The SME Stream

The Reserve Bank moved to keep the OCR on hold, and it caused a stir among financial experts.

The markets had priced in a 95 percent chance that the cash rate would go up - resulting in a sharp weakening of the New Zealand dollar.

Milford Asset Management expert Remy Wisenberg explained the impacts further.

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It is fair to say the overwhelming reaction to the Reserve Bank's decision to hold the OCR was surprise and, in some cases, shock.

Everyone thought the Reserve Bank would raise the OCR. ASB says it was 95 percent priced in. Even economists who believed the OCR should be held, so as not to kill the nascent recovery, were on record saying they thought the Reserve Bank would do it anyway. They expected it to make the wrong call and hike.

And yet it didn't.

It held the Official Cash Rate.

Now let me tell you why that was the right thing to do.

Yes, inflation is at 3.7 percent, which is well outside the target band and far too high. And yes, it is probably going to go even higher, potentially reaching 4.4 percent in the next inflation data release.

But the economic recovery is still too fragile to handle a hike.

I was in the Coromandel during the long weekend and bumped into one of the local business owners on the main street. We got talking about how things were going for his business. He said this past winter had been the quietest his business had ever seen.

And that's despite the GDP growth we are experiencing as a country right now.

That's because the growth is not being felt everywhere. It is in the provinces that make their money from exporting food but in places like Auckland and the Coromandel, which rely on Aucklanders spending money they don't have, it is still tough going.

What's more, the Reserve Bank is not only worried about what's happening domestically, it's also concerned about what could happen globally.

It is worried the AI bubble might burst. There could be a war that disrupts supply chains, a spike in fuel prices beyond current levels, or further instability in bond markets.

Any one of those things could trigger a sudden downturn. If that happens, we are going to be desperate for every bit of domestic growth we can cling to.

So the Reserve Bank is pausing.

It has already put a couple of hikes under its belt and is now taking six weeks to see how those increases filter through the economy and whether the economy can withstand another hike.

Now, at the risk of sounding like a broken record, can I just say once again how refreshing it is to have a serious, uncomplicated and calm governor in charge?

She instils confidence in her decisions, even when those decisions cause surprise or shock.

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Sounds like punching down, but those paying their tax on time compete with those using unpaid tax as working capital. Garth Bray 2degrees Business wrap.

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Parts of the economy are picking up, but many shops, cafés and restaurants are still waiting for customers to return.

With Tamsyn Parker away, Business Herald reporter Tom Raynel joins Liam Dann to discuss the squeeze on household spending, changing drinking habits and the pressures facing small businesses. They explore what’s keeping customers at home, what communities lose when their local closes, and what political parties are offering business owners.

The Economy of Everything is brought to you by CMC Markets with the New Zealand Herald.

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Independent economist previews tomorrow’s OCR announcement, where a .25% rise is on the cards. Plus, do we have an issue with our exchange rate?

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Odds are on we'll get another hike to the OCR tomorrow. It's not great timing for a Coalition government trying to get elected when cost of living is the number one issue.

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Westpac forecasts an OCR 25-basis-point increase to 3%.

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With thanks to Forsyth Barr

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Today on the podcast, I speak with Sarah Meikle, founder of All India Permit Tours, a specialist travel business creating small group tours and tailor-made holidays to India.

After a long career in tourism and marketing, including 15 years with Wellington on a Plate, Sarah decided it was time for something new. With a long-standing love of India, she took the leap and turned that passion into a business of her own.

In this episode, we talk about:

✈️ Turning a lifelong passion into a viable business
💡 Knowing when it’s time for a new chapter in your career
📣 Finding customers and building trust and credibility
📱 Marketing a business when you’re the person behind everything
🙌 Going from a senior role to doing it all yourself

Sarah is a great example of someone who has taken her experience, backed herself and built a business around something she genuinely loves. And you can hear just how much she loves what she does.

Whether you’re thinking about turning a passion into a business or navigating your own next chapter, there’s plenty to take away from this conversation.

Sarah is currently in India, so it’s the perfect time to follow along at @allindiapermittours. And if India has been on your travel wish list, this episode might just be the nudge you need to start planning that trip! 

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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

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