Back to Blog

Small group coaching reaps dividends

No8HR’s Lee Astridge recently completed a small group coaching session with a team from a Hamilton Building Company.  Participants said the small group size and incremental sessions was like ‘having access to our own expert who encouraged us to identify and face into the things that were challenging us.’ We’re about to kick off our next coaching group …if you’re looking for a ‘shot in the arm’ for your leadership and would enjoy sharing and learning with a small nu...

Fair Pay Agreement Update

The Fair Pay Agreements Bill has an overarching policy objective to enable employers and employees to collectively bargain industry-wide or occupation-wide minimum employment terms. At present, New Zealand’s employment relations and employment standards regulatory system only allows for collective bargaining at an enterprise level (i.e. between individual employers and unions). There is no mechanism for parties to co-ordinate collective bargaining across enti...

Being deliberate about who you listen to and finding perspective . . . 

It’s easy to focus on difficulties at the moment – let’s face it, there are plenty to choose from; whether it’s your workload, the challenges of running a business, the inability to get a tradesperson or find a great job, or maybe it’s the challenges as costs increase for our families.   Here are some tips for finding perspective: Talk with people and connect with othersIf you’re too busy doing the doing, take a step back and think about what you really want to spend your t...

Upskill your people, keep your people, maximise productivity!

Over the next few months as the temperature drops and the days seem shorter it’s a great time to increase morale with some team training. Upskilling your team has multiple benefits for your employees and your business, including: Improved knowledge – giving your team members knowledge increases performance and produces a flow on effect to other colleagues that results in positive changes throughout the workplace Increased retention – investing in your team shows you value them and have a c...

How Ready is Your Business?

As the government makes decisions and brings in new rules, there are a number of changes that are either here already or coming soon that businesses need to be across. Like ‘em or not, the truth is, they’re here – as a business the key is to understand, adapt and act on them.  We thought we’d help with the ‘understand’ bit here...Minimum Wage increaseWe thought we’d start with this one – because it’s the simplest to understand.  From 1 April, the adult minim...

We know – it really is faster to do it yourself….this time!

If you’ve ever uttered the words, “It’ll be faster if I just do it myself,” then the leadership challenge of finding time to delegate is one that’s likely at the top of your list.   And we get it – it IS often faster if you just do it yourself. But here are the problems if you do this too often:  That may be the case today, but ultimately does that mean that no-one else will ever be able to develop your level of skill (we doubt it, no one is that special)Every time you do i...

Creating clarity for your team members around COVID-19 leave payments

As COVID spreads widely through the community it’s time to create clarity with your teams about how any COVID-19 leave will be treated, particularly where the absence from work is a requirement as a household contact.  The rules on this are changing frequently (this week we saw household contact mandatory isolation change from 10 to 7 days) and these changes will keep coming at us as the population builds up some immunity and the health system rides the COVID-19 storm. It’s importa...

Smarter Recruitment Systems

Behind every great business are systems that keep it running. After 12 years we’re upgrading our recruitment software to ensure we continue to provide quick visibility on jobs that are right for our valued applicants and a recruitment experience that’s user friendly and fit for purpose in today’s fast paced recruitment environment.  From 1 March the No8HR recruitment experience will be powered by i-Get. The i-Get database will hold applicant information on behalf of&nbs...

Action Beats Deliberation

It’s the time of year when so many teenagers are heading off to university, and for the first time this year that’s also happening in our house, with the eldest child leaving later this week to start the next chapter of her life. She asked me the other day “what’s the one piece of advice you’d give me Mum?”   Reflecting back on my own time at uni, it was very tempting to launch into advice about what not to do, or something around staying safe etc – but you don’t o...

The Challenges of Stepping into Leadership

It’s all over the media: job vacancies were the highest they’ve ever been in a January and there’s a lack of skilled and qualified people available to fill them. Certainly it’s  tough – with record numbers of vacancies and nearly full employment in NZ, there are a lot more roles than there are candidates to fill them. One of the interesting trends we’re seeing in the on-farm sector in particular but also more broadly across businesses is the consideration of people for lead...

The Challenge of Strategic Leadership

We came across this article which speaks strongly to strategic leadership and thought it captured some key messages around innovation, resilience and being brave…definitely worth a read to understand how one small group of family-owned businesses is dominating its market and challenging itself to be ready for the future. https://www.strategy-business.com/article/Finnish-dairy-company-Valio-is-feeding-the-future...

How Will You Choose To Do 2022?

This time last year as we welcomed in 2021, naively assuming that the horror that was 2020 was behind us, we faced the year with faith that the worst was over, and hope that 2021 was when the world would tilt back to ‘normal’.  Instead we’ve seen another year of friends and families kept apart and businesses badly affected by border disruptions and lockdowns in the second half of the year, the brunt of the latter being borne by those in Auckland. Fair to say, as we look forward t...

Three simple steps we can all take that will make our lives easier….

Nearly five million people have already watched this YouTube clip (I confess, five of these have been me)It has been named one of 2020’s top 20 You Tube clipsAnd it’s by a really smart (and resilient) Kiwi woman Three good reasons why you can’t afford not to take a look…and if you’re one of the five million who already have watched it, take another look because there’s always a new reflection to be had. This clip doesn’t just pose questions, it gives answers that we can all ea...

