HR Unlocked with Lisa Oakley

HR professionals spend their careers helping other people develop, prepare for opportunities and navigate change. But how good are they at doing the same for themselves?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley speaks with Sandy Gibbs from Tribe about preparing for career opportunities, creating stronger CVs, interviewing effectively and understanding what organisations increasingly expect from senior People & Culture leaders.

Sandy sees a changing HR market, with growing businesses recognising the need for dedicated People & Culture capability while larger organisations reconsider how their HR operating models need to evolve. She also believes professionals need to become better prepared for their own career moves rather than waiting until an opportunity appears.

The conversation gets practical quickly.

Sandy explains why a CV needs more than responsibilities, why achievements should demonstrate commercial outcomes, and why AI can help with wording but should never remove the individual's voice and evidence from their CV.

Lisa and Sandy also unpack interview preparation, nerves, over-talking, researching the people interviewing you, choosing strong career examples and answering seemingly simple questions such as, “Tell me about yourself.”

The discussion then moves beyond getting the job and into what makes HR leadership genuinely effective.

From enterprise thinking and learning agility to organisational fit, career development and building accountability into the wider business, Sandy shares what she sees distinguishing technically capable HR professionals from those who become trusted senior leaders.

For Sandy, great HR leadership is not about HR holding responsibility for everything. The strongest practitioners equip leaders to own the people responsibilities within their own teams, giving HR the space to guide, influence and operate more strategically.

What You’ll Learn

• What Sandy is currently seeing in the New Zealand HR and People & Culture market

• Why HR professionals need to prepare for career opportunities before they need their next role

• How to make a CV sound like you rather than something generated entirely by AI

• Why CV achievements need evidence, context and commercial outcomes

• How to demonstrate the why behind your work

• Why strong interview preparation helps reduce over-talking

• How to keep interview answers concise while still giving enough evidence

• Why a small number of strong career examples can answer many different interview questions

• Whether older career examples are still relevant in interviews

• How to answer “Tell me about yourself”

• How to approach questions about weaknesses and development areas

• Why researching your interviewers can be as valuable as researching the organisation

• What questions candidates should ask at the end of an interview

• Why HR professionals need to demonstrate thinking beyond their functional lane

• How learning agility and curiosity show up in senior leadership

• Why chemistry and organisational fit matter alongside capability

• Why HR professionals often neglect their own career and development planning

• What separates good HR leadership from great HR leadership

• Why great HR leaders build accountability in others rather than holding everything themselves

• How listening and asking better questions can increase your influence

Key Takeaways

• Preparation starts before the interview. Career achievements, evidence and impact should be captured continuously rather than reconstructed when you suddenly need a CV.

• AI can help wordsmith a CV, but it shouldn’t write your career story for you. The facts, achievements and evidence still need to belong specifically to you.

• Commercial outcomes matter. Senior HR professionals need to demonstrate how their work contributed to organisational results, rather than only describing HR activities.

• The “why” matters. Explaining the rationale behind a decision helps move an example from transactional delivery towards strategic and commercial thinking.

• Interview technique is an art. Strong candidates know when to stop talking and give interviewers the opportunity to ask for more detail.

• Fit goes both ways. Capability alone cannot guarantee that a person, leader and organisation will work well together.

• Thought leadership is demonstrated, not declared. Curiosity, learning agility and the quality of the questions you ask can show how you think without needing to tell people you are strategic.

• Great HR leaders create accountability outside HR. They help business leaders become capable people leaders instead of positioning HR as the owner of every people decision.

• HR professionals need to practise what they preach. Career planning, feedback and development should apply to HR teams just as much as the rest of the organisation.

• You don’t always need to have the answer. Listening well and asking the right question can sometimes create more value than immediately providing advice.

About Sandy Gibbs

Sandy Gibbs brings 25 years of recruitment experience and leads Tribe’s HR consulting capability while also working across executive search in HR and People & Culture.

Her extensive experience working with both employers and candidates gives her a practical view of what organisations are looking for, what helps professionals stand out and the common mistakes people make when navigating their own careers.

Why This Episode Matters

HR professionals are often very good at helping everyone else with performance, development, succession and career planning.

Their own careers can be a different story.

This episode offers a practical look at how HR professionals can better articulate their impact, prepare for opportunities, navigate interviews and think about the kind of organisation and leadership environment where they will actually thrive.

It also challenges HR leaders to think beyond technical expertise. As organisations expect more commercial and enterprise-wide contribution from People & Culture, curiosity, learning agility, accountability and the ability to influence outside the HR function are becoming increasingly important.

Resources & Links

• Tribe: https://www.tribegroup.com/
• Connect with Sandy Gibbs on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandygibbs-peopleandculture/
• HR Unlocked: https://linktr.ee/hrunlocked

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A job description might tell you what a role is supposed to be. It does not necessarily tell you how somebody actually lives that role.

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Dr. Deepika Jindal, Subject Group Lead for Management at the University of Auckland and Director of the Master of Business Management programme, to explore the relationship between work, identity, leadership and the changing role of HR. Deepika's research interests include job crafting and career crafting.

At the centre of the conversation is job crafting.

Deepika describes job crafting as the way people proactively shape the tasks, relationships and meaning within their roles. While a job description may be given from the top down, individuals inevitably bring their own strengths, passions and preferences to how that job is performed.

That agency can create stronger engagement and more meaningful work, but it also needs to work for the organisation. Deepika argues that managers can benefit from having job crafting conversations alongside traditional performance discussions so that individual preferences, team requirements and organisational outcomes remain aligned.

From there, Lisa and Deepika explore the wider skills required of modern HR professionals.

They discuss why knowledge alone is not enough, and why problem solving, ethical judgement, political awareness and the ability to work with incomplete information matter so much in real organisational environments. Deepika explains that HR professionals need to be comfortable with complexity and ambiguity rather than expecting every workplace issue to have a clear black-and-white solution.

The conversation also reframes organisational politics.

Rather than seeing political skill as manipulation or self-interest, Deepika describes it as the ability to understand different stakeholder interests, read the environment and influence towards an outcome that benefits both people and the organisation.

HR's position across teams, functions and leadership levels can give practitioners a valuable view of those dynamics and an opportunity to build bridges across the organisation.

The episode then moves into leadership, trust, fairness and judgement before turning to careers themselves.

Deepika challenges the idea that our identity should be tied to a particular job title. Instead, she discusses the concept of “possible selves”, recognising that careers and professional identities can continue to evolve throughout our lives.

