People
Soil scientists from across Landcare Research getting together for a training and development workshop. Image - Les Basher
Goal: Landcare Research has an organisational culture that is adaptive in the face of change, attracts high quality talent, produces great leaders, and is supported by effective systems and processes.
The external market for talented researchers is changing rapidly, with top talent globally mobile and highly sought after, particularly in the environmental sciences. The situation is also exacerbated by the increasingly tough funding environment in New Zealand and greater opportunities with higher remuneration in Australia enticing many talented New Zealand researchers to cross the Tasman. Our science facilities, culture and our philosophy of manaaki tangata – manaaki whenua play vital roles in attracting and retaining staff.
Many of our Lincoln-based staff continue to struggle with private insurance and EQC claims after the 2010 and 2011 earthquakes. We provide support and allow flexibility to deal with the many and varied aspects of this ongoing, stressful process.
We manage our capability within seven science teams that report to the Chief Scientist. These science teams are the long-term collegial ‘home’ for staff where they are able to develop skills and experience, plan career paths, and develop new ideas. The Chief Scientist and Science Team Leaders service the changing capability and capacity needs of the Portfolios. Where potential gaps are identified, we address these through partnering with other research providers in New Zealand and offshore; recruiting new staff with the required expertise; and enabling our staff to develop new capabilities.
Capability review
The latter part of our financial year has been dominated by work being undertaken by the Capability Work Stream led by the Chief Scientist and General Manager, People and Culture. The role of the work stream is to recommend how best to refocus our capability to match the changes that have occurred in the revenue generated from our stakeholders, and to ensure we are fit for purpose. We are ensuring that we retain critical capability and are positioning ourselves to be able to respond to new opportunities, but part of this process has involved the disestablishment of some roles across both science and support. The majority of this has been achieved through voluntary redundancies and we have been able to retain institutional knowledge through the appointments of some of the more senior staff to Research Associate positions. In addition to this process we have had a strict policy around replacement of positions resulting from resignations, ensuring investment in key growth areas while reducing capacity in other areas of science where, while critical and need to be maintained, future opportunities remain more static.
The Capability Work Stream is working in conjunction with work streams on Cost Management and Revenue Opportunities.
Training and development
Reduced Government funding and the resulting focus on ever-increasing fiscal prudence has meant a decrease in resources available for staff development and a need to be selective about where we do invest. We do, however, look for continued and creative ways around this through greater internal mentoring and coaching, and internal development programmes to build resilience in managerial expertise and leadership, and to develop our bicultural capabilities. This year we funded five technicians through our $5000 study grant (plus some assistance from science team budgets) to undertake specialist external training that otherwise would be unavailable.
This year, our Manaaki Whenua Fellowship was shared between two staff enabling them to develop links with two high-profile overseas research organisations to further their research and benefit New Zealand. We are also committed to continuing our support for early-career scientists on postdoctoral fellowships. This year we hosted 16, two of whom commenced during the year.
We spent $1363 per FTE (equivalent to 1.83% of our payroll) on direct training, which includes conferences, training courses and further postgraduate study for our staff (but excludes travel allowances).
We support two First Foundation Scholars: one is now in his second year studying Forestry at the University of Canterbury and achieving great results; the other is in his final year at high school.
Working with our union
A joint remuneration working party with representatives from management and the Public Service Association (PSA), the voluntary trade union representing staff, reviewed our remuneration and profit share policies. This involved considerable teamwork over a period of almost a year. The process was successful in redesigning our science remuneration bands and developing transparent remuneration bands for our support staff. We also updated our profit share policy including making it more transparent and limiting eligibility for this at senior levels.
Our Collective Employment Agreement (CEA) was effectively ‘rolled over’ for a three-year term with only minor administrative amendments and very conservative approaches to remuneration increases for the 2013/14 and 2014/15 financial years – agreed with the support of our PSA delegates and members.
Equal employment opportunities (EEO)
Our continued commitment to EEO principles has been demonstrated through a number of initiatives including the appointment of a Kaihautū to the Senior Leadership Team, increased investment in tier three Māori capability and continuing to provide site-based Te Reo, Tikanga Māori and Treaty of Waitangi training.
Gender equity in our leadership team and tier three leaders is evident in both structure and remuneration. All roles have been brought into alignment from a remuneration perspective and recent recruitments have ensured an equitable gender balance.
We continue to support the Mainstream Programme − this year, a partially-sighted employee joined our Allan Herbarium team. More recently, we provided a blind science graduate, who approached us through Workbridge, with shorter-term work experience mentored by one of our senior botanists.
Pan-CRI collaboration
We continue to support and participate in the pan-CRI human resources initiatives and are working on the implementation of a shared recruitment website that would enable operational savings and consistent use of recruitment technology. The National Science Challenges and the Lincoln-based Productive Land Innovation Hub will create opportunities for greater inter-organisational collaboration for both science and support staff and will provide a more attractive environment for experienced scientists and graduates both nationally and internationally.
Health & Safety (H&S)
During the year, the Board of Directors oversaw a review of our H&S performance, procedures and policies, with a particular focus on key risk areas. Fieldwork continues to present the most wide-ranging and significant hazards for staff and subcontractors. Because of this complexity, we hold annual field forums to discuss emergency responses plus other important H&S issues for field staff.
This year, we also conducted a series of gradual-process injury prevention workshops at three of our major worksites. These focused on preventing and self-managing symptoms of muscle tension commonly experienced by desk staff. We continued our focus on encouraging ‘early reports’ of symptoms to enable immediate mitigation steps.
In consultation with employees we developed a Drug and Alcohol Policy this year and we substantially overhauled our existing Company Vehicle Policy.