Regional economy, industry & business
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Construction and infrastructure
Actions
Timeframe: Short-medium term
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).
CSA Beacon Projects(external link)
Diversity Works (partnership with CSA)(external link)
Diversity Agenda(external link)
National Association of Women in Construction(external link)
Women in Trades(external link)
Women in Infrastructure(external link)
The RSLG advocates construction and infrastructure training is effectively delivered and tailored to future regional needs
- Investigate an industry-wide regional platform to align workforce education and training provision, from compulsory to in-work upskilling, using the Construction Centre of Vocational Excellence Career Framework (Te Pukenga, universities, wānanga PTEs etc.)
- Align and communicate the construction workforce forecast on the Workforce Information Platform with regional education and training sectors.
- 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.
Construction Centre of Vocational Excellence Career Framework(external link)
Workforce Information Platform(external link)
Trades academies(external link),
Expected outcomes
- Increased awareness and connections between future workforce and industry and employer-led action
- Increased numbers of rangatahi or youth, girls and women, choosing pathways and jobs in the industry
- Breadth of regional training provision meets industry needs, businesses and workers (including migrants).
Key stakeholders
- Auckland Chamber of Commerce
- Construction Sector Accord
- Employers and Manufactures Association
- Industry Associations
- Ministry of Social Development
- Tāmaki 10,000
- Tertiary education providers for C&I industry
- Trade Unions
- Waihanga Ara Rau Workforce Development Council
- Whāriki Business Network
Health
Actions
Timeframe: Short-medium term
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 workforce.
- 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 within 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 Restructure of Vocational Education (ROVE) has not addressed.
Expected outcomes
- Increase our health workforce diversity to better reflect the patient demographic we serve e.g. Māori
- Specifically support increase in workforce from entry level care givers in any setting including aged residential care to Nurse Practitioners.
Key stakeholders
- Health NZ
- Māori Health Authority
- TEC
- MOE
- Auckland DHB
- Waitemata DHB
- Counties Manukau DHB
- Tāmaki 10,000
- Te Whānau o Waipareira
Hospitality
Actions
Timeframe: Short-medium term
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.
Future of Hospitality Roadmap(external link) — Restaurant Association of New Zealand
Goal 1 – Create workable solutions for legacy issues faced by the industry
Collaborate with industry, especially small business owners, for bite-sized and right sized workforce support. This includes education and development for business owners who are critical to the success of whether someone stays or leaves the hospitality industry.
Goal 3 – Support the development of fit-for-purpose, adequately-funded education and training options that produce ready-to-work, productive, career focused workers
- Partner with Ringa Hora – WDC to conduct a hospitality skills survey to better understand the skills deficit in the sector and the capability gaps across the industry ecosystem. This will provide clear pathways to employment and career progress within the sector.
- Grow productivity by developing core skills and investing in basic customer service skills and core hospitality training programmes to allow job seekers to gain work ready skills to transition into work easily such as the Restaurant Association Hospo Start and promoting Job Ready skills .
- Supporting existing workers and invest in their skills and development for growth within the hospitality workplace through apprenticeships, micro-credentials and Restaurant Association's Springboard employee training program and a wider range of paid pathways into Tourism & Hospitality careers.
Ringa Hora Services: Workforce Development Council(external link)
Hospo Start hospitality training programme(external link) — Restaurant Association
Workforce solutions shared with Tourism Minister(external link) — Go With Tourism
Springboard employee training program(external link)(external link) — Restaurant Association
Goal 4 – Bring out the best in the sector
Support Hospo Cred accreditation system due for release in June which aims to highlight those businesses that are good employers.
The RSLG advocates a thriving hospitality sector that offers better working conditions, based on a strong employer duty of care for its service workforce.
- Offer attractive working conditions that ensure workers feel confident and value their work as a short term vocation or a long term career. For example, students, holiday visitors and residents.
- Build a professional skills pipeline that attracts and develops local workers and tackles poor perception of industry employment.
- Work with Tāmaki 10,000 to support Māori into good jobs within the sector for our region’s Māori workforce.
The RSLG promotes a hospitality workforce that can share manaakitanga with manuhiri, or guests, while representing this home with heart, soul and mana.
- Ensure organisations are culturally competent and responsive to tikanga Māori.
- Encourage Auckland-based hospitality employers to inspire and up-skill staff through programmes such Tū Mai Ambassador Program to grow cultural competency and engage customers experience in the world, ensuring the region thrives within a sustainable visitor economy.
- Work with Tāmaki 10,000 to support and engage whānau and communities working in hospitality to have good jobs and a meaningful career in the industry.
Tū Mai Ambassador Program(external link) — Auckland NZ
Expected outcomes
- Promoting inclusive employment, creating opportunity through fair and inclusive jobs by establishing the industry as a thriving profession
- Industry collaboration to set standards in key areas such as business operations, duty of care and employee working conditions and wellbeing.
