Aotearoa has a long way to go when it comes to workplace wellbeing – a 2019 Worksafe report on Psychosocial Hazards in work environments comments that, “workplace bullying in New Zealand has been identified as a significant hazard” (p19). With workplace wellbeing at the front of mind for Sport Canterbury and the Healthy Families Ōtautahi Christchurch Team, we are revisiting the great work Jason Pemberton, Systems Innovator, kickstarted and the role he has played in advocating for the wellbeing of the wider Sport Canterbury Whānau.

“The New Zealand economy is dominated by a large proportion of small organisations with 50 or less staff, many of them don’t invest their resources in decent modern human resource development practices. One result of this is that we generally don’t do personal or professional development very well, which in turn helps fuel New Zealand’s really high rates of workplace bullying, stress, and poor staff wellbeing.” says Pemberton.

Recognising this backdrop, Jason has been working to support Sport Canterbury to lean more into meaningful personal and professional development as part of wider workplace wellbeing initiatives.

“There’s always room to improve, but starting as we have with no baseline data, we decided it was best to assume the worst, hope for the best, then work from there.”

Working with members of the Senior Leadership Team Jason helped to initiate a confidential, opt-in Temperature Check process for staff, facilitated by independent external facilitators Tammi Martin and Te Ao Marama Apiata. The conversations were guided by initial questions asking staff about their experiences working at Sport Canterbury, but the conversation could go anywhere staff wanted it to – individually or in small self-coordinated groups.

“A big part of framing the process up was about creating a psychologically safe space for anyone to fully participate. This meant we had Te Ao and Tammi come in for some face-to-face time with all staff, some intentional whakawhanaungatanga - the building of ‘us-ness’. From here we had lots of informal conversations across our various teams to set clear open expectations, and a lot of reassurance that ‘confidential and anonymous’ actually means ‘confidential and anonymous’.” 

This intentional framing paid off, as the process saw 75% of staff participate in the process, and the emergence of 7 themes with a spectrum of experiences under each.

After the emergence of themes and identification by staff around how to move forward, it has been great to see that real progress has been made. The introduction of more tikanga-based approaches to the welcoming and farewell staff has been a particular highlight for many.

“Even though we’re still unpacking the results and deciding together what needs to be done to better serve all staff equally, there is a definite shift in tone that has happened”. 

“It’s been really encouraging to see the enthusiasm that staff had with engaging in the process and all findings and recommendation have been endorsed by the Senior Leadership Team,” he adds.

As Jason has recently departed, the Senior Leadership Team is continuing to lead the engagement process, have co-designed an implementation plan that is now being actioned, and will be looping back to gain deeper understanding of the ongoing engagement cycle in motion.

Article added: Tuesday 21 February 2023

Article added: Tuesday 21 February 2023