The drive to ensure PKW staff well being

Jacqui King, PKW General Manager He Whāriki - Corporate Services, reports on how the organisation has been focusing on their people potential strategy in terms of building capability and leadership across the organisation.

In 2019, PKW undertook a 360-degree wellbeing assessment through Vitality Works, a Sanitarium-owned business, who provide a consulting service to enable workplaces to be healthier.

“Our assessment was probably one of the largest ones in our field of work,” explains Jacqui.

“By keeping the wellbeing of our workforce at the forefront of our thinking, we are making sure that not only are our working conditions good, but that we take care of the whole person, not just the employment component.”

“It’s quite a holistic model which includes a hauora approach. We were assessed not just on employee satisfaction with the role, the position and their career choice, as well as the organisation they work for, but also on how our people cope, how do they compare to the average from a wellbeing perspective. This covers physical, financial, and employment conditions. The assessment also looks at areas such as nutrition, fatigue levels, and sleep quality.”

Recognising that the agri-business industry doesn’t traditionally rate highly from a health and wellbeing perspective, PKW wanted to get a sense of where their workforce measured.

“We know that there is a correlation between high levels of fatigue, high degrees of stress and suicide,” explains Jacqui. “Dairy farming particularly has some bad statistics from a health and wellbeing perspective related to fatigue, so this exercise was really us taking stock on where our team sits.”

With nearly 100 people involved across the organisation, including a seasonal workforce, farming staff, contractors, office staff, management and board members, the organisation had to ensure there was buy-in to undertake this evaluation.

“Our governance team participated in the exercise as well, to demonstrate commitment from our leadership. But generally, the buy-in was there from the beginning,” says Jacqui. “One of the benefits of the assessment is that it gives you a personalised report on the state of your wellbeing, how it compares to the average in their system and the areas you might be able to work on, with tips and techniques on how you might improve a particular area.”

“We saw real value in that, as well as being able to assess the organisation as a whole. It was important individuals had the information that could help them identify where there may be areas of weakness. It gives us a really strong platform on which to develop our wellbeing programmes.”

The assessment also confirmed that the key industry factors of concern also existed within the organisation, especially in relation to managing fatigue.

“These are the challenges we have to account for to our shareholders, as well as to our workforce,” acknowledges Jacqui. “But the process is now helping to inform our practices. We know what our benchmarks are, and what we need to aspire to so that we can attract more of our people to be part of our organisation. A major factor in doing that is to demonstrate that we can take good care of them.”

Attracting more Māori into agri-business, and the management of a multi-faceted land-based organisation, continues to be at the forefront of PKW’s building capacity and leadership strategy.

“We want our people to see the benefits of working for PKW so that they can become the diamonds in the agri-business industry,” says Jacqui.