The employees you want to keep move on; the skills you need are thin on the ground; change is a constant; and a raft of new employment regulations keeps feeding the ever-growing piles of paperwork. Meanwhile, the cultural climate in the organisation needs a rev up and a lack of enlightened leadership isn’t helping staff morale…
Whether they operate in big, small, public or private organisations, HR advisers and managers inevitably share common people problems as well as facing issues unique to their company or industry environment. In a tight market, recruitment is an issue that absorbs both time and energy – and the need to attract and retain staff puts stronger emphasis on developing the sort of organisational culture that inspires loyalty.
We asked HR practitioners from five very different organisations to tell us what issues absorb most of their time, which they find most challenging, what’s changed and what resources can they call on.

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Teva Loos
Group director Human Resources, Frucor Beverages
(500 staff in NZ, 150 in Australia)
The issues on which our HR department spends most of its time are as follows.
1) Coaching managers in leadership, and understanding the HR processes that can help them to achieve greater people performance;
2) Facilitation of our inhouse leadership programme, presented to all of our 160-plus people managers across New Zealand and Australia;
3) Assisting managers with recruitment processes and decisions;
4) Designing and implementing a succession model across all staff to assist with inhouse development and retention of our people;
5) Sitting in on disciplinary matters to ensure compliance and fairness.
The issues we find most challenging to address are:
1) Leadership/management consistency aligned to our culture and values;
2) Organisation-wide communication that helps all staff to feel engaged in their role, their department and the company as a whole;
3) Talent retention within our organisation, and generally New Zealand’s growing talent retention problem;
4) Understanding work/life balance issues and how to provide organisational solutions.
Some five years ago, we started an organisation-wide HR strategy specifically focusing on leadership aligned to values and culture. This has been a major focus and continues to address many of the issues raised above. At times we are forced to react and be more tactical, but our belief is that sustainable change and competitive advantage is a long-term process, and we are staying on track.
New Zealand’s inability to retain young talent is a macro issue that many high- performing organisations are struggling to solve. Attracting Australians and other nationalities is increasingly difficult given this country’s tax structure and relatively low income levels. Many of our young people are still going overseas in search of better opportunities.

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Catherine Taylor
General manager HR, Kiwibank
(+700 staff)
As a start-up that is in rapid growth mode, Kiwibank’s HR challenges are a bit different from more established companies.
In terms of where our time is spent, recruitment is a key focus. Another has been training development both for our staff and providing banking training for PostShop staff.
Our HR team is continually developing our people processes, policies, and programmes to ensure we are meeting the business needs. We also take into account the need to be flexible around what people are looking for at work (eg, work/life balance) while being consistent and fair.
The Kiwibank culture is really important to us – we want staff to enjoy their experience working with the company. Our HR team is very conscious of this in how we role model our culture – using the right language, behaving in the right way and most importantly, in the advice that we provide.
We also concentrate on change management. As we’re evolving as an organisation, roles can change, as do structures. We provide advice to our leaders, and guide them through change management, ensuring that we deal with any staff impacted in such a way that they feel respected and listened to. We also believe in having a good relationship with the union (the EPMU) so that we can work constructively together on any staff issues that may arise.
Ultimately, of course, our efforts must be where we can add the most value to supporting or helping to drive business priorities. We have challenging business targets that must be met and HR has an important part in this.
The people management issues we find most challenging really reflect where we are focusing our time.
Recruitment is getting harder. It is an applicants’ market at present and we’re competing with other companies for similar skills and competencies.
Training and development is always a challenge – ensuring that value is gained from learning and it is supported on the job.
Retention is a concern. Our people are “Kiwibank” and we have a great team. This is where our growth works to our advantage in that there are many opportunities for staff in terms of new roles.
Business strategies and how best to support these with appropriate programmes is an ongoing challenge – requiring our people to work well both within and across teams, always thinking about “being in the customer’s shoes”.
Most important is preserving our great culture. We want people to join Kiwibank because they believe in being able to make a difference and being part of an important New Zealand-owned organisation, not just because they feel like changing jobs.
The allocation of time and priorities have changed since I first started at Kiwibank. Going forward, it’s important to have a great HR team which really understands what must be focused on in the business, along with strong relationships with leaders, having staff trust, maintaining a really good working relationship with the union, and also having strong relationships with external partners eg, preferred recruitment and training providers.
However you always have to keep working on developing the HR programmes, policies and processes to support or help drive the business priorities – as well as meet your customers’ expectations of course!

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Gerda Gorgner
HR advisor, Pacific Flight Catering
(180 staff)
Our company provides catering services to international airlines and employs chefs, catering assistants, aircraft loaders, scullery assistants and a range of administrative staff. Employees mainly come from South Auckland and English is often a second language.
I’ve provided generic HR services to the company for the past three years. The things that keep me busy are:
1) Expansion of business: recruitment
2) Consolidation of rapid business growth
3) Improving management performance
4) Staff personal problems
5) HR administration.
What challenges me the most is:
1) Improving managers’ performance
2) Improving managers’ performance
3) Improving managers’ performance.
Our departmental managers have no formal management training and it is difficult to provide the coaching and training needed within the time constraints.
Over the past two years we have managed a major business expansion – almost tripling staff numbers. I received great help with this from a WINZ staff member. This phase is finished for the moment and less time is now devoted to recruitment.
Presently, the focus is on consolidation of growth, strengthening of systems and fine-tuning efficiency. A lot of time goes into facilitating the clarification of management roles, improving managers’ skills (coaching) and addressing performance issues – which can be a very challenging area. I get internal support from my managing director and a couple of very experienced staff members.
In terms of personal problems with individual staff members, I get advice from several different social services as well as from the managing director. Such problems seems to have increased lately which could be attributed to a number of reasons: our staff have been encouraged to let us know if they have problems; those who have offered resignations because of personal problems are asked to stay on, while we try to help with those issues (staff retention); and there are fewer choices when hiring staff.
We are also running a lot of health initiatives and this takes time to organise. I have had invaluable help from the Auckland Regional Public Health Service and its Heartbeat Challenge advisor.
Staff training is something I’d like to put more time into. I currently provide training sessions to both workers and managers. Preparation of these takes less time than it used to as I developed a lot of resources in the first two years that can be re-used.
Paperwork can absorb many hours and has to come last when I prioritise my time.

