Warning for companies over unhappy workers

A survey of Kiwi workers shows they value their workmates but not so much their managers.

Culture coach Shane Green doesn’t mince words on where New Zealand businesses are going wrong after his survey of 800 Kiwi workers found a worryingly high proportion were unhappy and had a low opinion of their managers.

He says the heavy reliance on migrant labour has made many Kiwi employers lazy about investing in their employees – they need to better recognise good workers and deal with those ‘‘who don’t give a damn’’.

Green’s survey, carried out in September, showed almost 40 per cent of workers were ‘‘disengaged’’, which by his reckoning meant our biggest private sector companies alone had more than 6500 employees talking poorly about them and underperforming.

American analytics company Gallup has estimated that disengaged workers cost their employers the equivalent of 18 per cent of their annual salary, and Green says the potential impact is huge when that figure is applied to the small businesses that make up the vast majority of New Zealand enterprises.

‘‘With up to four employees per company underperforming, this can seriously strain the ability of small businesses to be successful and even survive.

‘‘We have to think about the cost of someone who’s not happy: it’s mistakes, it’s lack of customers.’’

The pandemic brought Green and his family back to New Zealand after 20 years in the United States, where he had established a niche as a business and culture coach working with the likes of the National Basketball Association, BMW and United Airlines.

His book Culture Hacker describes how to improve employee engagement and retention by making small but important changes, and he is now creating a small business guide due for release next year.

The good news from the September survey covering a range of industries was that more than threequarters of Kiwi workers valued their colleagues and enjoyed being part of a team. But the verdict on the quality of managers was far less complimentary, with more than 70 per cent claiming their bosses lacked management skills.

Green says that indicates too many New Zealand companies fail to invest in developing people before promoting them to leadership positions.

‘‘There’s still that old school attitude where managers think their people work for them, not the other way around where managers work for their people.’’

Pre-pandemic, the availability of migrant labour had made New Zealand a ‘‘seasonal work paradise’’ and as a result some employers had become lazy, says Green. ‘‘It means you’re used to turning people over, and not used to investing in their growth and development, not giving them feedback because they will leave you after six to nine months.’’

Young migrants here on shortterm visas were prepared to work hard because the pay-off was that they then got to tour New Zealand for six months, but that was not the case for domestic workers.

‘‘New Zealand workers are going, ‘Hey wait up, what’s the incentive for me, I don’t want to go into a place that turns and burns me’.’’

Green says a lot of companies mistakenly believe career development carries a hefty cost from sending staff on training courses, but that is not necessarily the case.

‘‘The number one thing an employee looks for is a manager who shares their expertise and experience. That costs the company nothing, yet many managers guard that expertise because they don’t want somebody taking over their job.’’

Cross-training on a variety of positions is another way to upskill staff, and it also means small businesses have someone to step in if another employee falls ill.

Green says recognising and rewarding high achievers is vital because it gives others an incentive to follow their example, but there must also be consequences for those doing a bad job.

The survey also revealed 40 per cent of workers did not trust the businesses that employed them because they were not transparent and honest about future plans and reasons for change.

Rocket Lab founder Peter Beck has revealed the main design features of the company’s planned medium-sized Neutron launch vehicle, which will be more of a direct competitor to Elon Musk’s SpaceX rockets.

The most distinctive feature of the rockets is that they will have a tapered shape, with a wide base.

That gives the rockets a retro, ‘‘comic book’’ look, but Rocket Lab said the significance was that the freestanding design would make it cheaper and easier to launch the rockets and to re-land their reusable first stage.

The shape notwithstanding, Rocket Lab said what made the rockets ‘‘especially unique’’ was that the second stage of the Neutron rocket – the part designed to reach orbital speeds – would be built into and released directly from inside the shell of the firststage rocket. That would make the second stage lighter and capable of being guided with more precision, as well as meaning the reusable first-stage rocket would comprise more of the overall design.

The Neutron rockets are expected to be manufactured and launched from Virginia in the United States from 2024, but Beck has not completely ruled out missions from its New Zealand base on the Māhia peninsula.

Like Rocket Lab’s far smaller Electron rockets, but unlike other rockets of its size, the Neutron rocket casings will be made from carbon fibre.

Beck said the goal of the design features was to make its Neutron rockets more affordable.

‘‘Neutron is not a conventional rocket. It’s a new breed of launch vehicle with reliability, reusability and cost reduction hard-baked into the advanced design from day one,’’ he said.

The main market for Neutron rockets is expected to be launching constellations of small communications satellites of the ilk used by SpaceX to deliver its Starlink broadband service, although it is also being designed to be capable of being certified for human spaceflight.

Hopes for the commercial potential of the Neutron rockets got a boost this week, after reports of a leaked email from Elon Musk warning SpaceX staff that the company was facing a ‘‘genuine risk of bankruptcy’’ if it did not sort out production problems with its own Raptor engines.

Initial reaction to the Neutron design in the US media appears to have been largely noncommittal.

Technology website The Verge said the Neutron ‘‘may look cool’’ but was at this stage just an animation.

‘‘If it works, it will be a unique type of vehicle that’s not on the market yet,’’ it reported.

Rocket Lab shares were trading slightly down at US$14.81 in after-hours trading yesterday morning, New Zealand time, valuing the company at US$6.8 billion (NZ$10b).