May 2012, Issue 166 - Royal New Zealand Navy

won report
WON Report
By DEAN BLOOR
Warrant Officer of the Navy
One question that I get asked on a regular
basis when I am out and about is “What
is morale like in the Navy?” I suspect that,
more often than not, the person raising the
question already has a set view and is just
trying to illicit confirmation of that view.
Personally, I don’t think the answer is as
simple as giving it a good or bad response.
NZDF events play a large part in employee morale.
The Civilianisation programme implemented last
year would support this theory.
Another driver that affects morale is how our
personnel are led in the workplace. This area of
leadership is the responsibility of all who have
been entrusted with the responsibilities of rank.
From my own experience and from what I see
around the traps, morale can vary depending on
where you are posted and the quality of personnel
leading in those areas.
If there are proactive leaders who get to know
and take an interest in their personnel it goes
some way towards creating a positive work
environment. No surprises that people enjoy
going to work.
I also see poor morale in the workplace when
personnel who I refer to as “doom and gloomers”
automatically default to the negative at every
opportunity. Sadly these personnel do not realise
that their poor attitude is contributing to the poor
morale around them.
I attended the latest “Kia Kaha” programme run in
conjunction with North Shore Police in February.
The programme focuses on personnel making
the right decisions in their life and some of the
potential outcomes when bad decisions are taken.
The guest speaker that night was former All Black
Captain and sailor Buck Shelford.
During Buck’s address he asked the Basic
Common Trainees (BCTs) and Junior Officer
Common Trainees (JOCTs) “Who wanted to make
the Navy a career?”. All but one put their hand up
to indicate they did.
I took from this response that, if they want a
career after five weeks in the Navy, we need to
ensure they want to remain in the Navy for years
to come. A couple of ways of doing this is to
provide positive work environments and career
opportunities.
A good way of building positive work
environments is through sport and recreational
activities. I am starting to see some real proactive
leadership in this area. One of many examples is
what is happening on the good ship TE MANA.
TEM is currently in an extended maintenance
period. However, their leadership are proactively
organising team building activities for the ship’s
company to participate in. These activities offer
a very good avenue to break from the workplace
and recharge the batteries.
LTCDR Roger Saynor (Fleet sports officer) and
his team are also proactively organising sport
and recreation activities at Devonport Naval
Base for our personnel. The focus is encouraging
personnel to get out of their work areas to take a
well-earned break.
Like most things, there is never going to be
one silver bullet for addressing an issue. More
often than not, many things will contribute to
making things better for our people. We can all
positively influence morale in the Navy. Before
defaulting to the automatic finger-point it would
be more productive to think what I can do to
make things better.
It is very easy to lead when the sun is shining.
However, good leaders shine when times are a
little more difficult.
The latest BCT and JOCT trainees are still
looking for all the things the older folk yearned
for when they joined. Let’s give them every
opportunity to realise their dreams. The Royal
New Zealand Navy is still a great place to work
in with some great people working in it.
DSS volunteer firefighter to
climb Skytower for cancer
Dave Wills, a civilian at Defence Shared
Services in Trentham, is a volunteer
firefighter in his spare time and this
year he is competing in the Sky City
Firefighter Sky Tower Stair Challenge
for the second time, raising money for
leukaemia sufferers in New Zealand.
The Challenge, on 19 May, is a race up
all 51 floors of Auckland’s Sky Tower
(1,103 steps!) in full firefighting uniform
with breathing apparatus on. That means
breathing through the mask the entire
climb. All the extra equipment weighs in at
25kgs. Dave has been training hard since
February and his goal is to complete the
Challenge in less than 15 minutes.
Dave is dedicating his climb this year
to All Black Jock Hobbs, who died of
leukaemia in March, and NZ Army WO1
Mark Priestley who has battled leukaemia
for the past 10 years. Last year, Mark’s
condition took a turn for the worse and
he was told he only had weeks to live. He
was offered a new type of chemotherapy,
at a cost of $64,000, money he had to find
himself. After weeks of being in quarantine
following the chemo, Mark underwent
a bone marrow transplant, a very risky
procedure. Mark is now doing well and
working from home until his immune
system recovers.
Money raised from the Firefighter Sky
Tower Stair Challenge will ultimately
help Leukaemia and Blood Cancer New
Zealand (LBC) support patients like Mark
and their families living with leukaemia,
lymphoma, myeloma or other blood
cancers and diseases.
Dave’s goal is to raise $5000 for LBC.
Recently he went around the Trentham
Defence Area units (in full uniform complete
with breathing apparatus) collecting
donations and raised an impressive
$1433. Combined with $500 from a
raffle and close to $3000 on his online
fundraising page, Dave is well on the way
to exceeding his target.
If you wish to support Dave in this worthy
cause, take a look at his fundraising page.
The link is: www.firefightersclimb.org.nz/
view_event_profile/651
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