Our economy, industry and business

Regional actions

The RSLG supports the building of visible and sustainable career pathways, with a focus on:

• System-wide commitment to building visible and sustainable career pathways.
• Drawing on the skills and knowledge of the senior workforce, including supporting mentoring and coaching skills to develop the future workforce, and supporting career next steps.
• Promoting upskilling within the casual labour workforce, coupled with mentoring and pastoral care.
• Encouraging rangatahi/youth and whānau through work exposure/experience, internships and cadetships, graduate recruitment, apprenticeships, and campaigns such as EPIC, Waihanga Ara Rau, CSA Beacon Projects.
• Encouraging women and girls including initiatives such as Diversity Works (partnership with CSA), Diversity Agenda, National Association of Women in Construction, Women in Trades, Women in Infrastructure.
• Skilled migrant attraction (Level 6 and above) to meet immediate needs, and to share knowledge (role modelling, mentoring, coaching).

The RSLG advocates construction and infrastructure training is effectively delivered and tailored to future regional needs:

• Align and communicate the construction workforce forecast on the Workforce Information Platform with regional education and training.
• Support employer connections to trades academies, so that academy graduates can move directly into further training and employment.
• The RSLG promotes the use of the Workforce Information Platform to inform the region of future employment and skill requirements in the construction and infrastructure sector.
• The RSLG supports initiatives to grow future Māori and Pacific industry leaders and businesses in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Key milestones

• The Group is engaging with industry and the Workforce Development Council to understand what training is being delivered in the sector to meet the future skills regional needs and how to further enhance effective Via these stakeholders, the group is also keeping informed of intelligence gathering and gaps in training provision, and evidence of skills shortages in new or emerging subsectors of the construction skills environment.
• The RSLG is engaging with the Workforce Development Council to work with the New Zealand Certified Builders (NZCB) on the Employer Support Programme for those employers who need extra assistance to help their apprentices through their learning NZCB has indicated that they are looking to fund programs in these areas through possible pilot programmes.
• The RSLG has engaged with industry stakeholders, education providers and employees in several hui to better understand how the industry is using the Workforce Information Platform (WIP) platform owned by Waihanga Ara Rau – previously with If the tool is helping the industry to address the future skills demand and gaps.
• The RSLG has participated in regional hui with the WDC and Construction Sector industry stakeholders to better understand and support workforce participation and skills transition, making workplace learning function better especially within small to medium sized businesses or within clusters of these businesses. This has primarily involved leveraging relationships with companies who have successful recruitment/training/skills development programmes as exemplars of current practice. Engagements include iconic Auckland projects such as City Rail Link.
• The RSLG has collaborated with Kāinga Ora by encouraging building developments to utilise Māori and Pasifika subcontractors and recruitment of people living in the local community where construction is an increasing For example, Kāinga Ora has social wellbeing and broader outcomes goals in its construction and maintenance work programme and are now committed to community being active participants in build projects by offering opportunities for skills training and employment locally. Kāinga Ora is now also actively promoting recruitment of more women, Māori and Pacific people, as well as engaging with social housing tenant’s whanau/aiga to promote opportunities for whanau to access employment and sign-on as apprentices and cadets, attached to project builds happening in their own community. For new large tenders, 50% of apprentices for these projects must come from these priority groups.
• The RSLG is working with the Workforce Development Council Waihanga Ara Rau and set up a strategic reference group to consider the development of workforce development plans in relation to industries identified in the WDC’s Statement of Strategic Direction and identified in the Regional Workforce plan.
• RSLG and WDC working with New Zealand Certified Builders on the Employer Support Programme for those employers who need extra assistance to help their apprentices through their learning journey. NZCB has indicated that they may fund something in this area – possibly a pilot programme. There is nothing nationwide – if piloted may be developed into a micro credential in the future and will be able to garner funding. To increase women’s access to construction sector employment, RSLG is also working to support the Industry Equity project in conjunction with Hanga-Aro-Rau and BCITO. An online toolkit and equity directory launched in July and has had over 3400 visits to date. Resources include The Women’s Toolbox - Get a Career in the Trades – Trade Careers. The Wāhine on the Tools web series launched 29 September 2022, with over 146,472 views to date.
• The RSLG has been working closely with The Southern Initiative (TSI) to support the Māori and Pacific Trades Training Programme aims to create quality employment opportunities for graduates who have gone on to work mainly in the construction and infrastructure sector. As part of this initiative, TSI tested a wraparound employment brokering service where the team worked with a proportion of graduates over 13 months to ensure they had the licences, equipment, and relational support to connect to quality jobs, that prioritised their professional development and paid meaningful wages. Additionally, the TSI are working with a mix of private sector professionals, public sector professionals working in employer, education, trainingand rangatahi to collaborate on Green Jobs and Skills (including opportunities in Construction and Infrastructure).

