Waikato Business News August/September 2018

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12 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS August/September 2018 PROUDLY SPONSORED BY Interactionz held a BA5 event at Ruakura in August. The organisation is a social enterprise focused on building better lives and communities across New Zealand. The name’s been well known as the leading producer of high quality conferences, functions and major events for over 50 years, MONTANA In our sixth decade we continue to evolve and develop but the key difference is still always on the plate, our creative and delicious FOOD 1 2 We’re also very good at managing all the details that can turn one-off functions or complex conferences into world class, memorable EVENTS 3 4 5 6 7 1. Tony Young, Harshmeen Kaur and Sandeep Singh. 2. Elaine Bliss and Lynda Millington. 3. Catherine Cook and Tim Van De Molen 4. Jennifer Calley and Brooke Hughes. 5. Amber Brebner and Maree McNulty. 6. Stuart Kane and Cliff Gibson. 7. Lisa Clausen and Andrew Thompson. In 2018 we evolved our name to Montana Food and Events to emphasise our continued focus on our Food being the defining difference, plus highlighting our expertise at Event Management. In an instant age, with a multitude of demands the pre, during and post event management can be one of the defining factors of success. Whether your event is a one off function, complex conference with 1,000 delegates or a unique family gathering, our Event Management will guarantee its success. Gate 6, Claudelands Events Centre, Brooklyn Rd, Hamilton 3214 07 839 3459 | info@montanafoodandevents.co.nz | montanafoodandevents.co.nz
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS August/September 2018 13 Striking the right communications chord There have been quite a few labour strikes covered by the media over the past month. Nurses, primary school teachers and bus drivers are among the workforces we’ve watched as they rally for better wages and working conditions. Negotiating your way through a strike requires specialist skills in arbitration, intimate knowledge of union negotiating tactics, legal frameworks and more. So what role does communication play in a workforce strike? It plays a massive one. If you start your communications off on the right foot – one that puts respect, active listening and a win-win attitude at the forefront – your organisation will set itself up for a good result. There are three communications phases you’ll go through: pre-strike, strike and poststrike. Here are some recommendations for best-practice communications during each phase. Pre-strike The first step when a strike is imminent is to assemble your internal team and ensure your communications advisor is included. The team will likely include legal advisors, human resources, CEO and staff representatives. Having your communications advisor on this team ensures they gain a deep understanding of the issues, which means they’ll develop messages and communications actions that resonate. You’ll want to prepare your workforce, both union and non-union staff, by previewing what they can expect, how the business will operate during the strike, likely scenarios and timeframes for the strike and how you intend to communicate externally. Remind staff of media and social media policies, but you may need to consider relaxing these so that staff feel they can express their non-inflammatory and considered views publicly. You don’t want the public to misconstrue a staff policy for a gag order. The second step is to prepare your external audiences. Depending on your business, these audiences may include the wider public, customers, suppliers, industry bodies, competitors, media and government representatives. During this pre-strike phase, take the time to analyse potential scenarios for how the strike might unfold, likely detractors and potential backlash. Prepare messaging and collateral for each scenario and discuss the risks and mitigation tactics with your wider team. Gain consensus for your communications plans pre-strike so that the communications lead has authority to act quickly and with surety once the strike begins. Finally, prepare all your communications collateral so that you are ready to go with a few quick edits. This will include staff messages customised for all your internal channels, media releases, stakeholder emails or letters, website messages and social media posts. If any public advertising is done, ensure you align these messages to all other collateral. Strike Once the strike begins the most important thing to do as the employer is listen. Don’t only listen to what your union reps are saying, but listen to your non-striking staff, customers, affected public and others. What’s the talk in the tearoom? What are your customers’ top concerns? What’s the public saying? Keep your ear to the ground on the front lines to quickly address questions and rumours. Set up a real-time monitoring programme to scan media and social media channels and assess these reports at key points throughout the day. Monitoring is particularly important for social media, as a few negative comments – whether truthful or false – have the potential to go viral and get picked up by news channels. You need to be across what is being said about your company and the situation so that you can respond quickly and change tack if required. Be proactive. During a strike, you want to communicate often, ideally on a regular schedule thrpughout the day. Use your leadership team to conduct regular staff briefings and feed back concerns and PR AND COMMUNICATIONS > BY HEATHER CLAYCOMB Heather Claycomb is director of HMC Communications, a Hamilton-based, award-winning public relations agencys. chatter to your communications team. Update external audiences, including media, at routine intervals. For larger organisations, consider setting up an 0800 number for staff or customers, where they can call to get updates. Ensure your communications advisor is across your operational plans for managing the business during the strike action. They can provide a litmus test for how proposed temporary operational actions could be perceived by staff or the public. Most importantly, as you provide regular briefs, only say what you know at that point in time. Don’t speculate. And remember, your staff and public messages must match – assume everything you say to staff will become public at some point. Post-strike And finally, just because the strike is over doesn’t mean your communications end. Keep listening and addressing staff and stakeholder concerns as they arise. Continue monitoring news media and social media to address any lingering negativity or issues. And keep staff and other audiences continually updated with any promises you’ve made as part of your negotiations. It’s most important to remember that when it comes to a strike, the situation is fuelled with human emotion. At the heart of it, workers strike because they are feeling undervalued. And unfortunately, trust has often been eroded. That’s why it’s critical your organisation’s communications, both verbal and non-verbal, work to defuse and alleviate these human anxieties rather than inflame. Be respectful, take the high road and be inclusive in your actions and words. Doing so will help your company achieve a result that is best for both your people and your organisation. Great teachers inspire great students “No such thing as bad student, only bad teacher,” said karate master Mr Miyagi in the popular 1984 film The Karate Kid. “Teacher say, student do.” But, thanks to a new initiative for New Zealand technology teachers, it will be “teacher say, teacher do”. The great and the good of the country’s technology teachers are reaching out to one another through the CS4S (Computer Science for Schools) Teachers’ Network. The idea is that technology teachers, who may be the only subject matter experts at their schools, can easily collaborate with other like-minded teachers across the country on the digital curriculum. We’re supporting the network at Company-X by working with technology teachers in designing and developing specialist software that will enable the collaboration. TECH TALK > BY DAVID HALLETT David Hallett is a director of Hamilton software specialist Company-X, design house E9 and chief nerd at Waikato Need a Nerd. The network thinks of itself like a community garden for teachers working in the New Zealand digital curriculum. Teachers plant seeds of knowledge not only with their students but with each other which they nurture and grow before they harvest. Our solution will allow technology teachers to learn from each other and share their expertise. Nothing will be off the table. New technology, robotics and coding will take their place alongside lesson plans searchable by curriculum level, age, resource or technology type. User groups for speciality areas like the BBC micro:bit and Scratch coding will also be available. We’re also applying gamification, the use of game-design elements in non-game contexts, to award users with digital badges. The more badges a user has, the more he or she has contributed to the community. There are badges for joining, setting up a profile, sharing and downloading resources. Our solution will also enable technology teachers to attend free professional development workshops in the technology space. This sort of collaboration has been going on for a long time on an informal ad-hoc basis, but it’s great to see things being formalised and enabled by our software solution. To paraphrase karate master “good students come through good teachers” CS4S will enable great teachers to inspire great technology students. In another decade some of those students will be looking for work in the technology space. Given the international skills shortage in this space we could do with them right now!
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Waikato Business News August/September 2018

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