Hi all,
I'm wondering if you might be able to provide any advice on the following situation:

A friend of mine has been employed with a company for the past few years as a permanent, fulltime employee.  My friend works in two locations within Auckland - 3days a week at one site, 2 days at another.  Their employer wishes to split the job into two positions and have one part-time employee at each location.  (Same duties, same number of hours per week at each site, though the proposed working times at each site are different)  Their employer has stressed that it is not a "performance" issue.  They want my friend to chose one of the part time roles, and advertise to fill the other.

My (layman's) understanding of NZ employment law is as follows:
 * An person's employment contract cannot be altered unless both parties agree to the changes.
 * A redundancy must be for a genuine business reason.

Now, my friend does not wish to transition into a part time role.  This seems to suggest that their employer will need to make them redundant from their fulltime, permanent position in order to effect the change that they're looking for.

But if they do so, and then immediate seek to fill the vacancy created with two part time positions, is this still a "genuine" redundancy, or have they left themselves open for a personal grievance claim?

Thoughts?  Advice?

Thanks in advance :-)