News Roundup

Vector Limited wins top diversity award

Vector Limited has won New Zealand’s top workplace diversity award, demonstrating excellence in more than one diversity category and a commitment to integrating an inclusive culture across its business.

The energy and communications services provider took out the Supreme Award at the 2019 Diversity Awards NZ™ following wins in the Empowerment and Diversability categories, which recognise innovative responses to gender equity and positive employment opportunities for people with disabilities.

Acknowledging it operates in a maledominated industry, where gender diversity has been an issue for many years, Vector committed to increasing the number of women employed from 30 per cent to 50.8 per cent to be representative of New Zealand’s working-age population. It also

developed a Women in Leadership programme, to identify and grow female leadership at all levels of the organisation, and undertook a pay equity audit.

It's fantastic to see a large organisation making a genuine commitment to improving gender equity.

Energy and communications services provider Vector Ltd wins New Zealand's top workplace diversity award following its innovative responses to gender equity.

“It’s fantastic to see a large organisation in a male-dominated industry making a genuine commitment to improving gender equity and showing the way for other large organisations to stop seeing employment of people with disabilities as a burden,” said Judging Convenor Neil Porteous.

For all the award results, visit www.diversityworksnz.org.nz

Working life survey

A Statistics NZ survey has recently been published providing a picture of what working life is like for the employed people of New Zealand. The study reveals interesting data into how flexible our workplaces are, how much control employees felt they had over how they do their tasks, and how much work-related training was happening.

The Survey of Working Life 2018, carried out between October and December 2018 and involving over 9,000 employees, reveals that those with flexible hours had higher levels of satisfaction (79 per cent)

than those who didn't (71 per cent). And only 3 per cent of those who had flexible hours reported being dissatisfied with their primary job compared with 6.1 per cent of those with no flexi-arrangements.

Employees who don’t have flexibility feel less satisfied with their work– life balance than those who do.

"Having the ability to start and finish your job at different times is an important aspect of balancing work

with life outside it, so, unsurprisingly, employees who don't have that flexibility fell less satisfied with their work-life balance than those who do," says labour market statistics manager, Scott Ussher.

This raises important questions for HR professionals and managers to seek to understand how they can provide a flexible working culture to engage, empower and motivate staff, while at the same time maintaining the business case and day-to-day operations.

Escalating youth hearing loss and impacts on employers

In New Zealand, hearing loss affects around 11 per cent of the workforce – approximately 300,000 people aged between 20 and 65. This could double in the next decade given that the global rate of hearing loss in youth is one in five. So how can employers prepare for this escalating rate of youth hearing loss?

The Listen Up! Conference, in Auckland on 2 October, will address the nation’s need to tackle the mounting rates of youth hearing loss and the impact this health crisis will have on workplaces in the near future.

There is a shocking prevalence for hearing loss in high-school students, and these pupils are the employees of the future.

“Our pilot youth-screening programme has revealed a shocking prevalence for hearing loss in highschool students, and these pupils are the employees of the future,” says Natasha Gallardo, Chief Executive of National Foundation for Deaf and Hard of Hearing. “There is an

onus on employers to ensure their workplaces cater for their needs, and provide an inclusive environment. Without that, staff can feel isolated and that leads to low morale.”

Included in the day-long conference will be strategies and approaches for conducting business to better accommodate new employees with hearing loss, helping employers be leaders in diversity, inclusion and organisational change. Nigel Latta, Mike King and Minister for Disability Issues, Hon Carmel Sepuloni will be speaking at the conference.