Action plan and roadmap

The following breaks down the Group’s high-level action plan to move our rohe forward toward our aspirations for a more resilient workforce and sustainable economy.

As per the Mātauranga Māori Framework, the actions we have road-mapped address the challenges in the region including equity across health, housing and workforce resilience, while also activating those enablers of education and skills with awhi to support strong transitions of whānau into decent employment.

You can read the rationale for the inclusion, the key actions, times frames, expected outcomes and key stakeholders in the following sections.

Te Taiao - hauora health and communities

Increase opportunities to grow a trained and sustainable workforce for the health and community support sector offering decent work where whānau cultural and heritage values are enabled and respected. Rationale:

• Decreasing talent pool with our people moving out of the region.
• Fastest ageing workforce.
• Large skills and jobs gaps based on labour market forecasts for the region.
• Lack of pay equity and valuing of the caring profession, especially health and communities workforce.
• Lack of pay equity between employers is impacting ability to retain workers in rural areas and causing urban drift away from region.
• Link with national health reforms and formation of Health NZ and the (HNZ) Māori Health Authority (MHA).

Meet the skills needs of our region and employers, especially in kāiawhina roles

Timeframe: medium

• Identify local workforce challenges and drivers to attract younger workers towards Kāiawhina roles.
• Ensure employers and agencies agree to provide decent working conditions, e.g. address employer pay equity, cover employee costs on the job; support individual development plans; and better working conditions to enhance workforce attraction and participation.
• Acknowledge prior learning and highlight career pathways for taitamariki who have undertaken whānau care of kuia and kaumatua under a Kaupapa Māori framework that is developed in conjunction with local hapū.

Meet the skills needs of our region and employers, especially in Kāiawhina roles

Timeframe: medium

• Identify local workforce challenges and drivers to attract younger workers towards Kāiawhina roles.
• Ensure employers and agencies agree to provide decent working conditions, e.g. address employer pay equity, cover employee costs on the job; support individual development plans; and better working conditions to enhance workforce attraction and participation.
• Acknowledge prior learning and highlight career pathways for taitamariki who have undertaken whānau care of kuia and kaumatua under a Kaupapa Māori framework that is developed in conjunction with local hapū.

Broaden apprenticeship provision, participation and completion of Nursing (Registered and Enrolled) programs

Timeframe: short - medium

• Consider, adopt and action recommendations arising from the Pre-registration Nursing Pipeline Project that address Māori student nurses’ attrition rates. We will also establish a pathway to EN for those who exit Bachelor of Nursing programme; support and assist with ARC workforce planning including migration settings and nursing recruitment programme; and review clinical placement model (as a barrier to more training places).
• Support and expand (if successful) the Kaimahi to Enrolled Nurse apprenticeship model currently being piloted and supported by Mahitahi Hauora, AUT and Te Pūkenga, and supporting Māori Kaimahi to become enrolled nurses and work for their local health providers within their areas of domicile
• Endorse alignment and career staircasing across all health roles.
• Support options to allow “step on, step off” studying while being able to work in the sector at their current qualification level.

Te Taiao - Resilient workforce and enabled whānau

Increase opportunities to enable a more resilient and productive workforce through partnerships with Hapū Māori and industry leaders. Rationale:

• Māori, youth and women were disproportionately impacted in terms of employment and education by COVID-19 with this segment unable to access productive work and/ or education opportunities due to economic challenges.

Support workforce recommendations from Te Mahere Whai Mahi Māori – Māori Employment Action Plan

Timeframe: medium - long

• Ensure support and build resilience for Māori businesses.
• Support organisations working with businesses who encourage and grow their Māori workforce, especially wāhine and taitamariki.

Actively support increased collaboration and partnerships between Community and Industry for developing a resilient workforce

Timeframe: short – medium

• Actively support community led initiatives and the organisations that support them to awhi community capability and develop a whānau workforce.
• Work with organisations that support business growth, e.g. Chamber of Commerce and Northland Inc under the business mentor programme, to support entrepreneurship workforce development.

Te Taiao - Responding to climate change and green skills development

Develop a robust understanding of workforce impacts due to climate change and how to support the transition towards green skills based on pae tata and pae tawhiti. Rationale:

• Looking at the spread of talent around the region and within the core and backbone sectors through the lens of green skills, we can see clearly that the demand for green talent and green skills is outpacing supply.
• To fill the labour market gap, we need to shift talent towards green skills, through a targeted sector approach towards greener jobs, using skills to identify jobs with the highest ability to turn sectors green.
• Kaitiakitanga - Protecting our Taonga.

