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Employment Relations Act 2000

Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement - Personal grievances

114: Raising personal grievance

You could also call this:

“ How to tell your boss about a problem at work and when you need to do it ”

If you want to raise a personal grievance with your employer, you need to do it within a certain time. This time is called the employee notification period. For most grievances, you have 90 days from when the problem happened or when you found out about it. But for some types of grievances, you have 12 months.

You raise a grievance by telling your employer about it or taking steps to make sure they know about it. You need to let them know that you have a problem you want them to fix.

If you miss the deadline, you can ask your employer if it’s okay to raise the grievance late. If they say no, you can ask the Employment Relations Authority for permission to raise it late. The Authority might say yes if there were special reasons for the delay and if they think it’s fair to allow it.

If the Authority gives you permission to raise your grievance late, they will tell you and your employer to try to solve the problem through mediation.

Remember, you can’t start any official action about your personal grievance more than 3 years after you first raised it.

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View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM60354.

Topics:
Work and jobs > Worker rights
Rights and equality > Anti-discrimination
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Part 9 Personal grievances, disputes, and enforcement
Personal grievances

114Raising personal grievance

  1. An employee who wishes to raise a personal grievance must, subject to subsections (3) and (4), raise the grievance with their employer within the applicable employee notification period unless the employer consents to the personal grievance being raised after the expiration of that period.

  2. For the purposes of subsection (1), a grievance is raised with an employer as soon as the employee has made, or has taken reasonable steps to make, the employer or a representative of the employer aware that the employee alleges a personal grievance that the employee wants the employer to address.

  3. Where the employer does not consent to the personal grievance being raised after the expiration of the employee notification period, the employee may apply to the Authority for leave to raise the personal grievance after the expiration of that period.

  4. On an application under subsection (3), the Authority, after giving the employer an opportunity to be heard, may grant leave accordingly, subject to such conditions (if any) as it thinks fit, if the Authority—

  5. is satisfied that the delay in raising the personal grievance was occasioned by exceptional circumstances (which may include any 1 or more of the circumstances set out in section 115); and
    1. considers it just to do so.

      1. In any case where the Authority grants leave under subsection (4), the Authority must direct the employer and employee to use mediation to seek to mutually resolve the grievance.

      2. No action may be commenced in the Authority or the court in relation to a personal grievance more than 3 years after the date on which the personal grievance was raised in accordance with this section.

      3. In this section, employee notification period means,—

      4. in respect of a personal grievance under section 103(1)(d), the period of 12 months beginning with the date on which the action alleged to amount to the personal grievance occurred or came to the notice of the employee, whichever is later:
        1. in respect of any other personal grievance, the period of 90 days beginning with the date on which the action alleged to amount to a personal grievance occurred or came to the notice of the employee, whichever is later.

          Compare
          • 1991 No 22 s 33
          Notes
          • Section 114(1): replaced, on , by section 6(1) of the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Act 2023 (2023 No 28).
          • Section 114(3): amended, on , by section 6(2) of the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Act 2023 (2023 No 28).
          • Section 114(7): inserted, on , by section 6(3) of the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Act 2023 (2023 No 28).