She closes by sharing her current research into career crafting among New Zealanders aged 65 and over, examining meaningful paid and unpaid work, identity, wellbeing and how organisations might better retain the experience and capability of older workers.

What You’ll Learn

• What job crafting actually means

• Why most people are already crafting their jobs, whether they realise it or not

• How job descriptions differ from the reality of how people perform their roles

• Why agency can improve meaning, engagement and performance

• How managers can introduce job crafting into performance conversations

• When job crafting can create problems for teams or organisations

• Why collaborative job crafting can help teams allocate work more effectively

• The relationship between autonomy, engagement and job crafting

• Why line manager behaviour has such a significant influence on employee experience

• Why having good HR policies is not enough if managers implement them inconsistently

• How organisations can balance consistency with different team contexts

• Why professional development needs to be connected to individual motivation

• Different ways professionals can maintain their relevance without necessarily completing another full qualification

• Why practical skills matter alongside academic knowledge

• Why HR professionals need to become comfortable operating in grey areas

• How data, judgement and instinct can work together in workplace decision-making

• The role HR can play in bridging academia, evidence, leadership and practice

• Why different leaders may require different influencing approaches

• How organisational politics can be viewed as a positive professional capability

• What it means to “read the room”

• Why listening, observing and sitting with discomfort are important leadership skills

• The difference between respectful disagreement and simply being agreeable

• How cognitive dissonance can affect HR practitioners and leaders

• What “disagree and commit” can look like when different perspectives are genuinely considered

• How HR can balance commercial requirements with human consequences

• Why fairness and consistency matter so much to employee perceptions

• Why good intentions do not automatically create positive employee experiences

• How trust develops through consistent behaviour over time

• Why technical expertise needs to be paired with people skills

• How judgement develops through experience, reflection and failure

• Why scenario planning and cross-functional perspectives can strengthen decision-making

• Why professional identity should not be tied too tightly to a job title

• What “possible selves” means for career development

• How meaningful work may change later in life

• Why organisations should think differently about retaining older workers

Key Takeaways

• People naturally shape their jobs. Job crafting recognises that people adapt tasks, relationships and meaning to make roles more personally meaningful.

• Job crafting works best when it creates a win for everyone. Individual agency still needs to align with team and organisational needs.

• HR requires skills, not just knowledge. Problem solving, ethical judgement and the ability to navigate ambiguity are critical because real workplace problems rarely come with every piece of information.

• Political skill does not have to mean manipulation. It can mean understanding competing interests and knowing how to influence towards a useful outcome.

• Context matters. HR has a valuable organisation-wide perspective, but different functions, leaders and subcultures may require different approaches.

• Judgement is learned. Experience, reflection, success, failure, information and perception all contribute to the judgement calls people make.

• Fairness matters as much as intention. Employees respond not only to what leaders intended, but to what was implemented and how they experienced it.

• Trust is built through consistency over time. Words alone do not create credibility. People watch what leaders repeatedly do.

• Your job title is not your identity. Keeping a more flexible sense of professional identity creates room for different careers and future possibilities.

• Career development does not stop at a particular age. Deepika's current work examines how people aged 65+ continue crafting meaningful careers through both paid and unpaid work.

About Dr. Deepika Jindal

Dr. Deepika Jindal is the Subject Group Lead for Management at the University of Auckland, where she teaches human resource management and related courses.

She is also Director of the Master of Business Management programme and maintains active research interests in job crafting and career crafting.

Deepika chairs HRNZ's Academic Network Committee and is a member of its Auckland Regional Network Committee. Her recognition includes HRNZ's Academic Impact Award in 2023, along with the 2025 Leadership Award and HR Person of the Year recognition discussed in the episode.

Why This Episode Matters

HR professionals operate in the space between competing interests.

They are expected to understand organisational strategy while also understanding how decisions affect people. They need evidence, but they also need judgement. They need technical capability, but they also need relationships, influence and political awareness.

Deepika's perspective brings academic research into those very practical realities.

This episode is a reminder that the future of HR will not only depend on knowing more. It will depend on becoming better at interpreting complexity, reading context, building trust and helping people find meaning in changing work.

Resources & Links

• Connect with Dr. Deepika Jindal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepika-jindal/
• HR Unlocked: https://linktr.ee/hrunlocked

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The future of work is already happening. So how should HR respond?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley speaks with Fiona Hewitt, Founder and Managing Partner of Unboxable, about how organisations and People & Culture teams can prepare for a future that cannot be neatly predicted.

For Fiona, the goal should not be “future-proofing”. There is no fixed playbook because nobody knows exactly where technology, workforce expectations and business conditions will take us. Instead, organisations need to become future-fluent, building their ability to adapt as conditions change.

That creates a significant challenge and opportunity for HR.

Fiona expects the makeup of HR teams to change as technology increasingly automates areas such as compliance, payroll and frontline support. At the same time, she sees greater demand for capability in workforce planning, workforce intelligence, leadership, organisational design and operating models.

The conversation challenges the familiar call for HR to earn “a seat at the table”. Fiona argues that HR needs to go further and actively help form the decisions that shape the organisation, including technology, strategy and how work itself is designed.

Lisa and Fiona also explore what an operating model really means. It is not simply an organisation chart or a restructure. It includes how value is delivered, how decisions are made, operating rhythms, capabilities and how work is organised.

From there, the conversation moves into the role of AI, change, culture, strategic influence and the increasing need for HR professionals to understand the business beyond their own functional expertise.

Fiona argues that credibility at senior levels comes not only from knowing HR, but from understanding the commercial context, sector and organisation well enough to contribute from an enterprise perspective.

The episode ultimately asks a bigger question: if work becomes more flexible and capability-based, could even the traditional concept of a “job” need to evolve?

Fiona closes with an idea that has shaped her own career in workforce transformation: building people, leaders and organisations that are “ready for anything.”

