GROW
From the GM Looking at the year ahead MARCUS PICKENS
“WOULD YOU tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?” asks Alice in Wonderland. “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” replies the Cheshire Cat. Where do we want to get to in 2021 as an industry? And where do we - as your regional association - want you to be by the end of it? Here at Wine Marlborough, we hope for more opportunities and less challenges for 2021. Last year was difficult as we were not always in control and had to show how resilient we are as employees, family members, leaders and part of the wine industry. If there is one learning I can take out of the 2020 experience, it is that we have the capacity and skills to deal with vagueness, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) fairly well. It isn’t always fun to be in situations where you have to use these skills, but it does make it easier to deal with situations in the future where you may be required to deliver on these again. Congratulations to everyone for surviving and sometimes thriving, in a year full of forks in the road and many other obstacles. For Wine Marlborough, our priority will be continuing work on our strategic priorities as we strive towards being recognised as the world’s greatest wine region. We will focus on four areas under the broad pillars of ‘educate, grow, protect and celebrate’. We want to share our work plan with members more easily too so you can see and track our progress against our goals. Significant work will continue in addressing the labour challenges that have dogged us for many years now, but had the potential to become acute over the winter pruning
John Murray Tapp Trading as: Marlborough Labour Hire 12 Sutherland Terrace Blenheim admin@marlboroughlabourhire.co.nz
4 / Winepress February 2021
period, summer viticulture season and particularly in the wineries for vintage 2021. I want to continue working on changing perceptions of our sector. We need to make use of stories of Kiwis and locals who join us for the harvest period, and others who have remained here to showcase our industry and the many roles people can fill. For us, this will be almost as important as the recruitment of our workforce, and I urge those engaging these new people to capture positive stories and share them with us. I believe it is a very safe bet to say that the bar will continuously rise for us when we want access to international workers. We must demonstrate to the Government and our communities that we can attract and keep Kiwis in our workforce and keep lifting the numbers of New Zealanders and our locals involved. We rely on seasonal workers, and while many more permanent full time jobs have been added through the years we still get pinned as an industry that is unattractive and seasonal. This needs to be challenged and pushed against. Why would an industry that is unattractive account for 6,088 full-time permanent jobs in Marlborough, or one in four jobs? These figures and more are part of the ‘Contribution of Wine to the Marlborough Economy 2020’ prepared by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) and commissioned by Wine Marlborough, which we will publish and share with you. We will also release our Labour Market Survey 2021, which looks ahead and models our workforce needs based on projected vineyard area growth and water storage plans.
We are SSE AIP for up to 65 employees until 18/04/2021 Our service includes providing supervised labour on fixed term contracts and includes transportation to and from site. We can assist with viticulture and/or horticulture work and are keen to fill your ‘in between’ requirements, that call for smaller groups that your main contractor would rather not do. Being locally owned since 2011, and involved with the wine industry since then, we can also provide labour for factory, packaging and any other type of work as required. Email us to begin a productive discussion.
