Employment Contracts For Dental Practice Staff

Do you really need a tailored employment contract for every person in your dental practice?

Yes. If someone is your employee, New Zealand employment law requires you to have a written employment agreement, and in a dental clinic that agreement needs to do more than cover pay and job title.

Your team handles patient information, sterilisation processes, appointment systems, rosters, health and safety procedures and sometimes close patient relationships. A good agreement helps you set expectations clearly from day one, so your practice can run smoothly and your staff know exactly what is expected.

Do Dental Practice Staff Need Written Employment Agreements?

Yes. Under the Employment Relations Act 2000, every employee in New Zealand must have a written employment agreement.

This applies whether you're hiring a:

• dental assistant
• dental receptionist
• practice manager
• oral health therapist
• dental hygienist
• associate dentist as an employee
• sterilisation assistant
• part-time or casual clinic support staff member

You also need to keep a copy of the agreement, and you need to give the employee a chance to get advice before they sign. Rushing someone into signing on their first morning can cause problems later, especially if you're relying on trial period or restraint clauses.

Your employment agreement must include certain basics, such as:

• the names of your practice and the employee
• a description of the work
• where the employee will work
• agreed hours or how hours will be set
• wages or salary and how payment is made
• an employee protection provision, which deals with restructuring situations
• how employment relationship problems can be raised, including the usual 90-day timeframe for personal grievances and the 12-month timeframe for sexual harassment grievances

For dental practices, those basics are only the starting point. A standard template may not cover the everyday realities of your clinic, like patient records, late appointment changes, infection control, uniforms, sterilisation duties and access to practice management software.

What Should A Dental Practice Employment Contract Include?

A dental practice employment contract should include the legal minimums plus clauses tailored to how your clinic actually operates.

For example, a dental receptionist's employment agreement will usually look different from a dental assistant's agreement. Your receptionist may be responsible for patient calls, recalls, payment processing and calendar management. Your dental assistant may work chairside, clean clinical areas, prepare instruments, support X-rays and follow sterilisation procedures.

Core Employment Terms

Your agreement should clearly cover:

• Role and duties: include the main responsibilities, plus reasonable additional duties that fit the role.
• Hours of work: set out ordinary hours, roster arrangements, breaks and whether some evening or Saturday work may be required.
• Pay: include the hourly rate or salary, pay cycle and whether overtime, allowances, commission or bonuses apply.
• Leave: refer to annual holidays, sick leave, bereavement leave, family violence leave and public holidays under the Holidays Act 2003.
• Notice period: there's no general statutory minimum notice period for ordinary resignation or termination in New Zealand, so your agreement should set one.
• Policies: explain that the employee must follow your workplace policies, including clinical, privacy and health and safety policies.

Dental-Specific Clauses

Dental practices often need extra clauses dealing with:

• patient confidentiality and health information
• infection prevention and sterilisation procedures
• use of patient management systems and appointment software
• uniforms, personal presentation and protective equipment
• professional registration requirements, if the role requires registration
• continuing professional development, if relevant
• clinical notes and record-keeping expectations
• social media use, including not discussing patients online
• equipment care, clinic keys, alarm codes and access controls

Say Priya owns a two-chair dental clinic in Hamilton. She hires a receptionist who also helps with basic sterilisation room tasks during quiet periods. If Priya's agreement only says "administration duties", it may not be clear that sterilisation-related tasks form part of the role. A tailored agreement and clear policies can avoid confusion about what the role involves.

Can You Use Trial Periods For Dental Practice Staff?

Yes, you can use a 90-day trial period for dental practice staff if the legal requirements are met.

Since changes that took effect in late 2023, all New Zealand employers can use 90-day trial periods, not just employers with fewer than 20 employees. But the rules are still strict.

For a trial period to be valid, it should be:

• included in the written employment agreement
• agreed before the employee starts work
• used only for a new employee, not someone who has already worked for you before
• worded clearly, including the length of the trial period and what it means
• supported by proper notice if you decide to end employment during the trial period

The practical point is simple: if your new dental assistant starts work on Monday and signs the agreement on Tuesday, your trial period may not work as intended. Get the agreement sorted before the first shift.

