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Prioritising Wellbeing in September

With spring upon us we want to be among the first to acknowledge the opportunity that spring brings for new views, ways of working, and new approaches.  And with Mental Health Awareness week from 23-29 September it’s a great time to do a personal ‘Warrant of Fitness’ and encourage your team to as well. A simple way to do this is to get your team to identify whether they are Happy, OK or Unhappy with this part of their life right now.  This can open up all sorts of conversati...

2024 Industry Winners

Something special happens between March and August for agribusinesses in New Zealand….and no, we’re not talking about kiwifruit harvest,  calving, lambing…we’re talking about the off-farm celebrations of our on-farm heroes.  Across the motu March to August marks awards season for our primary sector heroes. From national awards to large corporate annual celebrations to on-farm recognition awards, awards season is one of our favourite times of the year.And in a recent 8-Steps pro...

Four Essential Qualities of Great Teams

There are no great leaders without great teams…..and teams look and feel different now to ever before.The weekend of 8th June was a BIG one in the gaming world.  Destiny2 – The Final Shape was released and millions of people globally connected in teams of six in an effort to be the first to complete the game.  And these teams were truly international teams, with each team made up of six players from around the world who had found their team-mates on-line and decided ...

AEWV - Immigration NZ Audits

Over the past few months we have worked closely with two separate clients who are Accredited Employers, and who were both randomly selected by Immigration New Zealand (INZ) for post-accreditation checks.  Because we provide HR and payroll services to these companies, we had most of the information readily available, and were able to take care of pretty much the whole process for them; we thought it worth sharing the insights we gained through the process…. The request from INZ:C...

The Importance of Composure

We regularly talk to employers after they have received a resignation and see high levels of emotions at play, generally one or more of:extreme relief, because the exiting team member was a problem they didn’t know how to solve; something on the scale of disappointment to bitterness to anger, because they didn’t see the resignation coming;fear, because the exiting team member is going to the competition;panic, as they’re not sure how they will cope without that team member;and in...

Recruitment in our sector: let's get creative

If the food and fibre sector in NZ is to thrive we need to find good quality labour; we know this continues to be a challenge – not just for our sector, but for all sectors – so to do this we need to start getting creative.  Revised systems and processes, different job design and different management practices can help us access new labour markets and get good team members into our food & fibre sector businesses.So what are these opportunities…they are limited by our imaginat...

What's making our phone ring?

We’re working with several clients at the moment in the performance review and personal development planning space.  We’ve had a number of them comment to us that they struggle with separating the performance/development conversations and remuneration conversations.  This is an old nugget that has a simple answer but is so often executed incorrectly.  Simply put, conversations with team members which will ultimately contribute to remuneration decisions are gener...

What’s making our phone ring?

As reflect on what we’re hearing and seeing come into the business over the past month, it prompts the question: are we getting too stressed?  With the calls that have come in recently, we are working through  much larger than usual volumes of Employment Relations issues.  These are the polite words we often use to describe disputes in the workplace…from illness and injury to performance and disciplinary there seems to be a lot going on and we’re wondering why. Cou...

What's making our phone ring?

This is my favourite article in this series so far, because over the past month we have had a number of calls from people wanting to grow and develop their people, so they’ve been calling on us to support them in this.  These are great calls to get!While no two businesses are the same, there have been some common themes in these queries:All of the calls have been positive, and about the business owners or leaders wanting to support their people to grow and developEach person who reached o...

Resourcing HR in your business

The attached article has done a great job of wrapping up some of the key influences for the HR manager in the current environment. Increasing economic uncertainty and business change is prominent, we know this as we support our clients with the same challenges. This naturally sees the HR person or team shouldering a lot of responsibility.  Is your HR team resourced and ready for 2024? | HRD New Zealand (hcamag.com)So in a period that we are seeing growing pressure on the HR person or t...

What’s Making Our Phone Ring?

Recruitment is in full swing! We are certainly seeing a later season this year. We know this as our phone is ring hot with good quality Contract Milkers and Farm Managers reaching out and farm owners looking to get their ducks in a row for next season.If you’re a Contract Milker or Farm Manager looking for someone to talk to about your career and what’s available, reach out to one of the No8HR team for a no obligation discussion about the current market and what you can expect as you look to...

The cost of burnout

Back on NZ shores, in January Stuff reported on a former Noel Leeming employee being paid almost $50k after he left his job due to intense stress and burnout.  The scale of the payout for hurt, loss and humiliation is at the top end of these sorts of payments and the employer in this case didn’t do enough, soon enough concerning the employee’s situation.  There is a requirement for employers to be proactive in dealing with employee health and safety (including wellbeing) matters th...

What’s Making Our Phone Ring?

The phone is ringing hot since we have been back and several of our customers are seeking us out to support right sizing of their business, specifically around remuneration reviews and restructuring.These are really important parts of your business to look at regularly as they help set the foundations and ensure you are well positioned for success.StructureHere are a few things to think about if you are looking at a potential restructure:Understanding your business needs is really important, tak...

