Waikato Business News January/February 2017

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14 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS January/February 2017 WORKPLACE HEALTH AND SAFETY SITUATION VACANT: Advertising account manager The role is to manage and develop new and existing business for Waikato Business News in our print and digital offerings. Achieving top results for clients and maintaining ongoing relationships are key factors of this role, while working alongside a very successful team. Experience selling print and digital media would be a distinct advantage. • Ideally have advertising or similar sales experience within the media industry • Enjoy the challenge of cold calling as well as managing a very busy client base • Get a buzz out of meeting and exceeding sales targets • Sales and/or customer services experience is essential • A can-do positive attitude and the ability to work independently and self-manage your workload • Be able to work effectively and efficiently under pressure and meet tight deadlines • Good computer and typing skills are important • Experience using a CRM system would be an advantage • Have the ability to follow processes with high organisation and time management skills • Possess an excellent phone manner that is always friendly and professional • Have strong relationship-building skills and a keen interest in achieving results • An ability to multi-task with a high level of accuracy The role is a based in our Hamilton office. If you are looking for a challenging role in a positive and friendly professional environment, plus the benefits of working with a locally owned company then please email deidre@wbn.co.nz with your CV and cover letter. Keeping workers safe at the press of a button There’s nothing worse than needing help but being unable to call for it. The next generation of Motorola Solutions MOTOTRBO twoway radios has arrived at Waikato region communications specialist, Richardson Communications, offering the latest functionality to respond to workers in need. The MOTOTRBO DP4000e Series radios offer the latest in digital radio technology and offer the highest quality voice communications that two-radios are synonymous with. But what sets these radios apart - besides their high quality build, ruggedness and performance — are the advanced safety features that can be programmed. A bright, orange button on the top of the radio can be pressed to alert fellow works that you need help. Once pressed, the radio’s microphone will remain open, allowing for hands free communication to occur. The built in GPS allows the radio to be used with tracking solutions and in the event of an emergency will allow for precise locationing of the radio whether indoors or outdoors. Some smart, hands-free safety features that take advantage of inbuilt accelerometer technology can take these radios to the next level in safety. The user configurable Man Down function alerts other workers when a radio exceeds a pre-set angle of fall. So in the event that a worker falls, the alarm process is triggered. For those that work alone, monitoring their status can be achieved via the Lone Worker function. This configurable function monitors inactive movement as well triggering call and respond verification to ensure that a worker is safe. “With safety of workers becoming a critical issue in New Zealand, we are seeing a rise in the investment in technology that can help organisations keep workers safe and respond to workers that are in need or require emergency assistance. The DP4000e Series offer solutions that can fulfil their voice and data communication needs more than adequately, but the emergency features add that extra level of confidence to organisations”, says Mike Hyett from Richardson Communications. The MOTOTRBO DP4000e Series radios are built to perform, offering long battery life and high levels of audio, thanks to noise-cancelling microphone technology, and excellent radio fleet management with over-theair software updates. Richardson Communications have been in the business of communications for 35 years and have become a well-known name in the Waikato region in a broad range of industries from agriculture to retail. Their expert advice is the difference. For more information on the Motorola Solutions MOTOTRBO DP4000e Series, contact Richardson Communications on 07 957 8191. richardson communications “THE MOBILE RADIO SPECIALISTS”
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS January/February 2017 15 The importance of coaching your people Everest Group is in the business of creating exceptional workplaces and one way we are particularly passionate about doing this is through developing the leadership capability of managers – as a leader, as a manager and as a coach. These three activities are complementary and are required to achieve business objectives, by enabling teams and individual team members to be self-led high performers. When managers are LEADING, they create and share a vision of the future with their team and ensure that their activities are consistent with bringing about those objectives. When managers are MANAGING, they deliver results to the organisation by controlling the work of the team, and agreeing and monitoring such things as budgets, timescales and quality levels. When managers are COACHING, they support their team members in their learning, to enable them to develop the skills, knowledge and attitude necessary to successfully deliver their job responsibilities and goals. Without coaching, a manager’s leadership practice is like a three-legged stool balancing on two-legs. We commonly hear that business demands prevent managers from having regular coaching conversations with their staff. That’s not to say that coaching isn’t planned in many of these cases, but commonly it’s the first thing a manager will bump in the face of competing priorities - a practice that seems reasonably innocuous at face value, but over time it can be perilous to performance. In subtle and not so subtle ways, lack of quality interaction with staff can compromise an employee’s confidence, their skill level and potential, their sense of value, their