Champion green skills and prepare the workforce for the green transition owing to climate change impacts due to the Zero Carbon amendment to the Climate Change Response Act in 2019 through skills assessments, Emissions Reduction Plan and National Adaptation Plan

Timeframe: medium – long

• Undertake a comprehensive sector by sector analysis through the lens of green skills, to determine the potential green skills required by industry based on demand for green talent which will in turn be based on national policy commitments for the region i.e. the proposed Renewable Energy Zone pilot as an opportunity for Taitokerau to transition to increased green energy generation. 

Timeframe: short – medium

• Support the Māori workforce to identity the critical green skills required initially in the primary sector (forestry) that align with their kaupapa and whenua values, to enable a regenerative, sustainable and circular economy model. 

Timeframe: medium – long

• Develop a targeted approach to progressively focus on green upskilling and reskilling communities with a devolved energy generation approach (solar energy related skills) across the region. Also capitalising on investments made in Ngāwhā Innovation and Enterprise Park. 

Timeframe: short – medium

• Support existing workforce from exiting industries, with cross council collaboration, to transition to more sustainable future industries such as green hydrogen, solar, wind and water, energy waves and potentially biofuels, e.g. Refining NZ. 

Mātauranga - construction and infrastructure

Grow construction and infrastructure workforce and skills to meet forecast industry needs with a focus on the housing workforce. Rationale:

• Taitokerau needs 4,500 houses to address the shortage of housing.
• Kainga Ora plan to deliver against its commitments under the public housing plan.
• Kainga Ora have changed their contracting model for Taitokerau to enable more local businesses to tender

Amplify initiatives to attract taitamariki into the industry

including though subject choices that support these pathways working with Te Pūkenga to ensure subjects are available to learners across the rohe.

Timeframe: Short

Continue to tailor and grow vocational training 

to meet the construction and infrastructure needs of employers and communities, including those remote communities, e.g. key shortages include:

• HT licences.
• Project planners.
• Resource consent.

Timeframe: medium – long

Support Iwi-hapū led workforce development 

in line with social procurement for government investment in housing and infrastructure, e.g. Nga Puna Wai Ora.

Timeframe: short

Showcase successful examples (for example, Kainga Ora initiatives and Waka Kotahi Council led shovel ready projects) where social procurement has

• increased supplier equity and upskilling, and
• provided more contracts for local businesses.

Timeframe: medium – long

Mātauranga – future of work – IT/digital

Rationale: Infrastructure investment is required to support overall digital enablement and skills training for economic development. Due to the region’s geographic spread and low population density, many households cannot access quality broadband for skills development or business purposes

Support investment in digital, IT and technology to enable skills development and participation in ‘future of work’ industries

such as ag-tech, green tech industries, advanced manufacturing tech (high value industries).

Timeframe: medium – long

Support the Future of Work by providing IT/digital skills training to communities, especially rural communities

to upskill and enable greater participation in digital training and business, keeping in view COVID-19 -related disruptions.

Timeframe: medium - long

• Increase access for digital and IT microcredentials against the backdrop of a wider ranging population and geography with possible wrap around support. Timeframe: Short
• Understand and support opportunities for local training providers to extend modular training in specialised skills such as data analytics, security, AI.
• Consider training our people in industry interests and the opportunity for provision of soft skills to complement specialist technical

Identify pragmatic next steps within the wider environment of change

that can be progressed regionally giving reference to industry research findings and regional settings.

Within the community of interest, support connection and collaboration to overcome limitations of small scale, e.g.:

• Work with key industry employers to embed upskilling programmes.
• Connect with Government cadetship schemes and training graduates.

Advocate for continued funding of Digital Training under the Free Trade Training scheme.

A digital workforce plan will connect in with other regional strategies

such as FNDC (Nothing But Net), Northland Economic Action Plan Digital Enablement Strategy, as they develop.

Mātauranga – primary industry (horticulture, forestry, Agriculture)

Rationale:

• Third largest employer in the region.
• Significant economic contributor and largest exports for the region.
• Increasing local employment and investment in horticulture (including kiwifruit, avocadoes and blueberries).
• Opportunities for the region with advances in agritech, robotics etc. and adaptation for climate change (circular economy).

Ensure a sustainable and productive workforce with access to decent jobs with wrap-around pastoral care to awhi workers

Timeframe: short

Support the need for both lower-skilled and higher- skilled workers in the horticulture sector:

• Work with industry to manage multi-employer contracts (lower-skilled workers) to ensure a stable worker pipeline.
• Support development of programmes for degrees in horticultural science and rural leadership to encourage workforce and develop entrepreneurial skills in the workforce.
• Increase access and enrolment in critical areas of education, e.g.
• Bachelor of Agricultural Science, Horticulture Science and Forestry Science.
• Encourage graduates of specialist and other subjects, e.g. IT, Engineering, Robotics into the
• Increase enrolment beyond basic level 1-3 up into level 4-6 certificates and diploma qualifications.

