As we prepare to recover, we must also ensure Omicron and everything else its Covid cousins throws at us does not frame the future.
The government is charged with setting the platform to support and stimulate recovery. My plea is to do so only after real consultation with businesses, including the tens of thousands of small and medium enterprises that are the backbone of the national economy. We can provide expertise, insights, resources and constructive solutions.
Let's start with changing the narrative. It has been strained and stressing us out. It's about red lights, stop signs, controls, don't do that do this, wildly fluctuating, scary case numbers and clouded hope that the downward slope of Omicron is going to be sooner, faster and furious — and rapid antigen tests and sensible isolation rules will save the day for some if not all SMEs in serious strife.
We want a new story that is not spin and not about fear and failure, uncertainty and disruption. It needs to shine a light on recovery, sustainability, tenacity, innovation, courage and can-do cultures to remind us of what success looks like.
We need to listen for the good news and not exist in an environment shaded by a narrow and pessimistic view of New Zealand. There are sectors and people doing well and delivering employment, new businesses and export revenue for the good of all New Zealanders. Seek them out, discover what they did differently and better and apply the learnings to benefit recovery.
Our primary sector has had booming exports, private enterprises' agile workarounds are keeping supply chains operating and commerce moving, the huge transformation to digital solutions and e-commerce are positive developments that have seen us through.
Our adoption of robots, robotics and automation is changing the way many sectors operate to lift productivity, service experiences and efficiencies. This new way and redesign of businesses processes will accelerate and reduce our dependency on cheap labour.
The main economic indicators remain healthy by international standards despite global inflation, labour shortages and shipping upheavals.
The government came to the party for business, and we must recognise that but now it is up to us to be ready for success and write our own narratives.
Soon our borders will open to skilled migrants and critical workers needed now in numbers to fill labour gaps. There's an opportunity to change the narrative here too. We need to identify the essential skills, capabilities and workforce needed to fuel long term recovery, support our sectors and industries to continue to be successful, and sustain core services. The tech, health, education, agribusiness, manufacturing, communications, and others all need extra skills to align with redesigned and reimagined operating systems to create growth.
If business shows how ready they are for a redesigned future, we will attract the skills, investors, entrepreneurs, and innovators to back New Zealand into new sectors and create opportunities.
For too long our immigration settings have been skewed to support short term fixes — the seasonal worker, the two-year work visa or a quick turnaround contract on a work permit. Only the highly qualified, experienced and paid, or wealthy would-be investors, get to the front of the queue to become permanent residents or citizens. For others, even with work experience in New Zealand's productive, service and export sectors, it is a lottery, a revolving door, and we lose their skills.
We want an immigration policy that recruits, retains and builds capabilities to build the future. We are challenged filling available jobs now and a potential brain drain looms as our youngest and brightest head off on their delayed OE. We need to rethink how we value jobs beyond an hourly rate to consider their contribution to productivity, ongoing improvement and the revolution that will take place on factory floors with new ways of operating.
Part of the plan to manage the supply of labour and skills should be harnessing talent beyond the school leaver. We could, for instance, offer longer-term working visas for workers with essential and in-demand skills, and be more proactive in encouraging and promoting the benefits for a business if they take on more apprentices. Government, through the Ministry of Social Development, could subsidise apprentices and support a framework to manage the apprenticeship scheme to be fit for business. It would be a win for all parties — apprentice, entrepreneur, and government by delivering social outcomes.
Recovery demands real leadership, pragmatism, and an obstacle-free platform for businesses to get over the hump and lead the national and regional economic recovery.
Investment in national assets and infrastructure upgrades need reimagining so they are delivered faster, better, and more efficiently be it designing a port for the future, a road or rail link. We need to erase onerous, time-wasting and expensive consenting processes. We need water, land, and other natural assets to be managed more efficiently in an era of climate change and give priority to providing access for all to core health, security, housing and education services. For business, more short-term fixes and stimuli will be required to get us through the worst of our recuperation.
Time matters. Fruit doesn't pick itself. Patients don't mend themselves. Buildings need to be built.
Trucks need drivers. IT-reliant businesses need programmers and expertise at every level. Tradies are wanted everywhere. Apprentices are future professionals. School leavers need jobs and skills and aptitudes beyond reading, writing and arithmetic. There is so much we can do; the challenge is to do it better than ever before.
The government wants us to be kind, and we will, but it is time to live with Covid and get on with life.
Pride and prejudice removed with first steps
We're all in this together has been the Covid catch-cry, so be kind and look after each other.
But as Covid's tentacles crept deep into the community and restrictions from lockdowns to vaccine mandates took hold, tens of thousands of owner-operated small and medium-sized enterprises had the life sucked out of them.
Kindness would not cut it, nor would support packages to keep jobs and business in business.
Another silent pandemic was sweeping indiscriminately across business owners and managers.
Pride and prejudice prevented normally capable, confident business leaders from speaking out about a subject they would normally ignore and never share — their shaky mental health and wellbeing. But as levels of anxiety, stress, anger, grief, fear, pessimism, depression, aggression, introspection, loss of confidence, control, motivation, and alcohol abuse escalated, it became a deafening chorus, an SOS the Chamber and EMA could respond to.
Supported and financed by Government, https://firststeps.nz/ was launched to provide easy access to practical, self-help tools and expertise for business leaders. It has been a success and an example of the government being open to tailor-made solutions.
Since launching in late December, more than 20,000 hits have been recorded on the website with over 10,000 resources downloaded and used by businesspeople who took their first steps. They came to the realisation that they had to look after themselves if they were to look after their staff, families and communities.
As a leader, responsible for staff, revenues, and operations, it falls on your shoulders to have all the answers, but the reality is Covid delivers untenable uncertainty and stresses.
It should be of comfort to a business owner or manager in that zone to know you are not alone and that there is help at hand.
Acknowledging that stress and its effect on behaviour and sense of wellbeing is not a stigma.
Other business leaders are just the same, also feeling depressed, a failure, overwhelmed, anxious and exhausted, drinking too much, lashing out at the family with uncharacteristic outbursts and upsetting relationships that matter.
The big issue is to address it.
• Auckland Business Chamber is a sponsor of the Dynamic Business Report