What You’ll Learn

• What Fiona means by future fluency

• Why future-proofing organisations may be the wrong goal

• How technology could reshape the structure and capability of HR teams

• Why workforce planning and organisational design need deeper HR capability

• Why organisational design is much more than restructuring or moving boxes on an org chart

• What an operating model actually means in practice

• Why HR needs to move beyond simply asking for a “seat at the table”

• How HR can become involved earlier in technology, strategy and business decisions

• Why the future of work may be better understood as the evolution of work

• Why organisations need to learn to lead with change, rather than through it

• How language such as “clarity over certainty” can influence how people respond to change

• How AI may reduce transactional HR work while increasing the need for strategic capability

• Why HR business partnering is likely to become even more commercially focused

• How Centres of Excellence may need to connect more closely with strategy and business operations

• Why the future of work should not sit in a separate programme

• How HR teams can “breadcrumb” future-focused thinking into work they are already doing

• Why Fiona believes HR should become an architect rather than the “ambulance at the bottom of the cliff”

• How commercial understanding strengthens HR influence

• Why “next practice” can sometimes be more useful than relying solely on best practice

• What CEOs should expect from their People leaders

• Why culture will become even more important as organisations become increasingly adaptive

• How organisations can balance current pressures with preparing for what comes next

• Why AI capability inside HR itself matters

• How strategy may need more flexibility as conditions change

• Why the traditional concept of a job could eventually become less rigid

• What changing jobs could mean for careers and transferable capability

• Why Fiona sees potential in the rise of the generalist

• What it means to build an organisation that is “ready for anything”

Key Takeaways

• You cannot future-proof against a future you cannot predict. Fiona’s alternative is future fluency: building the ability to adapt as conditions shift.

• HR capability needs to shift. Technology may reduce some transactional roles while increasing demand for workforce planning, organisational design and strategic capability.

• Org design is not the same thing as restructuring. It is about how an organisation delivers value, makes decisions, structures work and operates.

• HR needs to move beyond having a seat at the table. The opportunity is to actively shape business, technology and workforce decisions.

• The future of work does not need to be another separate HR programme. Future-focused capability can be built into leadership, culture and other work already underway.

• HR’s value is shifting from support towards architecture. Fiona argues that People functions can help design the organisation rather than only responding once problems appear.

• Credibility requires business fluency as well as HR expertise. Understanding the organisation, industry and commercial context strengthens influence.

• The traditional job may not remain as fixed as it is today. More fluid use of capability could change how organisations deploy people and think about careers.

• Preparing for tomorrow needs to begin today. Organisations cannot wait until the change arrives before building capability.

• Being “ready for anything” does not mean predicting everything. It means developing enough adaptability in people, leadership and the organisation to respond effectively when conditions change.

About Fiona Hewitt

Fiona Hewitt is the Founder and Managing Partner of Unboxable, a New Zealand-based workforce transformation consultancy working with boards, executive teams and organisations to build the leadership, workforce and organisational capability needed to respond to technology, changing workforce expectations and evolving business conditions.

She is also co-founder of Able, an AI consultancy focused on helping organisations build AI capability in their people.

Her work spans workforce transformation, organisational design, operating models, strategy, leadership and preparing organisations for the evolution of work.

Why This Episode Matters

A lot of discussion about the future of work focuses on technology.

This conversation goes deeper into the organisational questions underneath it.

If AI changes how work gets done, organisations will need to rethink how decisions are made, how capability is deployed, what leaders are responsible for and how People & Culture functions create value.

For HR professionals, the opportunity is significant.

The profession can remain primarily focused on administering and supporting the organisation, or it can develop the commercial, organisational and workforce design capabilities needed to help shape what the organisation becomes next.

As Fiona puts it, HR has the opportunity to move from being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to the architect with the builder at the top.

Resources & Links

Unboxable: https://unboxable.co.nz/

Connect with Fiona Hewitt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fionahewitt/

Hr Unlocked: https://linktr.ee/hrunlocked

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you build People & Culture capability when you're supporting more than 150 organisations, all with different structures, resources, challenges, and communities?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Claire George, Acting Business Capability Manager at Sport New Zealand, to explore what it takes to strengthen leadership and people capability across the sports sector.

Rather than supporting one internal workforce, Claire and her team work across Sport New Zealand's partner organisations, helping lift capability in areas including governance, technology, change management, commercial capability, and People & Culture.

For Claire, relationships are fundamental. Sport New Zealand is also a funder of many of the organisations it supports, which means creating enough trust for leaders to openly share when things aren't going well is critical. When those relationships exist, Claire says there is an opportunity to do some powerful work.

The conversation explores the realities facing sporting organisations that don't have dedicated HR teams. In many cases, people responsibilities sit with a CEO, finance professional, or another leader alongside their existing role. Claire shares why the answer isn't adding more complexity, but making good people practices simple, practical, and easier to apply.

Lisa and Claire also unpack the unusual dynamic created when people care deeply about the organisation they work for. In sport, work can be closely connected to someone's identity, community, recreation, and personal relationships. That passion can create extraordinary engagement and commitment, but it can also make change more emotionally charged and make it harder for people to switch off.

Wellbeing and burnout are therefore important parts of the conversation, alongside the responsibility organisations and individuals have to create sustainable ways of working.

Claire also shares lessons from Sport New Zealand's leadership development programmes, including the importance of embedding te ao Māori rather than treating it as an add-on, creating genuinely diverse cohorts, and giving leaders opportunities to learn from one another.

Ultimately, this episode is a practical conversation about keeping People & Culture grounded in what organisations and people actually need: trusted relationships, good conversations, strong leadership, simple processes, and capability that prepares the sector for what's next.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• How Sport New Zealand supports People & Culture capability across more than 150 partner organisations

• Why trusted relationships are essential when influencing without direct authority

• How to decide when a sector-wide solution works and when an organisation needs tailored support

• Why People & Culture needs to connect with organisational strategy

• The realities of managing people without a dedicated HR function

• Why HR should make doing the right thing easier, not more complicated

• How good questions help diagnose the real people issue

• Why relationships can be considered a synonym for leadership

• Which fundamental HR processes smaller organisations need to get right

• Why performance conversations matter for both high and lower performers

• How People & Culture expertise can add value to senior leadership conversations

• Why passion can be both a strength and a challenge in sporting organisations

• How someone's work, identity, community, and personal life can become intertwined in sport

• Why organisational change can become particularly emotionally charged in purpose-led environments

• How boards can think more deliberately about CEO capability and recruitment

• Why organisations shouldn't expect to find a leadership "unicorn"

• How scaffolding capability around a leader can be more effective than expecting one person to do everything

• Why collaboration between sporting organisations is a strength of the sector

• How passion can contribute to burnout when people struggle to switch off

• Why recovery sometimes requires doing something completely different from your work

• How EAP and professional supervision can support people working in challenging roles

• What Sport New Zealand has learned from its leadership development programmes

• Why embedding te ao Māori strengthens leadership development

• How the Puna leadership framework supports leadership capability

• Why diversity within leadership cohorts creates richer learning

• How changing expectations around work, technology, and volunteering could reshape the sports workforce

• Why retaining capability within the sector can matter as much as retaining someone within one organisation

• How AI and technology could free people to focus on more valuable human work

• Why the future of People & Culture should involve greater simplicity, not greater complexity

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Relationships are fundamental to leadership. Being able to build trust, have real conversations, work through difficult issues, and understand what's happening for people is a genuine leadership capability.