Regional actions

The RSLG advocates removing barriers and fast- tracking local and migrant training.

• Support removal of barriers for Māori and Pacific students to complete their studies.
• Endorse alignment and career stair-casing from unregulated, enrolled nursing, registered nursing, nurse practitioners and across to other medical roles.
• Support options to allow step-on, step-off studying while being able to work in the sector at their current level.
• Endorse and support ‘earn as you learn’ option for all fields of nursing and a fees and support structure that at least matches male dominated sectors.

The RSLG supports immediate actions to increase the broader health workforce.

• Support affirmative action to retain and train the COVID-19 surge.
• Take affirmative action to fast-track migrant and existing domestic students and resident workforce at this time of acute shortages, especially in nurse-led practitioner roles.
• Take action to recruit peer support for mental health from those with lived experiences but ensure there are clear career pathways.
• Work with Tāmaki 10,000 to support and engage whānau and communities and workforce to have good jobs and a meaningful career in the industry.
• Work with MSD and DHBs to support people into employment via the employment pipeline, and look at the volunteer workforce to support MSD flexi-wage projects in the community.

The RSLG promotes utilisation of the comprehensive data and forecasts existing in the sector to validate investment in workforce development.

• Support the streamlining of contracted services by DHBs so that expiry and timing does not lead to pay inequity and retention issues for some in the sector.
• Partner with Toitū te Waiora – WDC to better understand the skills deficit in the sector and the capability gaps to meet industry needs and provide works with clear pathways to employment and career progress within the sector.

The RSLG will support more joined up pathways for career progression with professional categories. 

• Career progression is generally expected to occur within the same professional category but even within the same broad area there it is a disjointed journey from vocational education and training to tertiary training that the Review of Vocational Education (ROVE) has not addressed.

Key milestones

Immediate actions to increase the broader health workforce:

• Te Whatu Ora advised their strategy is to grow the Enrolled Nursing workforce. The Group engaged with EET (Employment, Education and Training) Minister through letters and made recommendations in their RWP (Regional Workforce Plans) published in July 2022 and in discussion with Te Whatu Ora and Immigration NZ. The RSLG sought to immediately increase the health workforce at a time of acute labour shortages and crippling demand due to Covid-19. Broadly the Group recommended that (a) Nurses are aided to return to their profession (b) The number of migrant nurses was increases (c) time for nursing to be freed up by making more use of allied (non-registered) health professionals.
• The Te Whatu Ora ‘Return to Nursing Workforce Support Fund’ was stood up to support domestic and Internationally Qualified Nurses to gain their annual practising certificate (APC). As of 22 September 2022, after 2 rounds 225 applicants had been approved for funding. After the first round 65 nurses successfully got access to the funds with 47 from the aged care sector.
• The RSLG engaged with Immigration New Zealand in the settings for the Immigration Rebalance and Care Sector Agreement that increased the numbers of L3 and 4 Health Care Assistants allowed in for 2 years and the exemptions to be paid below the medium wage. The Group strongly suppoted continuing education and training of the entire workforce and placing Registered Nurses on the Green List on the work-to-residence pathway was a starting point for encouraging overseas workers.
• The RSLG engaged with Te Whatu Ora and Toitū te Waiora with the purpose of advocating for alignment and career stair-casing from unregulated, enrolled nursing, registered nursing, nurse practitioners and across to other medical roles, leading a flexible and agile workforce. The RSLG regularly engaged with Te Whatu Ora and Toitū te Waiora through-out 2022/23, supporting and advocating for a ‘step-on, step off’ approach to study, to enable students to work in the sector at their current level. This will allow those that exit the Bachelor of Nursing programme or who do not achieve professional registration to use their skills within the Health Sector. Toitu Te Waiora, in support are reviewing the scope of practise for the Health and Wellbeing Certificate (Qualification for Kaiāwhina role) in the context of the Enrolled Nursing Diploma scope of practise. This review will also have regard to the Bachelor of Nursing including Bachelor of Māori Nursing. 

