Many of you let us know that you really enjoy the autonomy and flexibility you experience in your roles. You appreciate having the ability to manage your work arrangements and tasks, which contributes to your overall sense of wellbeing. Having autonomy over your schedules allows you to balance work and personal responsibilities more effectively. 

Strong relationships with your colleagues continue to play a key role in fostering a positive and supportive work environment. Regular interactions, such as shared lunches and team activities, help build a sense of connection, collaboration and camaraderie which positively contributes to everyone’s wellbeing.

Feeling valued is a key component of mental health and wellbeing. Positive feedback and recognition of efforts are highly appreciated by you all. Having your contributions acknowledged significantly boosts morale.

Opportunities for learning and growth were frequently mentioned as a positive aspect of working at OP. Professional development, whether through training, attending conferences, or other learning opportunities, is seen as an important investment in your wellbeing and career satisfaction.

Many of you shared your personal coping strategies for managing stress. This included mindfulness practices, setting boundaries for work, and prioritising personal time. These approaches are essential for maintaining balance and managing the demands of work, and we encourage everyone to continue exploring what works best for them. Thank you to those of you who shared your thoughts.

We’ve heard your feedback on the desire for strong leadership, transparency, and consistent communication.  

Te Kahui Mātauranga (TKM) are committed to continuing to build a stable leadership structure to position us strongly across the future. This can be seen through the confirmed structure of TKM, and the current recruitment for permanent Heads of College across Health; TMP; and ECL.   

TKM are also committed to empowering Kaunihera Whakahaere, our Leadership Council, so they have the tools they need to lead our variety of teams across OP.  

The recent release of our strategy has hopefully given you all a sense of direction and purpose, and we hope that the opportunity to be involved in our pou think tank groups enables you to have the opportunity to be directly involved in shaping the way this mahi flows across the organisation.  

Once our TKM structure was confirmed, we’ve been working to introduce our TKM colleagues across the organisation. This has included: 

• leadership walk-arounds where individuals and teams have the opportunity to meet members of TKM face-to-face,  
• Megan’s fortnightly Haumi ē newsletter with key messages and info,   
• a Five questions with series on Tūhono shining a light on each member of TKM to discover more about them, and 
• promotion of the Kōrero with TKM online platform where all staff can ask any member of TKM a question.   

TKM have an open-door policy and are committed to being honest, factual and transparent with all staff.  

We have created a Topical FAQs webpage in Tūhono which holds all the latest information about some key current topics.

We acknowledge the concerns raised about feeling heavy workloads. Many of you have been carrying additional responsibilities due to gaps in staffing, especially throughout the Te Pūkenga structure change, and we recognise that these pressures have been ongoing for some time.  

We want to thank you for your commitment to OP and your dedication to our learners. You go above and beyond every day to ensure the best experiences for them and their whānau and it utterly does not go unnoticed. Thank you for your mahi and for your service.  

We hope that by moving towards more permanent structures in the leadership space, this will provide more stability and depth to be able to alleviate issues and bottlenecks.  

While we continue to operate in an uncertain environment with fiscal constraints, we can control our processes and our planning and build good business practice in these spaces. This will help improve efficiency and balance workload.  

Aligning our team plans (using the strategic priorities, the five pou), will enable us to focus on the bodies of work that will make a difference to our success and sustainability as an organisation. It will also help us spot any areas where teams can support each other in a cross-departmental, cross-functional model so we can share the load.

The feedback regarding wellbeing initiatives was mixed.  

While some of you appreciate the current support, others feel that more tangible actions are needed.  

As a first step, we wanted to remind you about the services available in case some staff aren’t aware of these.  

Employee Assistance Programme (EAP)  

This programme, which is free for kaimahi to access, includes confidential counselling and mental health support delivered through TELUS Health. Whilst it can be used to help manage active situations, it can also be used as a “prehabilitation” tool to proactively address stress and mental health concerns.  

Some staff also access this programme as a way to chat to someone about how best to handle situations. Sometimes getting an independent and impartial view can work wonders.  

Want to get started?  

Check out this page and register >  

Not sure whether to use this or how to use it?  

Check out this video >  

Mental Health Awareness Training  

If you’re looking for more resources, we have Mental Health Awareness Training. 

We also have resources giving insight into the Pastoral Care Code.  

If you’re interested in more tailored support, please reach out to Hayley Laughton (our Health and Wellbeing Partner) or Craig Bullock (Te Pūkenga Occupational Health and Wellbeing Lead).  

Team Wellbeing Sessions  

For teams who are interested in exploring wellbeing strategies, some groups have been accessing Team Wellbeing Sessions to create tailored plans. If this sounds like it would work well for your team, consider having a chat with your Formal Leader about it and then touching base with Hayley Laughton for more details.  

We are aware some of you have concerns about physical workspaces. Currently, Max Sims (Deputy Executive Director, Operations) and Ian Bulfin (Team Leader, Campus Services) are creating a new Strategic Asset Management Plan - working through facilities-related issues, and planning for long-term improvements for environments. Please do feed all concerns to Max and Ian. Whilst some of this mahi may not be able to be completed straightaway, it will be factored into future plans.

Some of you expressed concerns about pay not reflecting the workload or market rates.

At OP we use the SP10 job methodology and we regularly review market data to get an understanding of where in the market we are. The People and Culture Team are working with Formal Leaders to support them to conduct regular performance and salary reviews. 

We know that ongoing changes and uncertainty, particularly those related to the disestablishment of Te Pūkenga and the current Programme Sustainability Evaluations, are causing stress and impacting wellbeing.  

Whilst we need to re-introduce these evaluations to ensure we have solid business practices moving forwards, this doesn’t make it easy.  

TKM are committed to being open and transparent with all staff and we will only ever communicate facts, we will not speculate.  

Unfortunately, we cannot control the narrative that sometimes appears in the media. Journalists tend to speculate about the “what ifs”, rather than sticking with the facts so please trust the communications that you receive from TKM and through Gus Gilmore’s fortnightly newsletter, Ngā Taipitopito.  

You can find the most up to date information we have available about key topics here, on our Topical FAQs page.  

Please also make use of our Wellbeing section on Tūhono which includes our Change Support Toolbox. This includes some resources to support you to navigate change.  

Whilst some of you highlighted feeling recognised and appreciated as a positive theme, some of you have a desire for more recognition and appreciation.  

As a way of recognising and appreciating each other, we have the “shout out” platform in Tūhono. This is a space where you can give one of your OP colleagues a “shout out”, thanking them and celebrating them for something in particular they have done.  

They get sent an email letting them know they have received a shout out and it gets posted on the page for all other kaimahi to see.  

You can also “gift” a values badge whilst posting your shout out. Currently, you can choose between the Te Pūkenga values or the existing OP values. Once the piece of mahi happens around our values next year, we will update this platform to reflect our values moving forwards.  

There is a similar recognition platform available on Te Whare. 

We will also be holding our annual Staff Awards in February 2025, and will be putting the call out for nominations in November so get your nominations in to celebrate those colleagues who have gone above and beyond during 2024! 

We are committed to supporting mental health more broadly, including offering more access to counselling services and creating safe spaces for those of you who are dealing with challenging situations.  

OP is about to initiate a Wellbeing Committee which has been one of the tools identified to actively foster focusing on mental health strategies.  

We are currently also running psychosocial risk assessment workshops to identify and assess social, environmental or individual factors within our work environment which may have a negative or positive impact on mental health. 

This is part of our wellbeing kete to help us make future improvements.