People & Culture doesn't need to be complicated. Processes, policies, and systems should make it easier for people to do the right thing.

Context matters. The HR answer isn't automatically the right organisational answer.

Small organisations still need the fundamentals in place, particularly employment agreements and effective performance conversations.

Performance isn't only about addressing problems. Regular conversations help high performers stretch, develop, and avoid leaving capability untapped.

Passion is a major strength in sport, but it comes with leadership challenges. When someone's work is closely connected to their identity and community, change and conflict can become more personal.

Highly engaged people can still burn out. Leaders need to understand the difference between commitment and sustainable performance.

Organisations don't need leaders who can do everything. They need to understand what capability they need now, what can be developed, and what can be complemented by the wider leadership team or board.

Collaboration is a major strength of the sports sector. Organisations and leaders can build capability by sharing knowledge and learning from each other.

Te ao Māori can create a powerful foundation for leadership development when it is genuinely embedded rather than treated as an addition.

Technology should reduce the administrative burden and create more time for the human work that matters.

The more transactional work technology removes, the more valuable skills such as relationships, feedback, conflict management, curiosity, and good conversations become.

Future capability needs to be considered at a sector level. Someone moving from one sporting organisation to another doesn't necessarily mean capability has been lost.

People professionals need to understand the organisation before prescribing the solution. Bring your expertise, but be curious first.

ABOUT CLAIRE GEORGE

Claire George is Acting Business Capability Manager at Sport New Zealand, where her work focuses on strengthening organisational and people capability across the sports sector.

Working with more than 150 Sport New Zealand partner organisations, Claire supports capability development across People & Culture alongside a wider team working across areas including governance, technology, change management, and commercial capability.

Her work spans leadership development, organisational capability, wellbeing, performance, change, and helping organisations create practical people practices that work within the realities of their size and resources.

Claire is particularly passionate about relationships, building sustainable workplaces, developing strong leaders, and helping sporting organisations create environments where people feel connected, supported, and able to perform at their best.

WHY THIS EPISODE MATTERS

Sport presents a unique People & Culture challenge.

Many organisations operate with small teams, limited resources, passionate volunteers, and no dedicated HR function, while the people working within them can have an unusually deep personal connection to the organisation, sport, and community.

That creates enormous potential, but also real challenges around leadership, change, wellbeing, performance, and burnout.

Claire's experience offers lessons that extend well beyond sport.

For HR professionals, CEOs, boards, business owners, and people leaders, this episode is a reminder that good People & Culture isn't about building more processes. It's about understanding context, creating trusted relationships, simplifying the fundamentals, having conversations early, and building the capability people will need for the future.

RESOURCES & LINKS

Sport New Zealand: https://sportnz.org.nz/

Connect with Claire George on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-george-a90713110/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens when someone with deep operational experience steps into the Chief People Officer role?⁣
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In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Nicki Mackay, Chief People Officer at FMG, to explore leadership, trust, resilience, culture, and the future of People & Culture.⁣
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After 17 years at FMG across operational and leadership roles, Nicki brings a practical understanding of the business. She shares how moving between roles has challenged her assumptions, strengthened her commercial understanding, and shaped her approach to executive leadership.⁣
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A central theme is perspective. Nicki explains why technical expertise builds credibility while leadership builds influence, and why People & Culture must help people thrive while keeping the business moving.⁣
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She also explores trust, self-awareness, and constructive challenge, reflecting on the Auckland Anniversary floods and Cyclone Gabrielle. Experiencing a year's worth of claims in just two weeks taught her valuable lessons about staying calm, supporting teams, and leading through uncertainty.⁣
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Nicki discusses decision-making under pressure, why perfect information rarely arrives on time, and how leaders must combine data, judgement, and instinct while remaining ready to adapt.⁣
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The conversation also covers career agility, performance, motivation, generational diversity, mutuality, and Nicki's leadership philosophy: be your story, own it, live it, love it.⁣
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𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐘𝐨𝐮'𝐥𝐥 𝐋𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧⁣
• How operational experience strengthens People & Culture leadership and commercial understanding⁣
• Why changing roles challenges assumptions and broadens perspective⁣
• Why technical expertise builds credibility while leadership builds influence⁣
• How People & Culture can maintain organisational momentum⁣
• What CEOs and executive peers need from a Chief People Officer⁣
• Why relationships and respectful challenge strengthen executive teams⁣
• How self-awareness and active listening improve leadership ⁣
• What Cyclone Gabrielle taught Nicki about trust, resilience, and crisis leadership⁣
• Why leaders must make decisions with incomplete information⁣
• How career agility creates opportunities beyond rigid career plans⁣
• Why performance issues may reflect role fit, strengths, or motivation⁣
• How beliefs, values, and individual drivers influence behaviour⁣
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𝐊𝐞𝐲 𝐓𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐚𝐰𝐚𝐲𝐬⁣
• Perspective matters. Moving across an organisation builds context and improves judgement.⁣
• People & Culture should enable progress. Early involvement, commercial understanding, and strong relationships help businesses move forward.⁣
• Trust is built before a crisis. Everyday relationships provide the foundation for extraordinary moments.⁣
• Resilience means moving forward. Crisis leadership requires calm, awareness, judgement, and support for others.⁣
• Decisions can't always wait. Leaders must act with incomplete information and adapt as circumstances change.⁣
• Careers aren't concrete. Flexibility creates opportunities that rigid plans may miss.⁣
• Performance depends on context. Strengths, motivation, role fit, and individual circumstances all matter.⁣
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𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐢 𝐌𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐚𝐲⁣
Nicki Mackay is Chief People Officer at FMG. With more than 15 years at the organisation, she has held operational and leadership roles across area management, agribusiness, claims, recovery, and executive leadership.⁣
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Nicki joined FMG's executive leadership team as Chief People Officer in 2023, bringing extensive operational experience to the People & Culture function.⁣
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Her leadership approach centres on trust, curiosity, connection, practical judgement, and creating conditions for people to perform at their best. She is passionate about leadership, culture, resilience, organisational agility, and helping people navigate change while staying connected to their strengths and values.⁣
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𝐖𝐡𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐄𝐩𝐢𝐬𝐨𝐝𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐬⁣
People & Culture leaders need more than HR expertise. They need commercial understanding, operational awareness, strong relationships, sound judgement, and the ability to influence across an organisation.⁣
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Nicki's career demonstrates how operational experience can shape executive leadership, culture, crisis response, and the People & Culture function.⁣
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As organisations face accelerating change and uncertainty, leaders will rarely have perfect answers. They'll need to trust their judgement, understand their people, act with integrity, and move forward when waiting is no longer useful.⁣
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For HR professionals, executives, people leaders, business owners, and anyone navigating leadership or career change, this conversation offers practical insights into trust, agility, resilience, and keeping people and business moving.⁣
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𝐑𝐞𝐬𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐜𝐞𝐬 & 𝐋𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬⁣
• FMG: https://www.fmg.co.nz/⁣
• Connect with Nicki Mackay on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicki-mackay-b8501158/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What happens to the future of work if half your workforce gets left behind?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Rose Powell, General Manager People & Capability at Vitaco Health Group, to explore what future-focused People & Culture looks like inside a complex, vertically integrated organisation.

