An amendment to the Employment Relations Act 2000 has passed into law to extend the time limit for an employee raising a personal grievance for sexual harassment against their employer.
Ordinarily, an employee must raise a personal grievance against their employer within 90 days of occurrence of the event(s). Up until recently, this includes employees who may have been victims of sexual harassment caused by or attributable to their employer.
From 13 June 2023, the Employment Relations (Extended Time for Personal Grievance for Sexual Harassment) Amendment Act extends the time limit for raising a personal grievance for sexual harassment to 12 months. This new time limit will also apply to employees who intend to raise a personal grievance for sexual harassment against their employer but have not yet notified their employer (or former employer) of this intention. Employers will need to engage more substantively with discussions about how to respond to a claim of a personal grievance for sexual harassment.
Employers will need to update employment agreement templates where these make reference to the time limit for raising a personal grievance for sexual harassment (primarily contained in the plain language explanation of the services available for the resolution of employment relationship problems). Existing employment agreements do not need to be amended.
Assistance
If you require assistance with updating your organisation’s employment agreements to reflect this change then please get in contact with us.
See our previous article which discusses the purpose of the extension of time here.