faith in leadership, and ultimately their engagement and contribution. A people leader’s highest value contribution to an organisation is to keep their people working at high performance. Coaching is about facilitating the performance, learning and development of another. At its foundation is the belief that people are not their behaviours, behaviours can change, and high performance is achievable and sustainable. This requires the manager to develop strong interpersonal skills and a commitment to grow the potential of others. Ask, don’t tell: Pure coaching is about asking good questions and engaging the brain of the coachee, thus developing self-led high performing people, conversation by conversation. Engaging the brain ensures that they do the thinking, and connect the dots, that results in behaviour change. It takes time and intention to do this well. Unfortunately, fast paced, demanding work environments Small businesses upbeat about year ahead New Zealand small businesses finished 2016 on an upbeat note, with confidence at its highest levels in almost two years, according to ANZ’s quarterly Business Micro Scope survey of small firms. A net 20 percent of respondents - up from 17 percent in the September quarter - say they are confident about the business environment in the year ahead. Within this group, micro firms’ (0-5 employees) confidence rose a solid 5 points to +14, while intermediate firms held steady on +26. The ANZ composite measure – a key proxy for growth – lifted to +20 during the quarter. The composite measure is based on firms’ activity outlook, hiring, investment and profit expectations, all which improved in the quarter. “It was a storming finish to a good year for New Zealand’s small businesses,” said Andrew Webster, general manager retail and business banking. “If the confidence plays out, 2017 will be an excellent year for small businesses with a net 34 percent expecting a lift in activity for their business over the next 12 months.” The composite growth measure lifted across all five regions – Wellington leads the way followed closely by regional South Island. Auckland continues a gradual climb while growth prospects in regional North Island and Canterbury have started to gain more momentum. “While overall sentiment and growth prospects are positive, concern about finding skilled staff continues to create a potential wedge between growth prospects and actual growth. Competition and regulation are also seen as obstacles to businesses realising their growth potential in 2017,” Andrew said. Growth prospects for four of the five sectors improved in December with construction and services leading the way. MANAGEMENT AND HR > BY LIBBY GAIRDNER Coach and Trainer, Everest Group Limited, Creating Exceptional Workplaces, wwweverestgroup.co.nz tend to generate quite the opposite behaviour. Managers fall into the trap of driving results through readily giving the answers and telling people what to do. If this is the norm for their ‘coaching’ conversations, it achieves instant results at the expense of capacity development. As a general rule of thumb, the ratio for coach talking compared with coachee is approximately 20/80; that is, the coachee is encouraged to do most of the talking. To do this well, the main tools a manager needs are Questioning and Listening. Notice that availability and presence goes without saying, if you want to do these two things well. Questioning 101: Developing questioning skills will help managers have effective, exploratory coaching conversations, with the ultimate goal of facilitating awareness, growth and accountability. A starting point to develop this skill is the 5Ws and How – Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How? These little gems create targeted questions to uncover and explore key information in any situation. These questions dig deeper into factual information to uncover truths. They sit at the core of problem solving, evaluating, and identification of causal relationships. When used in coaching and performance conversations, questioning helps develop accountability. Listening 101: Active listening is not just sitting in silence while someone else talks. The skills of active listening can be summed up as follows: Look interested; Inquire with questions; Stay on target; Test understanding; Evaluate the message; Neutralise your feelings. Neutrality is powerfully important when coaching, and it takes practice. A conversation that stretches beyond biases, assumptions, agreements or disagreements will create profound learning and the accountability needed for self-leadership and high performance. As this New Year gets into gear, consider the importance of taking time to actively coach your people. Look beyond immediate business demands to a future where everyone in your organisation brings skill and a sense of high accountability to all that they do. And with that goal in mind, recognise the value of building capacity conversation by conversation. Services CKL offer: • Environmental Engineering • Civil Engineering • Subdivision & Land Use Planning • Environmental & Coastal Planning • All types of Legal Boundary Surveys • All Land & Engineering Surveying • First Consultation Free ISO 9001 Certified Simon Reid (Associate) Bevan Houlbrooke (Associate) Hamish Ross (Associate) Kay Carter (Associate) Geoff Webster (Director) Jonathan Gwyn (Associate) Bronwyn Rhynd (Director) Hamilton Office: 58 Church Road, PO Box 171, Hamilton 3240. P: 07 849 9921 E: hamilton@ckl.co.nz Te Awamutu Office: 103 Market Street, PO Box 126, Te Awamutu 3840. P: 07 871 6144 E: teawamutu@ckl.co.nz Auckland Office: 25 Broadway, PO Box 99463, Newmarket, Auckland 1149. P: 09 524 7029 E: auckland@ckl.co.nz Website: www.ckl.co.nz Campbell Burrows (Director) Warren Lovegrove (Director) Mark Gilberd (Director) Members of the Institution of Professional Engineers NZ (IPENZ) Members of the NZ Institute of Surveyors (NZIS) Members of the Consulting Surveyors of NZ (CSNZ) Members of the NZ Planning Institute (NZPI) 30069
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Waikato Business News January/February 2017

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