The Great Resignation

Not sure if you’ve heard about this global phenomenon yet, but the ‘Great Resignation’ is a thing that many commentators are already saying has hit NZ….and whether you believe it’s already here or not, chances are it will be.  There’s a perfect storm for employers catalysed by two things:At times of change (and let’s face it, COVID has been a big change for us all) people re-evaluate their lives and often make changes to the things they can control….their work...

Understanding the 2021 Resident Visa

A large number of our clients and others we talk to have been asking us recently about the 2021 Resident Visa; this is a pretty exciting opportunity that is likely to be a ‘one-time-only’, so we would encourage you to act now.   Our friends at PathwaysNZ have supplied us with the latest information in a simple to read, simple to understand format…check it out here.  No8HR is happy to recommend PathwaysNZ if you or any of your team members need any advice around immigration o...

Workers & Vaccinations

This is a story that will be set to run for a while but employers in non-mandated workplaces naturally have questions about requiring current workers to be vaccinated.   We’re expecting case law to evolve in this space but at the moment the process you need to follow is: If your worker is unvaccinated (or refuses to tell you if they are vaccinated or not which means they need to be treated as unvaccinated) and you have concerns about whether they can safely do their job unvaccin...

2021 Resident Visa

Recently one of our team sat in on a DairyNZ hosted webinar discussing the 2021 Resident Visa.  There were a lot of people on the webinar, and plenty of interest, so we thought it worth sharing some of the key messages: The 2021 Resident Visa is a one-off, simplified pathway to residence which will allow approximately 9000 primary sector workers who are currently on eligible Visa’s to apply and remain in New Zealand for work.Migrants can submit a 2021 Resident Visa application a...

Under-Management is just as problematic as Micro-Management

Through the recruitment process, no-one answers the question ‘how do you liked to be managed?’ with the answer “I really enjoy it when someone micro-manages me.”  Likewise, ask someone being interviewed for a management role about their management style, and the chances are that the first words out of their mouth are “well, I’m not a micro-manager.” So we know people don’t like to be micro-managed, and they don’t like to be seen as a micro-manager…but what about the...

Does Success = Happiness?

Ever wondered why you search for happiness but don’t necessarily find it?  We found this article by Yale psychologist Laurie Santos interesting and thought you might too.  Make sure you keep reading to the questions around 'what everybody thinks makes them happy but doesn’t’ and ‘what makes us happy but we neglect it.’ Interesting and thought provoking…time to pay some attention to happiness as the days lengthen and the sun starts shining on us even more&hell...

Plan Ahead - it's not too late!

Recently our GM sat in on a DairyNZ webinar with updates around what happens if there is a positive Covid-19 case on farm. There have been many questions floating around – who can run the farm?, will the milk be collected? . . .  there is now some clarity around this. If a farmer displays Covid type symptoms they should get tested, do the right things, follow the rules, it’s an Health and Safety issue and you could put yourself and your business at more risk. ...

Are Your Staff Truly Casual Employees?

We’ve been reminded recently how important it is to employ people on the correct contract.  Here’s a story to learn from: A dairy farm had employed the wife of a Farm Manager on a casual contract as a calf rearer. She stayed on that casual contract for over 18 months and carried out a wide range of farm duties in addition to calf rearing, including milking’s, farm maintenance and moving stock. During that time she worked nearly every week, and normally work 4-5 days of a week, althoug...

Do You Employ Migrants?

From 19 July, changes have been made to Essential Skills visas to streamline application processing and increase visa duration. This includes: Increasing the maximum duration of an Essential Skills visa for jobs paid below the median wage from 12 to 24 months Removing the requirement to provide medical and police certificates if these have already been provided to Immigration New Zealand, even if they were provided more than 36 months ago If the applicant is remaining in their current full time ...

2021 Law Change Round-up

The Government has introduced several new changes to the legislation for this year. Are you up to speed with these changes – check out the summary of below to see what applies to your business. Sick leave changes – 24 July 2021Minimum wage increase – 1 April 2021Tenancy law changes – 11 February 2021Healthy homes standards – 1 July 2021Vaping law changes – 11 August 2021Changes to the consumer credit laws – 1 October 2021Investment property changes – 27 March 2021 For specialist ...

Ten Steps to Happiness

Everyone deserves happiness in their lives so it should be a top priority. As Robert Louis Stevenson once quoted ‘There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.’ Those that are happy have a positive effect on others whereas when you are unhappy you can also influence - but in a negative way!  Think of it as a ripple effect, like when a rock is dropped into the water causing ripples – our words, actions and feelings will affect those around us, who in turn affect tho...

Are You Ready for Sick Leave Changes?

From 24 July 2021 employee sick leave entitlement will increase from five days to 10 days. The three questions we have been getting asked are: does this change for all my team members on 24 July? Do I need to do anything? And is the ‘cap’ of 20 days changing? Let’s tackle the first one first…the short answer is no, not all team members’ entitlements change on 24 July – this happens when they reach their next entitlement date after the 24th of July – either after reaching six m...