Business Specialist

Tēnei tūranga – About the role

The Business and Consumer branch has a unique role in supporting the market through the provision of tools, resources, and advice – so market participants are informed, businesses can thrive, and trading is fair. We:

• Support New Zealand businesses to grow and thrive.
• Voice the needs of New Zealand small businesses with strategy, policy, and service delivery.
• Enable easier communication between small businesses and government agencies through the NZBN.
• Build capabilities and skills of small businesses to help businesses reach their full potential.
• Establish a fair-trading market environment where businesses and consumers know their rights.
• Help businesses protect their intellectual property rights.

The Business Specialist, Business and Consumer will play a key role in supporting the branch across all aspects of the work programme. Reporting to the Director, Business and Consumer, this role will form part of the Business Advisory team, and will provide support, expertise, capability, and capacity to the whole Branch to ensure we deliver on a complex and ambitious work programme.

The Business Specialist is responsible for:

• Working with the Business Director to agree work assignments within the Branch to support the work programme.
• Providing capability and capacity to supplement the various teams within the Branch to work on time critical, complex, or sensitive pieces of work.
• Providing strategic advice by working through the Branch’s work programme to ensure the successful delivery of key objectives.
• Enhancing the overall capability of the team through guiding and mentoring senior advisors and advisors in their day-to-day work.

Key Relationships

External

• Ministers and ministerial staff.
• Staff in other government agencies.
• Key Stakeholders.

Internal

• General Manager, Business and Consumer.
• Director, Business and Consumer.
• Business and Consumer Leadership Team.
• Small Business Collective (NZBN/Business.govt.nz/Business Connect/e-Invoicing).
• All managers, staff, and policy teams in MBIE.

Ngā herenga – Requirements of the role

Personal specifications

• Demonstrated political acumen.
• A high level of experience working in a strategic role and a proven track record in leading large work programmes, balancing strategic and operational needs.
• Sound judgement, integrity and discretion, particularly around strategic risk management.
• Is comfortable working in an ambiguous and flexible environment, reporting through a matrix model.
• Strong writing skills, in particular skilled at drafting accurate and succinct correspondence and reports.
• Understands how to work with different organisational cultures.
• In-depth knowledge of processes at the centre of government as well as wider governmental processes and protocols.
• Makes quality decisions by using analytically sound, well-rounded, informed, and inclusive approaches.
• Strong stakeholder engagement / management skills.
• Ability to quickly establish and build strong working relationships, including with senior managers.
• Ability to develop capability of colleagues, including managers, through coaching and mentoring.
• Flexibility to adapt within a fast-moving environment.
• Ability to assimilate new information or areas of work.
• Excellent communication skills.
• A tertiary degree in a relevant field is highly desirable.
• Must have the legal right to live and work in New Zealand.

Takohanga tuhinga o mua – Key accountabilities and deliverables

Activities and tasks

• Contribute to complex programmes and projects requiring business experience, service design craft and/or technical expertise.
• Applies frameworks and methods of analysis to identify problems, analyse the issues, and identify and assess the policy/service design options.
• Applies advanced system, strategic and critical thinking, clear and logical reasoning, and sound judgement to analyse issues.
• Critically synthesises information from a wide variety of domains, uses expert knowledge of the policy/service design area and applies sound judgement to draw conclusions.
• Can manage strategically difficult projects that span a number of complex issues over an extended period of time.
• Integrates up-to-date information and evidence across relevant areas and disciplines to develop new insights and innovative.
• policy/service design solutions despite the imperfections and uncertainty of evidence.
• Communicates complex issues and concepts clearly and succinctly.

Work management

• Uses project planning and management techniques to effectively carry out the agreed policy or service design work, within the resources available and provides timely reports on progress.
• Works will little guidance - identifies the overall project or programme objectives and seeks guidance where required and uses initiative to resolve conflicts, manage risks and coordinate work with others.
• Leads multiple pieces of work concurrently and actively and independently plans and manages workload.
• Takes a leadership role in cross-MBIE and cross-government projects.

People leadership

• Provides leadership that engages and motivates others to succeed and develop, and proactively share knowledge and ideas.
• Provide, guidance, coaching and mentoring and on-the-job training to team members.
• Creates a sense of vision, engages, and motivates people to participate and make things happen.
• Contributes to the performance of the team through providing peer review and quality control including projects and tasks that the Business Specialist is not leading.

Relationship management

• Maintains relationships across a variety of functions and locations.
• Draws upon multiple relationships to exchange ideas, resources, and know how.
• Actively seeks to build and maintain a network of contacts.
• Builds and maintains effective relationships and partnerships with internal and external stakeholders, as necessary, in order to identify and share best practice information and to promote the Ministry, its products and services.
• Effectively influences through engagement and communication with senior stakeholders on domain topics.

