He scored top marks in August. By December, he was sleeping in his car
A helicopter tourism company's attempt to pass off a firing as redundancy has backfired - to the tune of $16,000.
New Zealand's Employment Relations Authority found The Helicopter Line Limited unjustifiably dismissed a cafe assistant at its remote Glentanner operation, near Mount Cook in the South Island. The determination, issued on October 9, 2026, ordered the company to pay $16,000 in compensation plus $1,740 in gross wage arrears and interest.
The worker had been employed for about eight months at the small cafe, which sat within the company's broader tourist flight operation. The role came with staff accommodation - a significant perk given the remote location.
Things went well at first. In an August 2024 performance review, the worker received top credits across all performance indicators. He requested a pay rise for his responsibilities, leadership, and showing people "the ropes" - and got one, a $2.00 per hour increase, bringing his rate to $29.00 gross per hour.
Around the same time, the company decided not to replace the departing cafe manager, instead handing oversight of the cafe to a manager whose primary role was on the flying side of the business. The company's sole director had identified that the cafe was running at a loss and wanted to shift from a cooked-to-order menu to a self-serve cabinet food and coffee model.
Through meetings in October and November 2024 - including an October 21 meeting with the acting manager and an October 30 meeting with the director - the company's position was that the worker consistently refused to make the change.
Then came November 29.
The worker messaged his acting manager saying he was "burnt out" and needed a sick day. The Authority found the tenor of his messages became more serious, and that his comments about not performing certain tasks in the cafe were those reflected in the termination letter three days later.
On December 2, 2024, the company's sole director sent a letter ending the worker's employment, with the cafe to close on December 5. The letter cited the worker's alleged refusal to assist with ordering food, support the cafe while replacement staff were found, or help train new employees. It referenced his earlier pay rise for "responsibilities and leadership" - which the Authority interpreted as the company signalling that the worker had refused to do the job he had agreed to take on.
The letter did not use the word "redundancy."
The company paid two weeks' notice and told the worker to vacate his accommodation. Right before Christmas, in a remote location with family connections only in the North Island, the worker ended up sleeping in his car.
When the worker raised a personal grievance - the formal process under New Zealand employment law for challenging a dismissal - the company argued the termination was a genuine redundancy carried out after consultation. The Authority did not accept this.
The reasons were straightforward. First, the termination letter itself pointed to fault - the worker's alleged refusal to change the food service model - not to his role being surplus. Second, the cafe closed only briefly after the worker left. A former employee was brought in to implement the cabinet food model, and the company's evidence was that it "has continued to work well." A role that gets refilled weeks later is a hard sell as redundant.
The Authority also found the worker had been assured by his acting manager that he would not lose his job. No performance management or disciplinary process had ever been started. His August 2024 review showed top credits on every performance indicator. Whatever concerns the company had about his conduct - including allegations he had aggressively talked to managers and given away hot chips without charging - none of these were ever formally raised with him.
The determination was pointed about the company's resources. This was not a small business fumbling through an unfamiliar process. The company had in-house human resources expertise - the HR manager was one of the two managers who reported the worker's alleged refusal to the director. The Authority found the company "fell well short" of treating the worker fairly, ending his employment suddenly on fault-based grounds without any process that would have given him a chance to improve or understand his job was at risk.
On compensation, the Authority awarded $16,000, finding the dismissal had a "significant impact" on the worker. The timing - right before Christmas - combined with the forced departure from accommodation caused what the Authority described as "a lack of dignity," with the worker having to sleep in his car for a time.
The worker's claim for lost wages was declined. His Inland Revenue records showed he earned $10,708.99 gross in the three months after dismissal - more than the $10,440.00 he would have earned at the cafe over the same period.
The Authority also ordered $1,740.00 gross in wage arrears for two weeks' short-paid notice, plus interest. The worker's employment agreement entitled him to four weeks' notice for a standard dismissal, but because the company had treated it as a redundancy, it paid only two. Penalty applications for the notice breach and for the company's delay in providing employment records were both declined, though the Authority noted the records delay was "surprising" for a business with in-house HR expertise.
For HR teams, the case is a clean reminder: if the real issue is an employee's performance or conduct, the answer is a performance management process - not a redundancy letter. And if the role gets filled again weeks later, the paper trail writes itself.