Rose's leadership philosophy was shaped early in her career when she moved from a command-and-control manufacturing environment into the very different world of higher education. It was there that she began recognising empathy, care, and connection not as leadership weaknesses, but as strengths. That experience helped shape the servant leadership approach she continues to practise today.

At Vitaco, Rose leads People & Capability across a workforce spanning manufacturing, distribution, science, quality, sales, marketing, and corporate functions. She explains how Vitaco's Mini Business Unit model, Pillar Fundamentals, and skills matrix give manufacturing employees a structured pathway to build capability, learn end-to-end processes, progress their careers, and increase their earning potential.

The conversation also tackles a bigger question facing manufacturing: what skills should organisations be developing when technology is changing the work itself?

Rose shares her involvement in industry and vocational education, why future manufacturing workers will need a different capability mix, and why organisations also have an obligation to help their existing people become more adaptable. She discusses the value of reverse mentoring, including what Vitaco has learnt from younger interns bringing new AI knowledge and ways of working into the organisation.

For Rose, capability is more than knowing how to perform today's job. It means understanding how that job may need to be done differently and having the will to make that change happen.

That becomes particularly important with AI. Rose warns of the risk of creating a divide between employees who sit behind desks and those who don't. With many frontline employees traditionally lacking company emails, laptops, and access to the same digital tools as corporate teams, she argues that organisations need to be intentional about democratising access to technology, information, and learning.

Rose and Lisa also explore how strong cultures survive rapid growth, what constructive employer-union relationships look like, and why trust is built well before anyone reaches the bargaining table. For Rose, regular conversations with delegates and genuine relationships mean disagreement does not have to destroy trust.

What You'll Learn

• How Rose's early career experiences shaped her servant leadership style

• Why empathy, care, and connection can be leadership strengths

• What People & Culture looks like across a complex, vertically integrated workforce

• How Vitaco develops manufacturing capability through its Mini Business Unit model

• How skills matrices can connect learning, career progression, and remuneration

• Why capability development needs both technical and human skills

• How employers and unions can collaborate on workforce development

• Why traditional qualifications may not always keep pace with changing jobs

• What future manufacturing employees will need to succeed

• Why existing employees need support to remain adaptable as technology changes

• How reverse mentoring can bring new skills into an organisation

• What younger workers can teach established leaders about AI

• Why capability is about more than knowing how to perform today's job

• How purpose can support innovation and organisational growth

• Why AI risks widening the gap between desk-based and frontline employees

• How Vitaco is increasing frontline access to digital information and learning

• Why organisations need to democratise access to technology

• How culture can remain strong as organisations scale

• Why consistency of purpose and messaging matters during rapid growth

• What constructive employer-union relationships look like in practice

• Why relationships with union delegates matter outside collective bargaining

• How trust allows employers and unions to disagree constructively

• Why People & Culture professionals need genuine commercial understanding

• Why frontline leaders need more than technical expertise

• How organisations can identify and develop leadership potential earlier

• Why workforce planning increasingly needs to focus on capability rather than fixed job titles

Key Takeaways

Empathy, caring, and connection aren't weaknesses in leadership. For Rose, recognising those qualities as strengths fundamentally changed the way she leads.

Developing frontline capability works best when employees can clearly see how learning connects to their role, career progression, and earning potential.

Future manufacturing capability will look different as automation, data, new systems, and AI change the nature of work.

Organisations have a responsibility to develop the people they already employ, not simply recruit different skills when technology changes.

Reverse mentoring gives organisations an opportunity to learn from younger employees who may already be highly comfortable with emerging technologies.

For Rose, capability is a combination of knowing how to do the job, understanding how it might need to be done differently, and having the will to make that happen.

AI capability cannot be limited to employees with laptops and company emails. Otherwise, organisations risk creating a new workforce divide.

Modernising only part of the workforce limits both organisational performance and future talent pipelines.

Giving frontline employees greater digital access can improve their ability to access business information, learning platforms, and their own information.

Strong organisational cultures require consistency as businesses grow. People need to continue understanding the organisation's purpose and what makes it distinctive.

Constructive union relationships are built outside bargaining. Frequent dialogue and genuine relationships with delegates create a stronger foundation when disagreement occurs.

Trust doesn't require agreement. It requires consistency, legitimacy, and relationships strong enough to withstand disagreement.

People & Culture professionals need to understand how their organisation actually operates, creates value, and makes money.

Technical excellence doesn't automatically translate into great people leadership. Frontline leaders need support to build confidence and people capability.

Future workforce planning needs to consider capabilities as much as job titles because organisations cannot know exactly what every role will look like in the years ahead.

People want to understand why change is happening, have a voice in it, and know their contribution matters.

About Rose Powell

Rose Powell is General Manager People & Capability at Vitaco Health Group, where she leads the People & Capability framework supporting a vertically integrated Trans-Tasman workforce across manufacturing, distribution, science, quality, sales, marketing, and corporate functions.

Her work focuses on aligning workforce capability with organisational growth, developing future skills, strengthening leadership, and creating practical pathways for employees to build their careers.

Rose brings extensive experience across manufacturing, higher education, and complex workforce environments. Her leadership philosophy is strongly influenced by servant leadership and a belief in growing others, building relationships, and creating opportunities for people to succeed.

She is also actively involved in conversations around vocational learning and the future skills needed by New Zealand's manufacturing and food and beverage sectors.

Why This Episode Matters

The future of work isn't only happening in offices.

As AI, automation, data, and digital systems reshape organisations, one of the biggest workforce challenges will be ensuring frontline and non-desk employees have access to the same opportunities to learn, adapt, and remain relevant.

