CPO: 'We had a couple of very tough years, and we asked a lot of people to make sacrifices for us’
Amid a tight labour market, Air New Zealand (ANZ) is the latest company to announce it is increasing its base pay as the company looks to attract 400 people to work in airport teams in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch.
And while the organisation said it is looking to attract “diverse, talented people,” there’s more to it than that, according to Nikki Dines, chief people officer at ANZ, in talking to HRD.
“While there’s difficulty in attracting people at the volumes we need, the increase is part of a broader approach than just a recruitment drive.”
“We had a couple of very tough years, and we asked a lot of people to make sacrifices for us, including things like pay freezes for a period of time,” said Dines.
“As we started to rebuild, we focused on how we can create sustainable roles,” she continued.
The changes around compensation follow similar moves by McDonald's in Queenstown, which is paying $28 an hour to entry-level staff, and Metlink, which increased the average pay for bus drivers to $28 - $30 an hour.
Several years ago, the airline’s CEO Greg Foran and Dines talked about what a good job looks like at ANZ. They asked themselves how they could create great, sustainable jobs for people, and developed an aspiration based on that.
“Now that we’re in a position to do that, we’re really trying to ramp it up. For frontline staff, that’s making sure that we’re raising the wages of our lowest paid, we’re giving them the best hours of work that we can, the best tools, but then also [it’s about] ‘How do we give people opportunities to develop and grow?’” said Dines.
It’s not just the new staff who will benefit from the move — as well as increasing entry level rates, the New Zealand airline will boost annual pay for all airport employees.
Over the next 13-month period, airport workers across Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch will receive a pay rise of between 9.5% and 26%, along with opportunities to gain more skills and access further pay rises.
But Dines said that the company also expects superior productivity in return.
“As we raise the wages, we want to make sure that we’re really productive as well and you get that from having good quality candidates who stay with us and have a level of experience that helps us to provide a really good service,” she said.