Legislation Repeals Update

The Government has passed legislation bringing back 90-day trials for all employers.The bill was the same as the 2011 one.  What does this mean for employers?Employers will be able to dismiss employees under a 90-day trial period, where the employment agreement has a valid trial period provision. Section 67A(2) sets out the legislative requirements which must be met for a valid dismissal under a trial period. If a dismissal is valid, an employee will not be entitled...

The Winners of 2023

For those that managed to great a break in, we hope it was revitalising and has filled the tank so you are ready for what will surely be an opportunity rich year ahead!This time of year is always a great time to reflect on the last twelve months. We work closely with business leaders to drive performance in their workplaces and these are some of the trends that we believe drove strong outcomes in 2023:Workplaces that walked the talk when it came to making real changes. The key? understanding how...

How to prepare for anything

It was impossible for me to walk past this heading in an article in the latest PWC Strategy and business e-newsletter.  What secrets would it contain? What amazing insights could I learn?  What silver bullets would there be to solve all my problems?  Of course, nothing really secret, amazing or even silver-bullet’ish….what the article reminded readers was that in an increasingly uncertain future the most important thing we can do for ourselves and our teams is how to deal with...

Your People - Cost or Investment?

In many businesses we see that ‘people maintenance and development’ doesn't get its own line in the budget. Given the number of business leaders who will make comments like ‘my people are my biggest asset’, why do we see this lack of investment? We think it could be the result of some or all of:Recruitment costs don’t always come every year, and nobody plans to lose staff·       A lost link between staff turnover and employers ongoing investment...

What's making our phone ring?

We posted a blog a few years ago that shone a spotlight on the dangers of under-management; sure, no one likes to be micro-managed, and certainly no-one wants to be seen as a micro manager.   Unfortunately what we’ve seen recently is a run of similar challenges across a number of businesses that could have been nipped in the bud if they had been managed well and early.   Whether it’s a fear of being seen as a micro manager, avoiding conflict, or just not seeing ...

Understanding the 90 day trail clause

As we approach the 90-day mark post 1 June, we have had a number of dairy farm employers checking in with us about their new team members who aren’t working out for a variety of reasons, with questions about how easy it is to use the 90-day trial clause.This question always comes with a bit of a ‘self-check’ moment around whether this is truly a case for letting a new team member go, or a knee-jerk reaction to a one-off incident or concern.  More often than not there are genuine reaso...

Employment Legislation Updates

Fair Pay AgreementsMBIE has approved five applications from unions to start bargaining for Fair Pay Agreements (FPA):Early childhood education industryCommercial cleaner occupationHospitality industrySecurity offices and guards' occupationBus transport industryIn addition, applications to start FPA bargaining for Waterside worker's occupations and the Supermarket and Grocery Store industry are still being considered by MBIE.What do employers need to do? If you employ people in an occupation...

What’s making our phone ring?

Maybe it’s something in the air, but we’ve had three calls in the past week or so asking about employers’ obligations and rights around parental leave.  Or maybe it was something in the air about six months ago!?  Either way, here’s a summary of the questions we’ve been asked, and the discussions we’ve had with these clients…We’ve just employed someone on fixed term to help us out over calving for a couple of months and then we’d hoped she’d stay on relief milking o...

Let’s all go home safe every day

In our business we are farmers, mothers, fathers, siblings, aunties and uncles, friends, coaches, business partners, clients, team mates, daughters, sons, and generally good gals and guys…and it’s critical to us that our team and yours all go home safe and well every day. We are proud to sign Safer Farms’ Farm Without Harm pledge.As it says on the Safer Farms’ website (Safer Farms), Farm Without Harm is a bold, system-wide strategy and action plan which has been developed by&nb...

Staying Strong

Financial resilience is a well versed topic in NZ’s primary sector. This isn’t our first rodeo facing volatile markets while managing climate variability and a workforce skill shortage…. Our mission at No8 is to help grow communities and a part of this is supporting NZ’s primary sector to foster resilience in their businesses. We know that effective people management practices and compliance are vital components in achieving long-term success. In these times where budgets are tight,...

What's making our phone ring?

While we’re on the topic of new season and new team members, we thought we’d share some insights into the kinds of things that our farmer clients are asking us about at the moment…What salary should I be paying my (insert job title or titles here)?  We get this question a lot, and from our point of view this is a good thing – businesses recognising the importance of meeting the market when it comes to salary packages.  The answer will generally depend on  a number of facto...

Start as you mean to go on

It’s the start of the new season and hopefully all is going well and your new team members are settled and fitting into their new role(s).  We highlighted back in April the importance of having a good process in place to help your staff settle into their new job and posted the link to the Dairy NZ Orientation resource, which we know some have found useful.  But don’t worry if you haven’t managed to get to it, it’s never too late to engage and get things started, especially as y...