Removing barriers

• The RSLG is aware that many aspects of study act as major barriers to study completion. Some barriers include difficulty accessing financial support via Studylink, some students are not able to continue with part-time employment that can accommodate practicum schedules, and placements incurring extra cost for child-care and travel. Te Whatu Ora are planning a change to the way practicum or placements are managed and timed across a year.
• The Nursing Pipeline Project (Te Whatu Ora) started a new programme of work in alignment with recommendations from the RSLG’s regional workforce plan. They are currently looking to find the reasons students are not completing studies and how the sector might be more responsive to Māori and Pacific Nursing students. The scope includes student allowances for mature students (45 plus), earn as you learn/salaried training programmes and a proposal to have study grants/support to prevent student attrition.
• The RSLG attended Te Rau Ora ‘Tini ngā hua maha ngā huarahi/Hauora and Education Ecosystem’ workshop with the aim to connect across the system to understand and support the removal of barriers for Māori and Pacific students to complete their studies.
• With ongoing recruitment of migrant workers, the RSLG supports the Migrant Action Trust in advocating for free yearly English training in the workplace to remove barriers for nurses.

Better understanding skills deficit

• The RSLG partnered with Toitū te Waiora – WDC to better understand the skills deficit in the sector and the capability gaps to meet industry needs and provide works with clear pathways to employment and career progress within the MSD and Te Whatu Ora are now partnering on a national basis to recruit from MSD client lists and to foster inclusion in the many pastoral care programme that MSD have available.
• Toitū te Waiora and Odyssey House, Auckland have worked together to significant effect to create the first micro-credential ‘Peer Support 101 – Introduction to Lived Experience Peer Support in Addictions’, a level 3 qualification taken up by 200 people across New Zealand. Toitū te Waiora and Odyssey House, Auckland have advanced this priority. Over the next 6-months RSLG supports ensuring a career pathway for these practitioners.

Regional actions

• The RSLG supports the implementation of the industry-led Future of Hospitality Roadmap Goals with a focus on raising the attractiveness of the sector by providing better working
• conditions, ensuring decent employment practices, and changing the image of the sector to ensure good jobs through HospoCred.
• The RSLG advocates a thriving hospitality sector that offers better working conditions, based on a strong employer duty of care for its service workforce.
• The RSLG promotes a hospitality workforce that can share manaakitanga with manuhiri, or guests, while representing this home with heart, soul and mana.

Key milestones

• The RSLG has worked closely with the Hospitality industry to better understand workforce issues and support better working conditions in the sector. An important outcome of this mahi is the launch of the Hospo Cred program by the Restaurant Association of New Zealand. It was developed in 2022 to create a platform for recognising standards within the hospitality industry. 230 businesses have signed up so far. Businesses with this accreditation have demonstrated a commitment to best practice, to ongoing development of their workers and businesses and to increasing their impact. Any businesses that have HospoCred will automatically be included in the accord/accreditation.
• Hospitality sector has expressed concerns about a labour shortage in the sector, with businesses struggling to recruit sufficient workers under the current pay and conditions. The RSLG has worked closely with industry leaders to better understand the specific skills shortages in the region and Chefs was identified as a key shortage in the region. This analysis has been shared at many fora as well as with immigration colleagues including Hospitality and Tourism Wananga. Immigration New Zealand is also progressing a significant number of hospitality workers under the AEWV which also include chefs. The current chef qualification requirements for the AEWV such as the New Zealand Certificate in Cookery (Level 4) or equivalent.
• The RSLG has also connected the hospitality industry with programs being run locally such as those by Tātaki Auckland Unlimited to support youth working in services sector through programs such as Youth Employer Pledge Network and Tū Mai Ambassador program to allow the hospitality industry to develop the soft skills that represent the soul and mana of the industry.
• The RSLG is working with the Toi Ma Workforce development council to better understand how a sustainable pipeline of hospitality workers can be developed locally and we are able to provide sustainable career pathways to our region’s youth to thrive in this sector.
• The RSLG is working with Ringa Hora (Services) Workforce Development Council and has participated in workshops with Ringa Hora and key stakeholders to raise the sector’s attractiveness, ensuring sustainability, productivity, and resilience for the workforce address the issues raised through this engagement, and are the framework for collaborative action.