Capability development

• Takes responsibility for own professional development of core, transferable policy skills and seeks opportunities to learn.
• Support other members of the team and may act as a coach and share knowledge and skills.
• May review policy or service design work, provide quality control.

Wellbeing, health & safety

• Displays commitment through actively supporting all safety and wellbeing initiatives.
• Ensures own and others safety at all times.
• Complies with relevant safety and wellbeing policies, procedures, safe systems of work and event reporting.
• Reports all incidents/accidents, including near misses in a timely fashion.
• Is involved in health and safety through participation and consultation.

Tō tūranga i roto i te Manatū – Your place in the Ministry

The Business Specialist position reports into the Director Business and Consumer within the Business and Consumer branch. The branch sits within the Te Whakatairanga Service Delivery group.

More information about MBIE’s structure

To mātou aronga – What we do for Aotearoa New Zealand

Hīkina Whakatutuki is the te reo Māori name for the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Hīkina means to uplift. Whakatutuki means to move forward, to make successful. Our name speaks to our purpose, Grow Aotearoa New Zealand for All.

To Grow Aotearoa New Zealand for All, we put people at the heart of our mahi. Based on the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi / The Treaty of Waitangi, we are committed to upholding authentic partnerships with Māori.

As agile public service leaders, we use our breadth and experience to navigate the ever-changing world. We are service providers, policy makers, investors and regulators. We engage with diverse communities, businesses and regions. Our work touches on the daily lives of New Zealanders. We grow opportunities (Puāwai), guard and protect (Kaihāpai) and innovate and navigate towards a better future (Auaha).

Ngā matatau – Our competencies

Cultivates innovation We create new and better ways for the organisation to be successful by challenging the status quo generating new and creative ideas and translating them into workable solutions.

Nimble learning We are curious and actively learn through experimentation when tackling new problems by learning as we go when facing new situations and challenges.

Customer focus We build strong customer relationships and deliver customer-centric solutions by listening and gaining insights into the needs of the communities we serve and actively seeking and responding to feedback.

Decision quality We make quality and timely decisions that shape the future for our communities and keep the organisation moving forward by relying on an appropriate mix of analysis, wisdom, experience, and judgement to make valid and reliable decisions.

Action oriented We step up, taking on new opportunities and tough challenges with purpose, urgency and discipline by taking responsibility, ownership and action on challenges, and being accountable for the results.

Collaborates We connect, working together to build partnerships with our communities, working collaboratively to meet shared objectives by gaining trust and support of others; actively seeking the views, experiences, and opinions of others and by working co-operatively with others across MBIE, the public sector and external stakeholder groups.

Te Tiriti o Waitangi

As an agency of the public service, MBIE has a responsibility to contribute to the Crown meeting its obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi (Te Tiriti). Meeting our commitment to Te Tiriti will contribute towards us realising the overall aims of Te Ara Amiorangi – Our Path, Our Direction, and achieve the outcome of Growing New Zealand for All. The principles of Te Tiriti - including partnership, good faith, and active protection – are at the core of our work. MBIE is committed to delivering on our obligations as a Treaty partner with authenticity and integrity and to enable Māori interests. We are committed to ensuring that MBIE is well placed to meet our obligations under the Public Service Act 2020 (Te Ao Tūmatanui) to support the Crown in strengthening the Māori/Crown Relationship under the Treaty and to build MBIE’s capability, capacity and cultural intelligence to deliver this.

Mahi i roto i te Ratonga Tūmatanui – Working in the public service

Ka mahitahi mātou o te ratonga tūmatanui kia hei painga mō ngā tāngata o Aotearoa i āianei, ā, hei ngā rā ki tua hoki. He kawenga tino whaitake tā mātou hei tautoko i te Karauna i runga i āna hononga ki a ngāi Māori i raro i te Tiriti o Waitangi. Ka tautoko mātou i te kāwanatanga manapori. Ka whakakotahingia mātou e te wairua whakarato ki ō mātou hapori, ā, e arahina ana mātou e ngā mātāpono me ngā tikanga matua o te ratonga tūmatanui i roto i ā mātou mahi.

In the public service we work collectively to make a meaningful difference for New Zealanders now and in the future. We have an important role in supporting the Crown in its relationships with Māori under the Treaty of Waitangi. We support democratic government. We are unified by a spirit of service to our communities and guided by the core principles and values of the public service in our work.

What does it mean to work in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Public Service?(external link) — Te Kawa Mataaho The Public Service Commission