Rose offers a practical view of what that looks like inside a large manufacturing environment, from structured capability pathways and digital access to reverse mentoring, vocational education, leadership development, and constructive relationships with unions.

Her perspective also challenges organisations to think beyond simply recruiting the skills they'll need next. Future readiness means investing in the people already inside the organisation and creating the conditions for them to evolve alongside the work.

For HR and People & Culture professionals, executives, manufacturing leaders, operational managers, and anyone thinking about AI and workforce transformation, this conversation offers practical ideas for building capability without leaving people behind.

Resources & Links

Vitaco Health Group: https://vitaco.co.nz/

Connect with Rose Powell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-powell-9a00728/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

How do you become the kind of leader people genuinely want to follow?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Laurent Sylvestre to explore leadership, trust, human dynamics, executive development, and what it really takes to lead well. 

Laurent challenges the traditional view of HR and People & Culture, emphasising that leaders ultimately own people and culture, while People & Culture professionals help create the conditions for people to thrive. 

The conversation explores the importance of knowing your people, having meaningful conversations about skills and aspirations, and aligning individual potential with business outcomes. 

A key theme is congruence — understanding who you are, the leader you want to become, and whether the organisation you work for aligns with your values and ambitions. 

Laurent also shares his three levels of leadership: leading self, leading others, and leading the enterprise, alongside insights on high-performing teams, trust, executive wellbeing, CEO pressures, and navigating change with greater agency. 

What You’ll Learn 

• Why Laurent once declared “HR is dead” and what he meant
• Why People & Culture is about impact, not labels 
• What it means for HR to act as a curator * Why leaders need to truly know their people 
• How talent reviews can become dynamic and commercially useful 
• Why employee aspirations should connect to business outcomes 
• How Laurent’s experiences shaped his interest in human dynamics 
• The difference between HR process and what happens “under the waterline” 
• Why authenticity and congruence matter in leadership * Why difficult experiences can strengthen leadership capability 
• How to assess whether a role or organisation is right for you 
• Why diversity matters in high-performing leadership teams 
• The importance of leading self before leading others 
• How leading self, others, and the enterprise connect 

Key Takeaways

• The future of HR is not about changing the label. It is about increasing its impact on people, leadership, culture, and business outcomes.
• Leaders own people and culture. People & Culture professionals help curate the environment in which both can thrive.
• Knowing your people means understanding aspirations, capabilities, potential, and what matters to them — not just performance. 
• Talent conversations should be ongoing and linked to organisational outcomes rather than happening once a year.
• Sustainable leadership requires alignment between who you are, how you lead, and the organisation you work within.
• Career success on paper does not automatically equal fulfilment. Before pursuing a bigger role, leaders should ask what they are actually trying to achieve. You cannot lead others well without first understanding yourself. Leading the enterprise requires self-leadership and genuine followership.
• High-performing teams need clear definitions of performance, strong individual contribution, disciplined behaviours, and trust.
• Professional intimacy helps maintain trust when performance dips because people will not always be perfectly credible or reliable.
• Many executive team problems are not individual capability issues, but problems with how people work together. CEOs are increasingly focused on boards, executive team effectiveness, staying connected to the organisation, and their own wellbeing. 

About Laurent Sylvestre

Laurent Sylvestre is a leadership and human dynamics specialist, CEO, and founder who works with executives, senior leaders, and leadership teams.

His career spans Human Resources, People & Culture, executive leadership, and organisational development across Europe and Asia Pacific.

His work focuses on self-leadership, team dynamics, trust, organisational culture, and high performance.

After a long corporate career, Laurent moved into entrepreneurship to align his work more closely with his purpose and strengths. He works particularly with CEOs, managing directors, executive teams, and senior leaders. 

Why This Episode Matters

Leadership expectations continue to grow as leaders navigate changing markets, board pressure, complex teams, technology, employee expectations, and uncertainty. 

This episode brings leadership back to the individual, exploring identity, purpose, trust, relationships, and the kind of leader we want to become. Laurent also challenges HR and People & Culture professionals to look beyond processes and understand the human dynamics behind performance, conflict, trust, and change. 

Whether you’re an HR professional, executive, business owner, senior leader, or considering your next career move, this conversation offers practical insights for leading yourself, strengthening relationships, and helping people and organisations perform at their best. 

Resources & Links 

• Laurent Sylvestre: https://laurentsylvestre.com
• Connect with Laurent Sylvestre on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurentsylvestre/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Is there really such a thing as HR best practice?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Ronel Jacobs, Chief People and Safety Officer at Access Partners and Property, for a wide-ranging conversation about what effective People & Culture leadership looks like in the real world.

With more than 20 years of experience spanning HR, recruitment, health and safety, environment, quality, acquisitions, and organisational change across South Africa and New Zealand, Ronel has worked across organisations of vastly different sizes and industries.

One of her biggest lessons is that there is no single best-practice approach that works everywhere. 

HR needs to understand the size, industry, culture, strategy, and commercial realities of the organisation before deciding what good looks like.

Ronel and Lisa explore this through acquisitions and restructures, discussing why communication is critical, how change champions can help organisations integrate, and why genuine consultation requires leaders to remain open to outcomes they may not have anticipated.

Ronel also shares how experiencing redundancy herself changed her approach to restructuring. 

That lived experience has reinforced the importance of remembering that organisational change isn’t simply a process to complete. Decisions can affect someone’s livelihood, family, and, for migrant workers, potentially their ability to remain in New Zealand.

The conversation moves into the realities of employing migrant workers in highly specialised roles, including skills shortages, immigration uncertainty, significant investment in training and relocation, and the operational challenges businesses face when those skills aren’t readily available locally.

Lisa and Ronel also unpack employment disputes and representation, including their experiences with employment lawyers and advocates, the incentives that can shape dispute resolution, and why understanding the outcome both parties actually need can help resolve conflict more effectively.

AI is another major theme. Ronel describes the current enthusiasm for AI as an “AI sugar rush” and raises an important question for the future of HR: if technology removes entry-level administrative roles, where will future senior HR professionals develop the judgement, critical thinking, and communication skills they traditionally learned through those roles?

She also explores how relying too heavily on AI-generated communication could dilute an organisation’s culture. From restructuring documents to employment letters, Ronel believes language needs to reflect not only the organisation, but also the person receiving it.

Finally, the conversation brings together Ronel’s responsibility for both People & Culture and health and safety. She discusses why the two disciplines complement each other, the growing importance of psychological health and safety, knowing when an issue requires independent expertise, and why HR professionals need to understand what actually happens operationally rather than making decisions from behind a desk.