Regional actions

• The RSLG supports skills development for Manufacturing sector workers.
• The RSLG promotes skilled Māori workforce in the sector. There is an opportunity for the Manufacturing sector to grow its presence in Tāmaki Makaurau with Tāmaki 10,000 engaging Māori communities, whānau, hapū and iwi to become more proactively involved in the sector, both as employees and employers.
• The RSLG supports growing productive and customer-focused manufacturing firms

Key milestones

• The RSLG is collaborating with Hanga-Aro-Rau as part of the research project “Post COVID-19 Workforce Development Needs in New Zealand’s Manufacturing and Engineering Industries” - funded through the TEC Covid Response The RSLG is working with the WDC to establish a working group to work through the actions based on the research findings.
• The RSLG is also working closely with Hanga-Aro-Rau is to help support the development of a Māori Workforce Strategy currently. This will be a 5-year plan with annual action plans. Hanga- Aro-Rau and Waihanga Ara Rau have a collaborative industry equity project:
  Trade Careers website(external link)
  
  
• The RSLG has commenced regular engagements with Hanga-Aro-Rau work leads in the region. Collaboration includes support to Hanga-Aro-Rau WDC with its TEC COVID-19 Relief Fund research project, and support of upskilling initiatives such as Project Ikuna, a micro credentialling initiative that are delivered in work and support Pacific manufacturing sector employees to upskill rapidly through credentials gains in domains such as digital literacy and team leadership. Hanga-Aro-Rau are in the process of establishing a working group to collaborate on RWP actions, supported by research – providing further basis for collaboration with RSLG on projects of mutual interest going forward. Hanga-Aro-Rau is also developing a Pacific Workforce Strategy and are inviting input from the RSLG on its development, this will be a 5-year plan with annual action plans.
• RSLG is also working closely with Hanga-Aro-Rau as they develop a Pacific Workforce Strategy to provide insights and workforce Tāmaki Makaurau region is the largest in terms of the number of pacific employees in the manufacturing sector and have a significant number of Pacific employers in the manufacturing sector. The Secretariat engage regularly with employees and industry bodies to better under labour market issues impacting pacific workers and sharing these findings across. Key issues identified have been digital skills and soft skills. The Secretariat has engaged on the following to make connections for the industry on these workforce issues.
• MAKE NZ, Hanga-Aro-Rau Workforce Development Council and The Learning Wave are working alongside other manufacturing stakeholders to develop and pilot a 2nd step in the pathway for Digital Skills in Manufacturing; building on the Digital Skills in Manufacturing Micro-credential developed at Competenz (now Te Pūkenga) which is currently This is an industry led and funded project targeted at up-skilling team leaders in manufacturing to support the increasing digitalisation of processes especially the Pacific workforce in the region.
• The RSLG have also made linkages with the Hanga-Aro-Rau and Waihanga Ara Rau on the collaborative industry equity project and have connected RSLG members engaged in the sector.
• Acknowledging that Tāmaki Makaurau hosts major national logistic hubs, the RSLG is working with Hang-Aro-Rau and FIRST Union to comprehensively map and audit skill requirements of the industry and promote good jobs, training and career progression for workers in the sector.