Originator/Sponsor: Food and Fibre CoVE
Portfolio Managers: Fiona Windle
Status: Completed 31 May 2025
Lead Agency/Service Provider: PwC
Introduction/Background:
The retention pilots were designed to either:
a) clearly demonstrate why the sector should be confident investing in specific industry- or sector-wide change to improve employee retention, or
b) explain why pilot projects which are soundly based on research, are not considered viable in a whole-of-industry or whole-of-sector environment.
There are a diverse range of both work types and cultures across the food and fibre sector, and we know it is unlikely there would be one solution which is suitable for everybody. We were particularly interested to know what works best for Māori employees in the sector, and looked for resolutions specific to this cohort and to understand how they might be different to those resolutions which are more generally applicable to the working population.
The approach of this retention pilots project provided a platform to test an interactive employer toolkit on a range of topics to enable employers’ performance in the workplace for improved industry retention rates.
Objectives:
- The retention pilots project included an employer toolkit with a range of topics to test:
Building employer capability in developing and supporting employees. Targeted capability building to manage staff with mental wellbeing challenges and / or addictions, as well as Generation Z (Gen Z) employees. - Mentoring new entrants to the workforce. Mentorship focussed on supporting new entrants with career opportunities and goals, general work and life skills, difficult personal or employment experiences, or transitioning to vetted employers.
- Providing tools and resources to improve recruitment. Tools and resources to help employers advertise roles and businesses better, and to support them to develop more robust recruitment processes.
This project was informed from research outcomes from the Attraction and Retention Research Programme which can be seen here.
Two 8-week pilots of the Food and Fibre Employer Toolkit were run, targeting managers, supervisors and employers in New Zealand’s food and fibre sector. The toolkit including PDFs of each topic and audio files can be acessed via employertoolkitnz.org here.
Two reports have been compiled reflecting the results of these pilots:
- Integrating Te Ao Maori into Food and Fibre Workplace Retention Initiatives – view here.
- Final Monitoring and Evaluation – view here.
The above information was current as at 6 June 2025