There was some great news for the transport industry this week with the announcement that there will be an Industry Skills Board for the Automotive, Transport and Logistics sectors.
Vocational Education Minister Penny Simmonds said on Wednesday there will be eight ISBs which will be lead by industry experts and which will set training standards, do quality control and make sure that apprenticeships and traineeships match what employers and students need.
The Automotive, Transport, and Logistics ISB is something we have been pushing for very solidly for a long time. Much of that success is due to Lee Marshal and James McDowall at MTA for the leadership they showed in this space.
Automotive and transport training have had a long history of being connected, particularly via MITO, and the addition of Logistics is a real bonus. This will enable a much better-connected and systematic approach to the training and development of the workforce that underpins many end-to-end supply chains.
Hopefully MITO’s application to become an industry-owned Private Training Enterprise will be successful. That will enable a return to a much better focus on delivery of development and training in our workforce.
A highlight for Cook Strait
On Thursday Bluebridge’s new ferry the Livia sailed into Wellington after a six-week journey from Europe. The vessel will not just simply replace the Strait Feronia, it will deliver an increase in both freight and passenger capacity.
We congratulate and are grateful to the team at Bluebridge for their continued commitment and investment in improving the resilience for the country’s most important ferry route.
Good news for Taranaki travel and the Mount Messenger Bypass
Further good news followed on Thursday with the High Court’s determination that the Crown can acquire the final piece of land that NZTA needs to finish the northern section of the Mt Messenger Bypass project.
Attempts to purchase it have been ongoing since 2017 and while it is impossible to ignore that this will be a tough ending for the landowners, the new two-lane, 6-km route between Uruti and Ahititi will mean travellers will no longer have to take the existing steep, narrow and winding route over Mount Messenger. This will massively improve the safety and reliability of the northern connections in and out of Taranaki.
A reason to adapt and cater for our workforce
Deloitte predicts that by 2030 74 per cent of the global workforce will be made up of Millennials (born between 1983 and 1994) and Generation Z (born between 1995 and 2006).
That probably isn’t a surprise and anyone half decent at maths could probably work that out.
But the more telling and insightful finding is that what matters to those generations is different to earlier generations. I’m a Baby Boomer and I regularly come across those differences and sometime struggle to manage them as well as I should!
Each generation brings values, attitudes, and beliefs that shape what makes them happy in the workplace. It’s not a case of them being right or wrong, they are just different.
For us to secure our future workforce I really believe it is important that businesses understand there are differences in what matter to the respective generations. Only then can businesses consider and make adjustments so they have offers that are attractive to these workers. Making money is important to these generations – but so is finding meaningful work and wellbeing. The latter also showed up as one of the top three issues in our National Freight Survey.
It is great to see a number of members recognising this and acting on it, and not surprisingly those are the same businesses that don’t seems to have issues with staff retention and recruitment.
We are committed to continuing our efforts to help promote greater diversity in the workforce, the Deloitte findings further support how important this is to the future of our industry.
South Island Seminar
My overall highlight in the last week was our South Island Seminar in Christchurch. The 200 attendees, a great line-up of speakers and a good range of topics made for a good recipe for a top weekend. Some wine, beer and good food just added to the mix!
Time and space don’t allow me to mention all the speakers but I do want to highlight some of the talks. There was the straight-shooting Christchurch Mayor, Phil Mauger, the energetic Phil Thompson on de-escalation and conflict resolution, the facts about road building from Dr Bryan Pidwerbesky, the sage advice from the team at Wynn Williams on the importance of succession planning and the more strategic comments from Minister James Meager. They made sure all attendees left better informed than when they arrived, and they had an enjoyable time getting to that point.
We will have more coverage of the event across a range of our comms channels over the weeks and months but I would like to take this opportunity to thank all our commercial partners that made the event possible, the great turn-out of members, and last but not least, all the nominees and final award winners for their great achievements.