What You'll Learn

• Why HR “best practice” needs to be fit for the organisation
• How business acumen helps HR professionals adapt their approach
• What Ronel has learned from acquisitions and significant organisational change
• Why communication is fundamental during acquisitions
• How change champions can support successful integration
• Why some acquired organisations need more time before processes and cultures are integrated
• How lived experience of redundancy can change the way HR professionals approach restructures
• Why consultation can’t simply become confirmation of a predetermined decision
• The additional human impact restructuring can have on migrant employees and their families
• The challenges employers face when recruiting highly specialised talent offshore
• Why New Zealand needs to think seriously about developing critical skills locally
• The different dynamics Ronel has experienced with employment lawyers and employment advocates
• Why understanding incentives matters when resolving employment disputes
• How AI-generated communication could influence organisational culture
• Why employment communication needs to reflect the audience receiving it
• What Ronel means by the current “AI sugar rush”
• Why AI could create a future HR capability gap
• The importance of continuing to invest in graduates, interns, and entry-level employees
• How People & Culture and health and safety complement one another
• Why psychological hazards require a different approach from physical safety risks
• When HR should step away and bring in independent investigators or specialist support
• Why HR leaders need to understand operations, customers, finance, and commercial realities
• How psychological safety at the executive table supports better decision-making
• Why HR professionals need the courage to challenge senior leaders
• Why HR should bring options and recommendations to the executive table, not simply problems
• Why adaptability, curiosity, and continuous learning will matter as work changes

Key Takeaways
• There is no universal HR best practice. What works depends on the organisation, its size, industry, people, culture, and commercial realities.
• Successful acquisitions aren’t just about processes and systems. Communication, continuity, culture, and the pace at which people adapt all matter.
• Change champions can help organisations understand what works on both sides of an acquisition rather than simply imposing one organisation’s way of working on another.
• Genuine consultation means being prepared to seriously consider alternatives and counterproposals rather than treating the process as a tick-box exercise.
• Lived experience can change how HR professionals practise. Ronel’s own redundancy reinforced the human impact behind organisational change decisions.
• Migrant workforce decisions can extend far beyond employment. Visa status, family circumstances, relocation, training investment, and skills availability can all add significant complexity.
• HR needs strong business acumen. Understanding how the organisation makes money, serves customers, manages risk, and operates day to day leads to better people decisions.
• AI can improve efficiency, but organisations need to consider what happens when technology removes the entry-level work through which people traditionally develop judgement and critical thinking.
• An organisation’s culture is reflected in its language. Over-reliance on generic AI-generated communication risks diluting that identity.
• People & Culture and health and safety are closely connected. Physical safety, psychological safety, wellbeing, performance, and employment relationships often overlap.
• Not every workplace issue should be managed internally. Knowing when to bring in independent investigators, lawyers, or specialist support is an important professional judgement.
• HR shouldn’t be afraid to challenge. Strong executive teams need people who can respectfully disagree and give leaders the information they need to make informed decisions.
• HR professionals shouldn’t only understand HR. They need to understand the business.
• Technology should make work easier without replacing relationships, empathy, curiosity, and human judgement.

About Ronel Jacobs
• Ronel Jacobs is Chief People and Safety Officer at Access Partners and Property and a member of the organisation’s executive leadership team.

• With more than 20 years of experience across South Africa and New Zealand, Ronel’s career spans human resources, recruitment, health and safety, environment, quality, organisational change, acquisitions, employment relations, and workforce capability.

• Her experience ranges from small organisations through to large businesses, giving her a practical perspective on why People & Culture approaches need to reflect the organisation rather than follow a single definition of best practice.

• In her current role, Ronel provides strategic leadership across People & Culture and HSEQ, with a strong focus on building capable teams, managing organisational risk, supporting employee wellbeing, and ensuring people decisions align with what the business is trying to achieve.

Why This Episode Matters
People & Culture leaders are being asked to navigate increasingly interconnected challenges.
AI is changing how work gets done. Skills shortages continue to affect businesses. Migrant workforce requirements add complexity. Psychological health and safety is becoming increasingly important, and leaders still need to manage restructures, performance issues, disputes, and organisational change fairly and effectively.

Ronel’s perspective brings these issues back to a simple principle: HR needs to understand the business while remaining human.

For HR professionals, executives, business owners, and people leaders, this episode offers a practical look at balancing empathy with commercial reality, knowing when process helps and when it gets in the way, and developing the judgement to make good decisions when there isn’t a simple playbook to follow.

Resources & Links
• Access Partners and Property: [Insert website link]
• Connect with Ronel Jacobs on LinkedIn: [Insert Ronel Jacobs LinkedIn URL]
• HR Unlocked: https://linktr.ee/hrunlocked

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Why do organisations invest in leadership development only to see people return to work and carry on exactly as before?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Jocelyn Visser, founder of Compass Consultancy and consultant at People Associates, to explore what makes leadership development genuinely effective.

For Jocelyn, the starting point isn't choosing a course or training provider. It's getting clear on the problem you're trying to solve, the behaviours you want to change, the capabilities the organisation needs, and how all of that connects back to strategy and purpose.

From experiential learning and quality supervision to feedback, capability frameworks, technology, and measuring ROI, Jocelyn shares practical ways organisations can move beyond knowledge transfer and create learning that people can immediately apply in the workplace.

The conversation also explores why leadership development should be continuous rather than a one-off event, how psychologically safe learning environments give leaders confidence to practise new skills, and why the most effective programmes often combine theory with peer learning, reflection, coaching, and real-world application.

Looking ahead, Jocelyn and Lisa also unpack the capabilities organisations will increasingly need in a rapidly changing world, including adaptability, communication, curiosity, comfort with uncertainty, problem solving, and the ability to make complex ideas simple.

What You'll Learn

• Why leadership development should start with the problem you're trying to solve

• How to align learning with organisational strategy, purpose, values, and capability

• Why behavioural change matters more than simply transferring knowledge

• The difference between knowing a leadership skill and actually applying it

• How quality supervision and feedback support ongoing development

• Why experiential and peer-to-peer learning can make development more effective

• How psychologically safe environments give leaders space to practise

• Why smaller, accessible learning experiences can be powerful

• How technology can make learning more accessible for dispersed and frontline teams

• Why learning should be reinforced before, during, and after a development programme

• How capability frameworks can help organisations prioritise investment

• What organisations should measure beyond attendance and participant satisfaction

• Why adaptability, communication, and curiosity will be critical future capabilities

Key Takeaways

• Leadership development should be purposeful, not development for development's sake.