- Promoting Tāmaki Makaurau as a hospitality destination on the national and international stage as a sustainable thriving and resilient destination for the region’s workforce.
Key stakeholders
- Auckland Council
- Auckland Unlimited
- Unite Union
- Go with Tourism – industry partnership
- Restaurant Association of New Zealand – future of hospitality roadmap
- Ringa Hora WDC
- Tāmaki 10,000
- Tourism Industry Aotearoa
Horticulture
Actions
Timeframe: Medium term
The RSLG will support and plan with local employers, local boards (Franklin and Rodney) and the Franklin Skills Hub to improve the sector's attractiveness for workers with a focus on pastoral care and improvement of industry practices.
The RSLG promotes working with Māori Workforce and Muka Tangata to support Māori in mahi and share the Muka Tangata vision of the wider system, one where vocational education adapts and responds to ākonga and industry needs, with a critical focus on Māori.
The RSLG promotes regional partnerships with Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Tai Tokerau Regional Skills Leadership Groups due to the proximity of the major sector employers in Rodney and Franklin local board areas.
The RSLG will work with Muka Tangata (People, Food and Fibre) Workforce Development Council to look at the workforce skills needed to support innovation and technology in the sector.
The RSLG will work with Agritech Industry Transformation Plan to identify opportunities to engage with the Muka Tangata Workforce Development Council to discuss potential involvement in delivering relevant actions and how to ensure agritech skills needs and priorities for the region.
Expected outcomes
- More sustainable and higher qualified workforce.
Key stakeholders
- Agritech industry association
- Auckland Unlimited
- FIRST Union
- Franklin Local Board
- Ministry of Social Development
- Muku Tangata WDC
- Waikato/Bay of Plenty and Tai Tokerau RSLG
Screen and creative
Actions
Timeframe: Medium-long term
The RSLG supports a Māori workforce focus. There is an opportunity for the Screen and Creative sector to expand in Tāmaki Makaurau with Tāmaki 10,000 engaging Māori communities, whānau, Hapū and iwi to become more proactively involved in communications and media, particularly as more opportunities for relationships between Māori and non-Māori productions arise in the future.
The RSLG supports working with Screen Auckland to support workforce upskilling for the industry in West Auckland.
The RSLG advocates secure and sustainable employment in the Screen and Creative sector.
- Given the casual nature of the work within the sector, a large proportion of the workforce ends up being gig workers, and part-time contracts and a concerted effort are needed to ensure good jobs within the sector.
- These workforce concerns around job security and continuity with project-based work, including improving working conditions and practices, such as long and unsociable working hours and lack of worker protection, need to be addressed.
The RSLG will support and provide insights to the Toi Mai Workforce Development Council as they build regional sector insights and workforce and industry aspirations.
Expected outcomes
- Improved career pathway for both new entrants and those already in the industry
- Support good jobs within the sector with workforce security while ensuring work continuity
Key stakeholders
- Auckland Unlimited
- Equity NZ
- Ministry of Social Development
- Toi Mai
Manufacturing
Actions
Timeframe: Medium-long term
The RSLG supports skills development for Manufacturing sector workers.
- Support Hanga-Aro-Rau WDC with its TEC COVID-19 Relief Fund research project, “Post COVID-19 Workforce Development Needs in New Zealand’s Manufacturing and Engineering Industries”. This research will provide an evidence base for further collaboration and actions to inform workforce strategies that address the identified gaps and barriers to skills development.
- Support upskilling of manufacturing sector Pacific workers
- Support career advice for literacy and numeracy skills to allow students to succeed in the upcoming digitally enabled manufacturing workforce.
- Advocate and recognise that truck drivers are highly skilled operators and support an improved public perception regarding their skills
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.
- Collaborate with Employee Manufactures Association and Hanga-Aro-Rau WDC for developing manufacturing workers' skills, knowledge and partnerships by working closely together with industry and the workforce to support high-quality skills for improved productivity and knowledge-sharing based on the large scale and depth of the sector in Auckland.
- Support basic worker readiness initiatives that must be considered to enable the industry to utilise its workforce to its maximum potential.
- Collaborate with Waihanga ara Rau WDC to align productivity improvements in the building manufacturing area
- Support the focus of the MBIE Advanced Manufacturing Industry Transformation Plan to (a) support for building the sector's capability across skills, capital and innovation, environmental sustainability, and global connections, and (b) build on the competitive advantage in the sector through identifying and supporting high growth areas within manufacturing.
Expected outcomes
- Improve Manufacturing sector skills advanced and basic work ready skills
- Improve workforce productivity by collaboration across the manufacturing workforce through knowledge sharing
- Support increase in high quality jobs and opportunities through networking and collaboration benefits given the region’s scale.
Key stakeholders
- Employers and Manufacturers Association
- Etu
- FIRST Union
- Hanga-Aro- Rau WDC
- Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
- Ministry of Social Development
- Waihanga ara rau WDC