You should also be careful not to treat a trial period as a substitute for good onboarding. A clear induction process is especially useful in a clinical setting, where small mistakes can affect patient care, infection control and team workflow.

Your induction might cover:

• how instruments move through the sterilisation process
• where PPE is kept and when it must be used
• how to handle patient complaints or distressed patients
• who can access clinical records
• how to report hazards, near misses or incidents
• what to do if the practice is running behind schedule

How Should You Handle Rosters, Hours And Leave?

You should handle rosters, hours and leave in a way that matches your clinic's real operating model and the Holidays Act 2003.

Dental practices often have changing needs. You may have peak patient times after school, occasional late nights, emergency appointments, hygienist days or dentists working different schedules across the week.

Your agreement should be clear about whether the role is:

• full-time: regular ongoing hours each week
• part-time: regular but fewer hours
• casual: no guaranteed ongoing hours, with work offered and accepted as needed
• fixed-term: for a genuine reason, such as covering parental leave or a temporary project

Be careful with casual arrangements. If someone works the same shifts every week for months, they may look more like a permanent employee in practice, even if the contract says "casual".

Leave Entitlements To Build Into Your Planning

Most employees become entitled to at least 4 weeks' paid annual holidays after 12 months of continuous employment. Eligible employees are also entitled to 10 days' paid sick leave per year after they meet the Holidays Act requirements, usually after 6 months of current continuous employment and meeting the work pattern threshold.

Public holidays also matter in dental clinics. If a public holiday falls on a day that would otherwise be a working day for that employee, they're usually entitled to a paid day off. If they work on that public holiday, extra entitlements can apply, including time and a half and possibly an alternative holiday.

Because leave calculations can get tricky with part-time, casual and variable roster staff, your agreement should be backed up by accurate payroll settings and good record-keeping.

Rosters And Changes To Hours

If you need flexibility, say so clearly. For example, your agreement might allow rosters to change with reasonable notice, while still respecting agreed guaranteed hours.

You should avoid wording that gives your practice unlimited power to change shifts at the last minute. In practice, that can damage staff trust and may not reflect good faith obligations under the Employment Relations Act.

Do You Need Separate Policies For Infection Control And Patient Information?

Yes. Your employment agreement should refer to these obligations, but separate policies usually work better for the detail.

A contract isn't the best place for step-by-step sterilisation procedures or detailed privacy workflows. Those documents need to be updated as standards, technology and clinic processes change.

Infection Control And Health And Safety

Your practice has duties under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015 to manage health and safety risks so far as reasonably practicable. In a dental clinic, those risks include sharps, blood and saliva exposure, aerosols, sterilisation processes, radiation safety where relevant, chemicals, manual handling and patient behaviour.

Your policies should set out practical expectations, such as:

• hand hygiene procedures
• PPE requirements
• instrument cleaning, packaging and sterilisation steps
• sharps handling and disposal
• clinical waste handling
• incident reporting
• what to do after exposure to blood or bodily fluids
• who supervises new staff until they're competent with clinic processes

Your employment agreement can then say the employee must follow your health and safety and infection control policies, and that serious or repeated breaches may lead to disciplinary action.

Patient Information And Privacy

Dental practices handle health information, which is sensitive personal information. The Privacy Act 2020 and the Health Information Privacy Code 2020 are especially relevant.

Your agreements and policies should cover:

• accessing patient records only when needed for work
• not discussing patients outside the clinic
• not taking photos or screenshots of patient information unless authorised
• using secure passwords and not sharing logins
• following your process for referrals, records requests and patient communications
• reporting suspected privacy breaches quickly

If a receptionist accidentally emails patient information to the wrong person, you may need to assess whether it's a notifiable privacy breach under the Privacy Act 2020. Having clear internal reporting steps helps you respond faster and more consistently.

Can You Use Restraint Clauses In A Dental Practice?

Yes, but restraint clauses need to be reasonable and carefully tailored to the role.