• Learning is ultimately about creating meaningful behavioural change.

• Giving people more knowledge won't solve every performance or workplace problem.

• Leaders need opportunities to practise, reflect, receive feedback, and apply what they've learnt.

• Quality supervision means understanding how people are actually performing rather than relying entirely on second-hand information.

• Learning is more powerful when it can move directly from the boardroom into everyday work.

• Development doesn't need to be expensive or overly complicated to have an impact.

• Technology should make learning more accessible, while the strategy, values, and people needs should determine the content.

• Measuring ROI starts by defining the outcome you want before the programme begins.

• Capability building should be directly connected to where the organisation is heading.

• Adaptability, communication, curiosity, and the ability to navigate uncertainty will become increasingly important as technology and AI continue to change work.

About Jocelyn Visser

Jocelyn Visser is the founder of Compass Consultancy and a consultant with People Associates.

A self-described "people nerd", Jocelyn is passionate about demystifying people challenges and making practical HR and leadership solutions accessible to leaders and professionals. Her work focuses on solving complex people problems through practical, real-world approaches rather than theory alone. Compass Consultancy reflects her focus on helping people find direction and purpose in an increasingly busy and complex world.

She has particular expertise and interest in leadership development, learning design, capability building, coaching, and creating practical development experiences that translate into meaningful workplace behaviour.

Why This Episode Matters

Organisations continue to invest significant time and money in leadership development, yet knowledge alone rarely changes how someone leads.

This episode challenges organisations to think differently about learning by starting with strategy, identifying the behaviours and capabilities that actually matter, and giving leaders opportunities to practise and apply new skills in their real working environment.

As organisations navigate AI, changing workforce expectations, tighter development budgets, and increasing complexity, Jocelyn's approach offers a practical way to make learning more accessible, measurable, and relevant to the business.

Whether you're an HR professional, business owner, People & Culture leader, learning and development practitioner, or manager responsible for developing others, this conversation provides practical ideas for creating leadership development that actually sticks.

Resources & Links

• Compass Consultancy: https://www.compassconsultancy.co.nz/
• Connect with Jocelyn Visser on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jocelyn-visser-consultant/
• People Associates: https://www.peopleassociates.co.nz/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What makes a mediation effective, and how do you know when to fight, negotiate, or settle?

In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Emma Butcher and Angela Evans, partners at BE Employment Law, for a practical conversation about employment law, mediation, negotiation, and resolving workplace disputes.

Emma and Angela describe themselves as self-confessed law nerds, and their approach combines technical legal expertise with a strong focus on fairness, commercial judgement, and the human dynamics behind every employment relationship.

The conversation explores what good mediation preparation actually looks like, why chronology and facts matter more than a scripted opening statement, how employers can assess legal and commercial risk, and why understanding the person on the other side can completely change the strategy.

They also discuss why mediation isn't always about settling on the day. Sometimes the value lies in allowing both sides to be heard, testing positions, managing expectations, and creating the conditions for settlement later.

From private mediation and pre-mediation negotiation to AI-generated claims, settlement strategy, virtual mediation, and the concept of "unjustified disappointment", this episode offers a candid and highly practical look at what really happens behind the scenes of employment disputes.

What You'll Learn

• Why employment law requires both technical expertise and human judgement

• How fairness can remain part of the strategy even during difficult disputes

• When legal advice may be different from what a client wants to hear

• Why second opinions and competing advice can complicate employment disputes

• How AI is influencing employee claims, expectations, and negotiation positions

• Why risk analysis should include the person on the other side, not just the legal merits

• How to decide whether to fight, negotiate, or settle

• Why some clients need the mediation process before they're ready to settle

• How to prepare effectively for mediation

• Why chronology and documentation matter more than a scripted statement

• How to use different personalities and roles effectively in the mediation room

• Why managing expectations is more useful than trying to prove the other party wrong

• How the mediator can become an important part of the negotiation strategy

• Why pre-mediation offers need to be handled carefully

• When private mediation may be worth the additional cost

• Why mediation can still be valuable even when no settlement is reached on the day

• How humour, authenticity, and de-escalation can help move a dispute towards resolution

• The advantages and limitations of virtual mediation

Key Takeaways

• Employment law is technical, but employment disputes are always human.
• Fairness and commercial judgement can sit alongside strong legal advocacy.
• Being legally right does not automatically mean litigation is the best business decision.
• The most valuable legal advice often comes through risk and cost analysis, not simply explaining what the law says.
• Understanding the employee's circumstances, motivations, and likely response is an important part of dispute strategy.
• AI can reinforce people's existing positions and make disputes more entrenched before mediation even begins.
• Good mediation preparation starts with knowing the facts, chronology, and supporting documents inside and out.
• Don't overload a mediation with every possible argument. Focus on the points most likely to land.
• The employer's own voice can sometimes have more impact than lengthy legal submissions.
• Mediation is not always about reaching settlement immediately. Sometimes the process needs time to do its work.
• Any offer made before mediation may become the starting point for future negotiation.
• An unmeritorious claim can still cost significant time and money, so commercial strategy matters.
• Honesty with your lawyer or HR adviser is essential. Hidden facts usually surface eventually.
• Authenticity, humour, and de-escalation can materially change the tone of a mediation.
• Virtual mediation can be highly effective, particularly when speed and accessibility matter.

About Emma Butcher & Angela Evans

Emma Butcher and Angela Evans are partners at BE Employment Law, a specialist employment law firm they founded together in 2021 after working alongside each other for more than a decade.

Their practice is built around fairness, integrity, technical expertise, and commercially pragmatic advice.

Emma and Angela advise employers on employment law, workplace disputes, mediation, negotiation, restructuring, and complex employee relations matters.

Together, they bring a combination of deep legal knowledge and practical judgement, helping clients navigate difficult situations while balancing legal risk, business outcomes, and the human realities involved.

Why This Episode Matters

Workplace disputes are rarely as simple as right versus wrong.

Even when the legal position appears strong, leaders and HR professionals still need to consider cost, timing, relationships, organisational culture, precedent, and the likelihood of settlement.

This episode provides practical insight into how experienced employment lawyers think through those competing considerations.

Whether you're an HR professional preparing for your first mediation, a business owner dealing with a grievance, or a leader responsible for managing complex people issues, Emma and Angela offer practical guidance on preparing well, managing expectations, and making better decisions when the stakes are high.

Resources & Links

• BE Employment Law: https://belaw.co.nz/
• Connect with Emma Butcher on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-butcher-325b9037/
• Connect with Angela Evans on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-evans-a4178636/

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.