause is present and that the offer letter goes out before the start date. The manager then checks both.

• Start from the Employment New Zealand builder or your lawyer's template¹¹.
• Ask Claude to check the draft against the required contents, not to invent clauses.
• Send the intended agreement early, with the advice statement.
• Keep the signed or intended agreement on file¹.

Job ads, interviews and reference checks

The Human Rights Act 1993 makes it unlawful to discriminate in employment on grounds such as sex, marital status, religious or ethical belief, race, disability, age, family status and sexual orientation¹². The same Act makes it unlawful to use an application form or ask a question that indicates an intention to discriminate¹². Ask Claude to review a draft job ad and interview questions for wording that could suggest a preference on one of those grounds. It is good at spotting phrases like recent graduate or young team, and suggesting neutral wording.

Do not use Claude to rank or screen candidates. That is the kind of employment decision Anthropic's policy treats as high-risk², and it is hard to explain to an unsuccessful applicant. Use it to write a consistent interview guide and a scoring sheet tied to the job requirements, which a person then fills in.

Reference checks changed in 2026. A new information privacy principle 3A in the Privacy Act 2020 applies when you collect personal information from someone other than the person it is about, such as a referee, and generally requires reasonable steps to let the person know^5,13. Ask Claude to update your reference check form and candidate notice so they cover it, then check the result against the Privacy Commissioner's guidance.

Investigations and disciplinary letters

This is where Claude is most useful and where the risk is highest. The Employment Relations Act 2000 test is whether the employer's actions, and how it acted, were what a fair and reasonable employer could have done in all the circumstances¹. That test looks at whether the employer sufficiently investigated, raised the concerns with the employee, gave a reasonable opportunity to respond, and genuinely considered the explanation before deciding¹.

A hypothetical example. A Christchurch manufacturer with about forty staff receives a complaint that a team leader swore at a machine operator. The operations manager uploads the complaint, two witness statements and the code of conduct into the HR Project. Claude is asked to do three things: list the specific allegations in neutral terms; draft a letter inviting the team leader to a meeting, attaching the statements, naming the policy clauses, saying the possible outcomes, and stating the right to bring a support person or representative; and draft an interview plan with open questions. The manager edits the letter, sends it, and holds the meeting.

After the meeting, the manager uploads their notes and the team leader's written response, and asks Claude to summarise the response point by point against each allegation. Claude is not asked what the outcome should be. The manager writes a preliminary view, gives the team leader a chance to comment on it, and only then decides. Claude can then draft the outcome letter from the manager's reasons.

Two traps to watch. First, Claude may write as if the allegation is proven; your instructions should forbid that. Second, the summary of an employee's explanation must be fair. Read the original response yourself, because the test asks whether you genuinely considered it¹.

• List allegations neutrally, one per paragraph.
• Attach the evidence the employee needs to respond¹.
• State the right to a support person or representative.
• Separate the summary of the response from the decision.
• Write the decision reasons yourself; let Claude format the letter.

Restructuring, grievances and records

A restructure needs genuine business reasons and real consultation. Good faith requires you to share the relevant information and listen before deciding¹. Claude can turn a manager's notes into a clear proposal document, explain the selection criteria in plain words, and later group the feedback by theme so each point gets an answer. It should not write the final decision before consultation closes.

An employee has 90 days to raise a personal grievance, or 12 months if it concerns sexual harassment, counted from the action or from when they became aware of it, whichever is later¹. When a grievance letter arrives, Claude can summarise it, list each claim and draft an acknowledgement. Get advice from an employment lawyer or advocate on the substance.

Records matter when anything is challenged. The Employment Relations Act 2000 requires a wages and time record covering the previous six years¹. Keep final HR documents in your HR system or document store, not only inside a Claude chat. Employees can ask for the personal information you hold about them, and under the Privacy Act 2020 an agency must respond within 20 working days⁵. Notes and drafts can be caught by that request, so write them as though the employee will read them.

A checklist for the first month

Spend the first week on templates, not on live cases. Build the HR Project, load the current guidance and your documents, and write the instructions. In week two, run one job ad and one agreement through Claude and have the manager who normally does them review the result. In weeks three and four, draft a disciplinary invitation and an outcome letter from an old, closed file, and compare them with what was actually sent. Use Claude on live cases only after that comparison.

• Business plan and HR Project set up, access limited.
• Current employment.govt.nz guidance loaded and dated.
• Instructions forbid conclusions about individuals.
• Agreement template checked against the required contents.
• Job ad and interview questions reviewed for discriminatory wording.
• Reference check form updated for the new collection rule.
• A named manager signs every document that goes to an employee.