Timeframe: medium

Support sustainable and green forestry R&D that is underpinned by region’s kaitiaki role, e.g. native species as an alternative to exotic plantings

Timeframe: medium

Identify skills required for future agriculture workforce development

Mātauranga – destination management and tourism

Rationale:

• The visitor economy - especially the opportunity for Māori to tell their own stories, has been significantly impacted by COVID-19 and resulting border closures. Supporting businesses in this sector with sustainable workforce plans while upskilling the workforce is critical to the re-growth and future of the sector.

Support the workforce aspirations and actions as detailed in the Taitokerau Northland Destination Management Plan (TNDMP).

Timeframe: short

Support sustainable skills development to enable a stable local workforce for the tourism sector with focus on:

• sustainability,
• service levels,
• building on the region’s cultural capability such as the rich Māori culture and the importance of Tai Tokerau Northland’s place in the history of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Timeframe: medium

Support initiatives that raise the profile, and positively impact the perceptions, of Tourism as a viable career choice.

Timeframe: medium

He Tāngata – education and skills

Increase student achievement within the secondary and tertiary Education Sector to allow for a sustainable workforce pipeline. Rationale:

• There are gaps between Māori and non-Māori student’s levels of academic achievement
• There are some ‘best practise’ models emerging, offering an opportunity to share what works for Māori and to build capability across the sector.
• All learners/ākonga deserve safe and nurturing educational experiences

Review the outcomes on raising learner achievement outlined in the Education Work Programme with a continuous focus on all learners, including Māori, and identify which actions are most relevant for our rohe, which outcomes are priorities, and what is missing that is specific to our rohe.

Timeframe: short - medium

Champion education and with industry/business interests to further better education pathways for our region’s people.

• Foster member networks, and industry and business involvement in the localised curriculum initiative with the Ministry of Education E2E team to ensure that learning is relevant to our region.
  • Encourage support of the region’s Trade Academies through industry support, and by taking students into apprenticeships so that students see connection in learning, while the ethnic, gender and socio-economic stereotypes around career paths are broken down; with a focus on girls and young women and wāhine.
• Aid employers and industry bodies to visit classrooms and assist teachers develop learning context through applied examples, with an emphasis on secondary schools and maintaining enrolment in STEM subjects.
  • Collaborate with Workforce Development Councils to develop a programme to recognise prior learning and lived experience for the existing workforce.
  • Highlight the education to employment transition challenges and the role for Hapū iwi and community to ensure cohesion and joined efforts for workforce enablement (Wiremu and Santos case study in RWP Y9).

Timeframe: short - medium

Support barrier free access to training opportunities regardless of where students live.

Timeframe: short - medium

He Tāngata – Equitable and inclusive workforce

Support equitable and inclusive access to education and skills development system that is future-focused, digitallyenabled and proven to raise the skill level, education achievement, and engagement levels, in terms of growth and productivity, especially of Māori, as an economic priority for the region. Rationale:

• Māori, youth and women were disproportionally impacted in terms of employment and education by COVID-19 with this segment unable to access productive work and/ or education opportunities due to economic challenges.
• Another group of whānau impacted are those with health conditions or impairments.
• Key barrier to skills and employment is lack of driver’s licenses, which is especially the case for taitamariki.

Actively support and awhi hapū Māori groups as they trial new procurement models with funders to provide services to their own people and support them into decent mahi that contributes to their wellbeing, their kaupapa and their whakapapa.

Timeframe: short

Support iwi, Hapū and Māori led workforce development and upskilling initiatives by provding them with information and resources to accelerate these.

Timeframe: short

Build stronger career pathways and support for wāhine Māori entrepreneurs.

Timeframe: medium - long

Support whānau with health conditions or impairments to access skills and education and employment across the rohe.

Timeframe: short - medium

He tāngata – Our people and whānau

Increase the number of people, especially Māori, training and working across the labour market with equitable access to training, and wrap-around transitions on clear career pathways for wāhine across the rohe. Support workers, especially Māori, in accessing a greater share of decent employment in more skilled and productive industries. Rationale:

• Māori, youth and women were disproportionally impacted in terms of employment and education by COVID-19.
• Accelerate education achievement across the rohe.

Develop Mātauranga Māori based kanohi ki te kanohi job counselling service.

• Pilot a model specifically to work for Taitokerau rural and remote areas.

Timeframe: medium – long

< He Tāngata – supporting skills and training opportunities to enable whānau aspirations, especially wāhine | RWP Monitoring Framework >