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Vanessa Stoddart
Group general manager people, Air New Zealand
(+10,000 staff)
At Air New Zealand the five most time-absorbing issues are:
1) Capability development and training
2) Health, safety and wellbeing
3) Employment relations and improving culture
4) Recruitment
5) Day-to-day advice on people-related is- sues and change programmes.
Amongst our ‘most challenging’ issues is the improvement of culture and morale. The changes needed to keep Air New Zealand competitive in the past few years have taken their toll on staff. We now need to stabilise the business, invest in our people, and work with our staff and their representatives to build a relationship of trust.
Health, safety and wellbeing is an on-going challenge because of the dangers inherent in the workplace environment. Risks we need to minimise include those related to baggage handling, lifting and back strain – that requires continual re-learning.
Recruitment is a challenge. Although the Air New Zealand brand is a very attractive proposition, we find it difficult to recruit into some key areas: pilots, engineers (fewer students today are involved in technical hands-on subjects) and front line staff (there are limited customer service training courses available in New Zealand).
The payroll is a challenge because of the number and complexity of collectives, plus the complexity of a workforce that operates 24/7 and with remote staff – it can make Holidays Act entitlements fairly complicated.
Time for continuous training is also difficult with a 24/7 international network/workforce. Problems with rostering additional training (eg, leadership development) on top of technical training have prompted introduction of initiatives such as the Air New Zealand Leadership College which runs annually.
In the past two years specific attention has been given to the major change programmes within Air NZ as well as establishing a new base in Shanghai and extended base in London with the introduction of new services to these destinations.
Health and safety, leadership development and addressing regulatory changes have also taken considerable focus and, more recently, the tight labour market is making it increasingly difficult to recruit.
Also in the next two years, as we enter the cycle of collective renegotiations, a significant proportion of time will be spent on employment relations. But the most important focus still needs to be on health and safety and culture improvement. In 2006 we launched a major internal brand campaign as part of rebuilding our culture.
The focus in Air New Zealand has very much been about giving line managers accountability. There are very few pure HR resources in the company and those that exist are there to help deliver the strategy for the business plus support and coach line managers. The remaining resources are dedicated to specific areas of expertise: capability training and development; health and safety, environment, facilities and medical; shared services eg, recruitment/payroll/systems; and legal/employment relations.

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Philippa Jones
General manager Human Resources, Christchurch City Council
(2300 employees)
The people management issues on which we spend the most time are:
1) Leadership development – getting the organisation and its managers to prioritise building leadership capability. Creating understanding across the organisation that good leadership skills are critical to developing a motivated and high-performing workforce and improving business results
2) Attracting, retaining and motivating talent – this issue applies across all skills. There are particular challenges where skills are scarce in professional technical areas, such as engineers and planners, but we also need to focus on attracting and retaining high performing staff across all occupations.
3) Managing change – assisting managers who are introducing changes in their workplace.
4) Team and staff efforts – assisting managers to align these with organisational priorities and success.
These haven’t changed in the past year and will continue to be a major focus. There are no quick fixes for these issues – they require a multi-pronged approach that is coherent and coordinated. We are tackling them with a number of initiatives including education, on-the-job experience, aligning all HR strategy and policy to organisational goals, recruiting, coaching and nurturing great leaders.
As to resources – our leadership development programmes involve a combination of in-house and external training programmes, on the job experience, coaching, talent identification, accelerated leadership development programmes for high potential staff, proactive development planning to enhance career opportunities, and gathering staff feedback from our annual staff engagement survey.
The people management issues we find most challenging to address are those outlined above. Why? Managers face many demands. Finding time to invest in staff sometimes takes a back seat when operational demands are high. Because there are increasing demands on managers – doing more with less, the need to focus on the vital few issues/initiatives to gain maximum impact becomes more important. For HR staff the challenge is identifying the vital few HR initiatives and then finding ways to measure their impact.
There has been some change here in that the focus on building leadership capability is greater, as is the need for effective leaders. There is also greater acknowledgement that engaged and satisfied staff are more productive.
To make such issues easier to deal with, I believe there needs to be a change in managers’ mindsets. If managers can get staff management right then their operational demands will be reduced because they’ll have good staff. It is about moving their management style from reactive to proactive.
Resource-wise, it’s a matter of ensuring managers have access to sound HR advice as well as seeking guidance and support from their own leaders/managers. CCC provides a range of internal programmes to support managers – including talent identification, leadership development, performance management process, career planning training, to name a few. We also access some of New Zealand’s leading providers to support us with HR programmes, such as employee engagement, leadership programmes, and team development.