New data from Employment Hero shows New Zealand’s small and medium business sector continuing to add headcount in May, even as wage growth stalled completely on an annual basis, highlighting a labour market where businesses are growing cautiously rather than competing hard for talent on pay.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a distant concept or a futuristic experiment, it’s here, reshaping the way businesses operate and hire talent.
New Zealand tech company Auror has released a free AI framework to help Kiwi businesses embrace the game-changing technology. A recent survey by Auror and Talbot Mills has revealed more than 40 percent of New Zealanders consider artificial intelligence as a force for good, yet only 18 percent believe businesses are well placed to harness its potential. To help businesses harness AI responsibly, New Zealand tech company Auror has released its open-source Responsible Technology and AI Framework. The easy-to-use tools within the framework have been designed by Auror for businesses of all sizes to develop their own robust and ethical AI processes. The Attitudes to AI survey, commissioned by Auror, showed New Zealanders are most excited about AI’s potential to
Fiji’s Deputy PM Biman Prasad and Finance Minister Grant Robertson spoke at the recent NZ-Fiji trade and business conference, where a potential visa waiver for business travel was discussed. Over 150 delegates from New Zealand and Fiji gathered for the full-day conference held at the Ellerslie Events Centre. The conference was promoted jointly by the New Zealand Fiji Business Council and the Fiji New Zealand Business Council. Both councils are responsible for two-way trade and investment between the two countries. The New Zealand-Fiji Business Council hosted this year’s event. Biman Prasad proposed a target of $FJ2 billion in two-way trade between New Zealand and Fiji by 2030 and would like to see Fiji become a top 10 trading partner of New
Jo Douglas highlights alternative methods of responding to bad behaviour in the workplace. Those who work in the employment law space are realising the extent to which psychological complexities contribute to, or are connected to, many employment problems such as undesirable behaviour or conduct in the workplace, poor performance or disengagement. The two are, many times, inextricably linked. Causation, attribution of fault, and then negative outcomes (such as loss of a job) are often the focus of employment issues from a legal perspective. Yet the real underlying reason why someone has transgressed is often left untouched, and therefore likely to happen again. Employers must follow an investigation before they can decide if someone is at fault and before
Callaghan Innovation has launched a counselling service to support founders whose mental health is suffering due to the significant pressures associated with establishing and growing a startup. Plans for the service were announced at the Electrify Aotearoa conference on 1 August at the same time as the organisation launched a guidance and resolution service for any startup founder who has experienced inappropriate behaviour within the startup ecosystem. The findings of an online survey of 258 startup founders in New Zealand conducted over a two-week period in August have also been released today. The survey by Horizon Research was commissioned by Callaghan Innovation to gain insight into the types of issues impacting the mental wellbeing of founders and to better understand
OSACO Group is launching a new certified training offering which it believes will be the global gold standard for workplace misconduct investigation training. The certified training is described as “robust, thorough, up-to-date, fit-for-purpose, supported by ongoing mentoring, and backed up by a re-certification process to ensure organisational knowledge and individual competence is maintained”. “We are delighted to introduce this offering to the market,” says OSACO Group Managing Director Jaydene Buckley. “We have seen this need for this some time and prepared our content thoroughly and thoughtfully to meet the current and anticipated need for such training around the world.” “Our certified training can be delivered in any location, in person and online,” adds OSACO Group’s Global Head of Training Rachel
Three quarters of workplaces experience high stress and burnout, according to world-first ROW survey. A ground-breaking survey of workplace wellbeing professionals show that almost three quarters of workplaces (74%) have staff experiencing high levels of stress and/or burnout, and poor wellbeing has caused employees at almost two thirds of workplaces (65%) to leave their job. Additionally, only a quarter of workplaces are managing workloads appropriately, wellbeing managers in the survey say. Revolutionaries of Wellbeing (ROW), a New Zealand-based network of workplace wellbeing professionals, carried out the survey in June this year and ROW’s CEO, Sarah McGuinness (pictured), say the results are confronting, although not unexpected. Leaders support wellbeing as a concept, but there’s a disconnect between thinking and action,
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Thursday 30 July 2026 | 7:00am – 9:00pm
📍 Covert Theatre, 51 Mackelvie Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland
Everyone talks about the importance of business strategy, but what does it actually mean in practice? Strategy trainer Ryan Sproull cuts through the jargon to give SME owners a clear, practical framework for thinking strategically about their business.
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