A restraint clause isn't there to stop someone earning a living. It's there to protect legitimate business interests, such as patient relationships, confidential information, referral relationships and your practice's goodwill.

In a dental setting, you might consider:

• confidentiality clauses: protecting patient information, pricing, staff information, systems and business plans.
• non-solicitation clauses: stopping a former employee from actively encouraging your patients, staff or referrers to leave your practice.
• non-dealing clauses: limiting certain dealings with patients or referrers they had close contact with, where reasonable.
• non-compete clauses: restricting work with a competing practice for a limited time and area, but these are usually harder to justify.

The right restraint in an associate dentist agreement will usually be different from the right restraint for a junior receptionist. A broad 12-month non-compete covering a whole city may be difficult to justify for many roles. A narrower patient non-solicitation clause may be more practical.

For example, if your hygienist has built strong relationships with your recall patients and leaves to work at a nearby clinic, your concern may be patient poaching rather than the fact they're working elsewhere. A focused non-solicitation clause may address that concern more fairly than a blanket ban on working nearby.

The wording should match the risk. If the restraint is too broad, you may struggle to rely on it later.

What If You Use Contractors In Your Dental Practice?

It depends on the working relationship, because calling someone a contractor doesn't automatically make them one.

Some dental practices engage dentists, hygienists or specialists as contractors. That can work, but the arrangement needs to reflect genuine contracting in both the documents and day-to-day practice.

From 2026, the Employment Relations Amendment Act 2026 introduced a contractor gateway test into the Employment Relations Act 2000. In broad terms, the test is designed to give more certainty where a written contractor agreement and the real working arrangement both point to genuine independence.

When you're considering a contractor model, look closely at things like:

• whether there's a written agreement saying the person is an independent contractor
• whether they can work for other clinics or businesses
• whether they control when and how they work
• whether they can decline extra work
• whether they provide their own tools, insurance or business systems
• whether they're paid like a business rather than through payroll
• whether your clinic manages them like an employee in practice

If the gateway test isn't met, the usual employee-versus-contractor assessment may still become relevant. This area is fact-specific, so it's worth getting tailored advice before using contractor agreements for clinical roles.

Also remember that contractor arrangements raise other issues, such as GST, ACC, insurance, professional registration and patient record ownership. You may need advice from your accountant or other professional advisers as well as legal support.

Common Mistakes To Avoid

The most common mistakes are usually simple ones, but they can create headaches later.

• Using the same agreement for every role: a dental assistant, receptionist and associate dentist shouldn't all have identical duties and restraints.
• Getting the contract signed after work starts: this can weaken trial period clauses and create uncertainty.
• Leaving rosters vague: unclear hours can cause payroll, leave and availability problems.
• Putting detailed clinical procedures in the contract: keep procedures in policies so you can update them as your clinic changes.
• Forgetting privacy obligations: patient records, photos, emails and texts all need clear rules.
• Using broad restraints: a restraint should protect a real business interest, not simply block competition.
• Treating a regular worker as casual: the label needs to match the actual work pattern.

A good set of documents usually includes the employment agreement plus supporting policies. For many dental practices, that means a staff handbook or policy pack covering infection control, a privacy policy, health and safety, uniforms, leave requests, social media, bullying and harassment, and use of clinic systems.

Key Takeaways

• Every dental practice employee in New Zealand needs a written employment agreement under the Employment Relations Act 2000.
• Your agreement should be tailored to the role, especially for dental assistants, receptionists, practice managers and clinical staff.
• Patient confidentiality, privacy, infection control, rosters and access to clinic systems should be covered clearly.
• Trial periods can be used, but they need to be agreed in writing before the employee starts work.
• Restraint clauses can help protect patient relationships and confidential information, but they need to be reasonable.
• If you engage contractors, the 2026 contractor gateway test and the real working arrangement both matter.

If you'd like help with your dental practice employment agreements, staff policies, confidentiality clauses or contractor arrangements, you can reach us at 0800 002 184 or team@sprintlaw.co.nz for a free, no-obligations chat.