Max Whitehead: Employment law expert on the investigations into Xero's former chief executive Sir Rod Drury

An employment expert's raising his eyebrows over Xero investigating complaints against the newly crowned New Zealander of the Year.

The tech company's reviewing a decade-old accusation of inappropriate behaviour from former chief executive Sir Rod Drury - which has come to light, and he denies.

Employment relations specialist Max Whitehead says Xero can't do much.

"It's a mystery why Xero are taking any action, there's a 90-day limit on taking a personal grievance. The other thing is that maybe the Human Rights commission - but there's a 12-month limit on that." 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
New Zealander of the Year. Sir Rod Drury has been
accused of inappropriate behavior by a former Zero staffer. The
woman made a complaint to Zero right before she left
the company in twenty seventeen. Zero is now reviewing how
they handled that, and Sir Rod says he's not done
anything wrong. Max Whitehead is an employment law expert at
the Whitehead Group and with us Home. Max, Hi, Heather,
can we read anything into the review that's just been

(00:21):
announced or is that just prudent reputation management by Zero?

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Well, it's a mystery why Zero are taking any action
because in employment law, what can they do? Like, there's
ninety day limit on taking a personal grievance, so that's
not an option for the complainant. The other thing is
that maybe maybe the Human Rights Commission, but there's a
twelve month limit on that. Now this has gone These

(00:48):
allegations go back ten years, so it really doesn't make
a lot of sense except is it reputational issues that
perhaps Zero is spending a fortune maybe thirty eighty thousand
dollars on doing an investigation on this.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
Yeah, presumably to clear their name and so they hald
it properly. I would have thought, given that both of
them have left zero, as in Sir Rod and also
the woman who's made these allegations, even if the review
did find something, Zero couldn't do anything to either of them,
could it.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
No? No, no, there's no action they could do to me.
You're right about either of them. I mean, she potentially
faces the You know, she's raised a claim that has
no substance to it. She could be disciplined if she
was an employee, But my goodness, I mean, she left
many many, many years ago, and waited till she left
until she did raise the claim, and I think a

(01:40):
couple of years had passed now.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
The allegation is that he invited her. She's a junior staffer,
he's the CEO. He invites her to her dinner at
his house across the road. Just it seems to be
just the pair of them. Afterwards, as he's letting her
out the door, he says he wants to kiss her,
she says no. He then doesn't kiss her. Is that
a slam dunk moved from him? How much trouble is
he in for that?

Speaker 2 (02:03):
Well, a CEO should should behave himself a lot better
than that. That's not the sort of conduct you would
expect from a CEO. But I mean, you would think
that she's said no to a CEO and he's agreed
with her it was inappropriate. I would have thought that
would have should have been the end of the matter,
but it's not, and she still wants to raise the matter.

(02:25):
And it seems like when Sue Rodd's reputation is that
it's peak. I thought it was years ago, but certainly
it's even got higher now being the new Zealander of
the year. That I mean she wants, well, I don't
know what she wants because I don't see them to
gain from her other than sitting in the sunlight with
the media attention that she's getting.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Max good to talk to you always is thank you
for your time. Max's Whitehead employment LUI expert at the
white Head Group.

Speaker 2 (02:52):
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