With the new Employment Relations Amendment Act 2026 in force since Feb 21st one aspect worth looking at immediately is the new rules around personal grievances with high-income earners.
If you missed the update highlighting the main changes please see our article here:
www.employers.co.nz/employment-relations-amendment-bill-passes-feb-2026-blog.aspx
A new provision introduced is personal grievance restrictions placed on high-income earners. The high-income threshold is set at $200,000.00 at this stage. That figure counts all remuneration paid to the employee within the previous 364 days. That figure will be revised in the future, but not before July 1st 2027.
The premise being to increase labour market flexibility at senior and executive levels while maintaining employee protections for the majority, and the expectation will probably be to see more contractual exit clauses as is commonplace for executive appointments previously.
By default the law now precludes employees earning that figure or higher from raising a personal grievance if they get terminated, based on unjustified dismissal or unjustified disadvantage. However, this provision is negotiable, and the parties can elect to opt out of this in the employment agreement.
While this provision does not take effect for existing employment relationships for 12 months, it is very much in effect for any new hires since Feb 21st 2026. If existing staff who earn above that threshold have not renegotiated agreements by Feb 21st 2027 they too will not be able to raise grievances if terminated - relating to that termination.
We have included an opt-out clause in our agreement builders and templates if the status-quo stance if preferred or negotiated (Clause 57: "High-income earner opt-out").