TRAINING
Recruit, train, retain – the three-step blueprint for staff engagement
Words Cameron Cooper An acute labour shortage in New Zealand is putting pressure on cleaning operations and building service contractors to better attract and support staff and upskill them through career-enhancing training programs.
A
perfect storm of events is causing a labour shortage for cleaning contractors and facility managers in New Zealand, putting industry leaders on notice to rethink their recruitment and training efforts. Low unemployment and the loss of many skilled migrants and international student workers because of COVID-19 border closures is at the heart of the issue, while the pandemic has led to companies losing multiple staff to sickness at once, or having to stay home to look after ill family members. 24 INCLEAN NEW ZEALAND May 2022
Fewer numbers of Pacific Islander workers is also hurting the agricultural and cleaning sectors, while a new brain drain to Australia is a throwback to the period around the global financial crisis in 2008 when many New Zealanders left to live in Australia. “It’s a very tough labour market and everyone is competing in the same very small pot for the same people,” says André Reynolds, founder of Grow@, an app that connects cleaning, security and other workers to employers. This reality underlines the importance for businesses of fine-tuning recruitment, retention and training strategies to woo talent and create stronger career paths for workers.