Personal Grievance (PG)

Personal grievances in New Zealand

A Personal Grievance (PG) is the main legal process an employee uses to challenge an unjustified dismissal, unjustified disadvantage, discrimination, harassment and certain other unlawful treatment at work. For most PGs the grievance must be raised with the employer within 90 days, so it is important to identify the complaint and the deadline early.

What can a Personal Grievance be about?

• Unjustified dismissal: the employer did not have a sufficiently good reason to dismiss, did not act fairly, or both.
• Unjustified disadvantage: an unjustifiable employer action adversely affected the employee's employment or conditions.
• Redundancy: a redundancy dismissal may be challenged where the business rationale, consultation, selection or redeployment process was not justified.
• Constructive dismissal: a resignation may legally amount to a dismissal where the employer's conduct caused or compelled the resignation.
• Discrimination, sexual harassment and racial harassment: the Employment Relations Act provides specific PG grounds for unlawful conduct of this kind.
• 90-day trial issues: special rules apply to trial-period dismissals, including whether the trial was valid and whether the particular grievance remains available.

How do you raise a Personal Grievance?

The employer needs to be made aware that the employee alleges a personal grievance and wants the employer to address it. A particular legal formula is not the point, but the grievance should be clear enough that the employer understands what action is challenged and why. In practice, raising the PG in writing is usually safer because it creates a record of the allegations and the date they were raised.

The 90-day Personal Grievance time limit

Most personal grievances must be raised within 90 days beginning with the date the action occurred or came to the employee's notice, whichever is later. A sexual-harassment PG has a 12-month employee notification period. Late grievances are possible only in limited circumstances, so relying on an extension is risky.

Evidence to preserve

Employment cases are usually won or lost on the contemporaneous record. Preserve the material before access disappears:

• employment agreement and relevant policies;
• dismissal, redundancy, warning, suspension or disciplinary letters;
• emails, texts, Teams/Slack messages and meeting invitations;
• meeting notes, recordings where lawfully made, and the names of witnesses;
• rosters, wage/time/holiday records and final-pay information;
• performance material, complaints, CCTV or other documents relied on by the employer;
• job-search and income evidence if lost wages may be claimed.

What remedies can a successful PG produce?

Depending on the claim, remedies can include reinstatement, reimbursement of lost remuneration, and compensation for humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings or loss of a benefit. The remedy question is separate from whether the grievance itself is established.

Important exceptions to ordinary dismissal PG rights

Do not assume every dismissal follows the ordinary rules. Special statutory restrictions can apply to a valid 90-day trial and to employees at or above the statutory high-income remuneration threshold. The high-income rules include transition and opt-back-in provisions, so the employment agreement, remuneration and dates need to be checked before deciding what dismissal claim is available.