Fair process decides employment cases.

The personal grievance is the workhorse claim of New Zealand employment law, brought under the Employment Relations Act 2000. The main grounds are unjustified dismissal and unjustified disadvantage, with discrimination and harassment grievances alongside. Constructive dismissal — a resignation forced by the employer's conduct — runs as an unjustified dismissal claim with an extra burden to meet, which makes advice before resigning critical.

The clock rules everything. A grievance must be raised with the employer within 90 days — twelve months for sexual harassment — and raising it needs only a clear communication to the employer — best put in writing — not a court filing. Late grievances need the employer's consent or the Authority's leave, granted only in exceptional circumstances.

From there the ladder runs: raise it with the employer, mediate through MBIE's free service, then the Employment Relations Authority's investigation, with the Employment Court above. The great majority of grievances settle at or before mediation — and a settlement signed off under s149 is full and final.

A redundancy can be commercially genuine and still legally unjustified. The test under s103A is what a fair and reasonable employer could have done — and it looks hard at process: was the proposal genuinely consulted on, was the information behind it shared, did the employee have a real opportunity to respond, and was the decision actually still open when the consultation started?

Predetermination is the classic failure. A restructure announced as a proposal but executed as a decision produces a grievance the employer loses even where the business case was real. The same goes for dismissals over genuine misconduct where the process was short-cut — substance does not cure process.

For employers the economics are simple: advice before the restructure or disciplinary decision costs a fraction of the grievance after it. We audit proposals and processes before they run; where a grievance has already arrived, an honest process audit decides whether to defend it or resolve it commercially at mediation.

Employment agreements are where most disputes are won or lost before they begin — clear terms on duties, remuneration and processes remove the ambiguity grievances grow in. We draft and review agreements for employers, and advise employees on what they are actually signing, including the clauses that only matter when things end.

Restraints of trade are the sharpest of those clauses. A restraint is not enforceable merely because it was signed: it holds only so far as it reasonably protects a legitimate business interest — client relationships, confidential information — and the courts read restraints narrowly, weighing scope, duration and geography. A restraint drafted wider than the interest it protects risks being cut down or set aside.

The practical advice mirrors both sides: employers should draft restraints no wider than the interest they genuinely need to protect, and employees should take advice before signing — and again before assuming a restraint is either watertight or worthless. Most restraint disputes settle quickly once both sides get a realistic view of enforceability.