“While I find the reasoning behind the restructure was ostensibly genuine and did not involve an ulterior motive, this was a flawed and muddled redundancy process with only ‘surface’ consultation and insufficient focus upon reconfirming or reassigning Mr McFarlane to retain his services,” Beck said.
“These procedural defects were not minor and they resulted in Mr McFarlane being treated unfairly.”
Stuff’s Auckland building in Ponsonby. Photo / Dean Purcell
Beck said Stuff had failed to properly assess whether McFarlane’s position was genuinely surplus to requirements.
He found that a proper comparison of old and new roles would “more likely than not” have resulted in McFarlane simply being reconfirmed in his position.
The procedural “defects” and “breaches of good faith” had prematurely ended McFarlane’s employment, “in a manner that did not fall within the parameters of what a notional, fair and reasonable employer could have done in all the circumstances at the time”.
McFarlane argued his role was not genuinely surplus to requirements and that he should not have been subjected to a contestable selection process.
“Mr McFarlane contends the role he occupied was largely unchanged and not surplus to his former employer’s requirements and that Stuff Ltd did not conduct a fair selection process and failed to redeploy him,” Beck said.
Stuff, on the other hand, said the redundancy was “enacted for genuine business reasons” following good faith consultation.
It said McFarlane did not contest the rationale for the restructuring and it “progressed in a procedurally fair and reasonable selection process”.
A 14-year career
The authority heard McFarlane started at Stuff in May 2011 as a digital account director and was promoted in July 2022 to senior account director.
Former Stuff senior advertising account director Andrew McFarlane. Photo / LinkedIn
In 2024, some of his programmatic digital advertising sales responsibilities were moved to another employee, although the authority did not receive any formal documentation about this.
It was later described by a Stuff HR representative to the ERA as an “informal” arrangement with no variation being documented.
By the end of 2024, according to the authority, Stuff’s Auckland-based commercial leader was looking at structural changes in Christchurch.
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She considered that “both direct and agency revenue was declining, and both programmatic and digital revenue was not sufficiently robust to sustain two employees”.
In April 2025, Stuff presented a proposal to change the organisational structure of its agency and direct advertising teams in Christchurch.
This would see the agency team reduced from three roles to two, reporting to a new leadership role.
In hindsight, Beck said, Stuff’s commercial boss “acknowledged one problem she immediately created was the job title used for one of the new roles (senior account director) being the title of the role that Mr McFarlane then occupied”.
McFarlane’s lawyer argued the proposal appeared to partially recombine his tasks, while Stuff said it was a substantially different role.
In an initial brief email to Stuff, McFarlane expressed support for the proposed changes, describing the merger of the agency and direct team leadership as making “a lot of sense”.
He said there did not appear, after a time testing the market, to be enough local revenue opportunities to justify a role solely focused on programmatic revenue – an implied reference to the other staff member’s role, the authority said.
Stuff said McFarlane did not identify any concerns about not being reassigned; McFarlane said in evidence that he was unaware that he could push for a reassignment option, “but he did harbour concerns that the new job appeared to be within the scope of his existing duties and he expected to be appointed”.
He also told the authority that he “perceived from observing other restructures at Stuff that creating a fuss may hamper future job prospects”.
By late May, after an interview and selection process he was not happy about, McFarlane was told he had been unsuccessful for the new role and Stuff had not identified any suitable redeployment opportunities.
He was told by letter that his last day would be July 7, with two months’ redundancy compensation.
Beck said assessing whether a redundancy was genuine was “often a subjective exercise”.
“This situation is particularly fraught, given the size and scope of the organisation under scrutiny that undertook a restructuring that was objectively driven by legitimate commercial imperatives and on the surface a genuine redundancy situation.
“I find the restructuring was localised and conducted in a comprehensive manner with sufficient justificatory information being shared with those impacted and consultation being engaged in.”
Beck said the case turned on a relatively simple question: how best to use McFarlane’s existing skills and experience in a role with a different organisational focus.
“I, however, was not persuaded by the evidence and submissions advanced by Stuff that the new position was at its core sufficiently dissimilar to the one Mr McFarlane occupied and was acutely conscious that Stuff could not demonstrate that in initially formulating their proposal, they had turned their minds to a proper analysis of contrasting the two positions.
“A completion of this exercise I find would, more likely than not, to have led to Mr McFarlane being simply reconfirmed in his role.”
He did not find Stuff had predetermined the matter.
However, “what they got badly wrong was an abject failure to first consider whether the role Mr McFarlane occupied was surplus to their requirements”.
“Instead, and I accept this was not ill-motivated, Stuff chose to treat X as surplus (as well as X’s role) and to engage in an assessment of who, between two very able employees, should be chosen to fill a role that was not surplus.
“This mistake led to Mr McFarlane being treated in an unjustified manner.
“I find Stuff compounded the situation by not taking any active steps to redeploy Mr McFarlane. I find this failure of essentially ‘fair process’ and breach of good-faith obligations led to Mr McFarlane being unjustifiably dismissed.”
Beck said McFarlane had presented compelling evidence of the “significant impact” of the decision.
He spent time on the dole.
“Mr McFarlane explained how his employment ended left him confused and hurt and how it had a major impact upon his emotional wellbeing, relationship with his son and sense of self-worth, having to forgo what he thought was a successful and reasonably lengthy period of employment that he enjoyed and had hitherto got positive feedback on his performance.
“I find that Mr McFarlane was unfairly robbed of agency in this situation and suffered humiliation, loss of dignity and injury to feelings for a reasonably lengthy period before he could resolve his employment situation and that this must have been an alienating experience that impacted his self-confidence and emotional wellbeing.”
Beck ordered Stuff to pay McFarlane $25,000 compensation, plus 13 weeks’ lost remuneration and holiday pay of $30,840, with interest also to be paid on the lost remuneration.
Stuff has been approached for comment.
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Editor-at-Large Shayne Currie is one of New Zealand’s most experienced senior journalists and media leaders. He has held executive and senior editorial roles at NZME including Managing Editor, NZ Herald Editor and Herald on Sunday Editor and has a small shareholding in NZME.