WasteMINZ has been hearing from our members for a few years now about how difficult it is to find new employees. Our sectors cover a wide range of employment types, but we know that whether you are looking for a truck driver, a waste minimisation officer, or a contaminated land specialist it’s hard finding suitable people in the current employment market.
What is WasteMINZ going to do about it?
After talking to various members and amongst our team, WasteMINZ has decided to set up different working groups to address this issue:
- Promotional working groups: There will be two working groups; one for the waste and resource recovery sector, and the other for the contaminated land management sector. These working groups will identify ways to promote the sectors, and the various jobs within them, to the general public. The promotion of the sectors will need to be funded, which will be part of the working groups’ role to explore. Some of you may have noticed that the Department of Corrections has a promotional campaign on TV and elsewhere at the moment, which aims to make viewers think about how a job as a corrections officer may appeal to them as it is about helping people. We believe that the waste, resource recovery and contaminated land management sectors will benefit from a similar campaign, that taps into people’s values to help improve the environment!
- Training working groups:There will be two working groups; one for the waste and resource recovery sector, and the other for the contaminated land management sector. These working groups will identify potential training opportunities for those wanting to go into:
- Office-based waste and resource recovery roles in councils, consultancies, central government or waste companies
- Contaminated land management roles
WasteMINZ is already working with Hanga-Aro-Rau to develop training for truck drivers, so the training working groups, noted above, will not focus on this area.
We want to hear from you!
We need enthusiastic, committed people with an availability of around two hours per month to contribute to these working groups. If you are interested in being considered for any of them, please send us your Expression of Interest by completing this survey by Friday, 17 March, 2023
Survey to identify training needs
While we're on the subject and to help provide focus for the training working groups we have also developed a survey to identify what gaps there currently are for our sector.