HRNZ member profile

Human Resources magazine caught up with Barbara Daxenberger, People and Capability Manager at engineering consultancy Tonkin and Taylor. We asked her about her career, her path to HRNZ Chartered accreditation and her thoughts about the role of HR in Aotearoa today.

What have been your career highlights to date?

My career hasn’t been very linear. After graduating from high school in Germany, I decided to study maths as I enjoyed logical thinking and the clarity of the subject. An answer was either right or wrong, there was no grey. During an internship in Switzerland, I discovered the world of HR and human behaviour. HR was precisely the opposite of the black-andwhite world I was used to, and it fascinated me. I therefore decided to do a post-graduate degree in HR Management. The internship in Switzerland not only sparked my interest in HR but also in travelling and living abroad. After finishing my master’s degree, I have lived and worked in Singapore, Canada, Dubai, Australia and now New Zealand. I have worked in HR generalist and specialist roles but also on horse ranches guiding trail rides and in call centres responding to customer queries in five different languages.

I came to New Zealand four years ago, working as an HR Analyst for Tonkin and Taylor, headquartered in Auckland. After five months in the role, I accepted the role of People and Capability Manager, leading an amazing team of 25-plus HR professionals. I am also leading the Auckland chapter of Culture First, a community of professionals that wants to create a better world of work. Feel free to check out one of our next events.

What inspires and motivates you in your career and why?

Coming originally from a very analytical world, I am fascinated by human behaviour. I believe that many of our workplaces, legislation and ways of working are still based on assumptions from the industrial revolution. For example, we can measure how productive someone is by measuring how many hours they work. A lot of us now work in jobs requiring creativity and being in the right mindset to produce the best outcomes. But the human brain isn’t designed to be creative and fully productive from 8:30am to 5:30pm, especially when sitting in front of a laptop with lots of distractions like emails, IMs and phone calls.

I personally have my best ideas either in the shower or when I go for long runs, when my brain gets a chance to stop analysing and my creativity can surface. My passion is to create a better world of work that takes into account that we are human beings with emotions, and have bodies with neurotransmitters like serotonin and adrenaline and a lot of complex unconscious thoughts and beliefs. All of these can be seen as distractors and something to be suppressed or controlled in workplaces. I see them as huge strengths of what makes us human and areas that AI won’t be able to replace us in very soon.

What do you see as the challenges facing the industry and the HR profession?

Ithink it’s an exciting time to be in HR at the moment. More and more companies realise the importance of a strong HR function to turn the challenges ahead into opportunities.

1. Keeping up with technology and digitisation: HR professionals need to stay up to date with technological advancements, such as digital HR platforms, artificial intelligence, ChatGPT and automation. Adopting these technologies can help to streamline HR processes and increase efficiency, but it will also require significant investment and change management.

2. Creating workplaces where everyone can thrive: Our world of work is changing, and I am excited to see more and more people bringing their whole selves to work. For HR professionals, this means supporting the amazingly complex humans we work with, for example, mental health and wellbeing, DEI, neurodiversity, women in menopause, men taking carer’s leave, flexible working, remote working… the list goes on.

3. Keeping up with globalisation, hybrid work and flexibility: The world is becoming smaller and smaller, and employment relationships are becoming more and more flexible, parttime, casual, contracting, the gig economy, working remotely from overseas, sabbaticals, OEs, purchased leave etc. Our legislation is typically a few steps behind. Managing all of these different ways of employment is making the world of HR more complex and exciting.

How has HRNZ Capability Framework helped your career?

Being a Chartered Member of HRNZ allows me to connect with colleagues who face similar challenges as I do and exchange or brainstorm ideas. Mentoring other HR professionals through HRNZ’s mentorship programme gives me a chance to share my knowledge and also gives me insight into other industries and HR functions.

The HRNZ Awards are a great way to showcase the amazing things we do as a company and get recognition for them, and, at the same time, get inspired by what others have achieved. The HRNZ career framework ‘The Path’ is an incredible tool to guide my career and help with development conversations with my team and my mentees. Sometimes it also helps simply to know that I am not the only one struggling with a particular challenge and that everyone else is in the same boat.