The Australian Smart Communities Association (ASCA) today announced the appointment of its first full-time CEO. Laurie Patton takes on this role following an extensive career in media, IT and event management. For the past three years he has been CEO / Executive Director of Internet Australia, the NFP peak body representing the interests of Internet users.

Welcoming Mr Patton, ASCA Vice President Brook Dixon (and Chair of the ASCA Nominations Committee) said the ASCA board was keen to see the organisation increase its contribution to the promotion of smart community concepts across Australia and was committed to working with a wide range of stakeholders.

“Australia is well placed to be one of the leaders in emerging global moves to make our communities more liveable, more sustainable and more technologically empowered. We recognise the importance of putting people first – viewing things from a local perspective while also drawing on international experience,” Mr Dixon said.

“Our board and members hold significant roles in organisations committed to creating smart communities. We are keen to lead the conversation about how best to develop all our communities for the benefit of every Australian.

“Smart community interest and action is accelerating across Australia, with great leadership from the Australian Government, through the Prime Minister and Assistant Minister for Cities and Digital Transformation, Angus Taylor MP,” Mr Dixon said.

“ASCA has been working closely with the Australian Government to drive positive smart community outcomes, and we look forward to building this partnership into the future.”

Mr Patton’s immediate priority will be to engage broadly with communities, governments and businesses to ensure ASCA fulfils a central role in stimulating debate and actions designed to help our communities take full advantage of the many exciting opportunities opening up in the 21st Century.

“There’s never been a more important time for ASCA to make a contribution to the development of smart communities throughout Australia,” Mr Patton said.

“We are fast entering a digitally-enabled world full of new avenues for improving people’s lives by enhancing the places where they live and work.

“While many communities are now poised and ready to proceed, and some already on the journey, there’s clearly a need for a coordinated effort across the country that sees us collaborating and sharing our experiences as we experiment and learn. I’m looking forward to working with the ASCA board and members to ensure we make a major contribution to that effort,” Mr Patton said.

This media release was sourced from the Australian Smart Communities Association.

Does your brand need a refresh? Are you looking to rename and rebrand? Or are you starting out from scratch and need a new brand? No -matter what stage you are at – it is crucial in an era of marketing communications overload that your approach to brand development is clever and tactical.

A brand is not only your logo, it is your identity and fully encompasses who you are as an organisation at every level. Your brand is your story, your people, your key messages and your visual look and feel – it needs to quickly and consistently explain who you are, what you do and engage with your target audiences.

Therefore, with this in mind here is our best practice approach to creating a strong and powerful brand that will connect with your many diverse communities.

Step 1: Discuss, Explore and Analyse

Immerse yourself in your organisation, internally and externally, take a full look at your organisation, your history, your audience and conduct an analysis of your current brand or and current situation. Think about how you want to be perceived and write your mission, vision, values and key words that explain the personality of your organisation.

Review and discuss your industry and competitive landscape – what are other organisation’s brand like, what are their positioning statements and how is your value proposition different?.

If you already have an existing brand to refresh, conduct a brand audit across all of your corporate materials and marketing channels. Consider your presence from a key message and visual perspective – is your brand identity consistent, value focused and clear across all your marketing touch points?

Step 2: Internal and External Audit & Colour Mapping

Conduct a creative and visual review of the landscape, competitive brands and substitute offer brands Australia-wide and globally. Then preparing a visual record of how they look, what they’re doing, how they’re doing it, what they say and (where applicable) brand architectures employed. Place these visually on a colour wheel, so you can consider where your brand will fit in your industry competitive landscape.

Step 3: Name, brand story, key words and brand personality

If you are creating a new name altogether, it is only now this brainstorming should take place for this. The brand name, taglines and visuals will rely on the research that you have completed. At Zadro, we would provide our clients with a few names and tagline combinations at this point and we would also write the brand stories story for each considered name.

Your brand story is at the core of your brand, it is who you are, why you are in business, your purpose, your personality and reason to exist. Check out Zadro’s brand story for inspiration.

Step 4: Design a cohesive visual style including your logo design, brand and tagline

Now is the creative design piece of the puzzle. It is important to note that oAt Zadro, our creative team are a key part of immersed into the full brand development process from the beginning, as they needin order to understand all of the background as welland deliver the best end result. The worst thing you can do is to exclude the design from the previous steps and then just brief them at this point as it will create a ‘disconnect’ for in the identity of your brand.

At this point design your brand concepts – we usually find 3 to 4 is enough before there’s too many to choose from. Use a variety of colours, typography and icons, bringing in the taglines to each to show the options. It can also be good here to showcase a brand In in situ. What we mean by this is to design the brand on the front cover of a brochure, or a business card, etc, to show what it could would look like in a real application.

Once you have concepts, present these to a small leadership audience, however make ensure the key decision makers in your business are present and ideally allow the creative and marketing people to talk through the concepts and how they arrived at these. It is important to take the decision makers on a journey so they can make an informed decision.

Once you have the feedback, your designer can refine the logos down to one concept with colour or typography variations so you can make a final decision.

Step 5: Create a brand style guidelines and key brand collateral

Now you have your brand, you need to create guidelines around how this is to be used in your organisation and across your marketing channels. Your designer will create a brand style guide that includes use of your logo, typography, colour breakdown and guidelines on the use of your taglines and , key messages. It is good to include your brand story in the guidelines so when you implement the new brand everyone in your organisation knows how to use it and your brand is consistent across your communications.

Step 6: Develop a communications plan for the launch of your new brand

Now you have a new brand, you need to shout about it! Create and implement a launch communications plan across your website, email marketing, social media, marketing collateral or even have a launch party event.

And, finally, a lot of hard work has gone into the development and launch of your fantastic new brand, give yourself a pat-on-the-back! for launching your fabulous new brand!

This article was written by Mellanie Wulf, Creative Lead at Zadro.

All Graeme Blackford wants is a "good country chef".

Someone who is qualified but can cook a juicy steak, a good chicken meal and rustle up a few burgers.

But the Grand Tavern publican's search for a chef has moved into its fifth month with no sign of a likely candidate coming forward.

He's advertised in local and national newspapers and even has a blackboard sign outside the tavern in Te Aroha, advertising for a chef.

While there are cooks out there looking for work, no-one qualified has put their hand up.

It has meant the tavern's restaurant hasn't been able to operate.

"You can't function without a cook or a chef so we're not getting by at all, and it's starting to cost us money."

Blackford is president of the Thames branch of Hospitality New Zealand and he reckons his problem is not an isolated one.

And he's right. Hamilton restaurants were also struggling to attract top chefs while the New Zealand Restaurant Association admitted there was a skill shortage when it came to finding people willing to work in a commercial kitchen.

A search of the job website, Seek.co.nz, showed there were 26 jobs listed under the title, "chef" for the Waikato.

Pay rates ranged from $20 to $29.99 per hour while another job was listed with the rate of $35,000 to $44,999 per year.

"We [the association] had a meeting recently and talked about the lack of chefs," Blackford said.

"You can't get anyone. You look at the hospitality column of the situation vacant and it's all people looking for chefs.

"I know of a hotel in the South Island which took about 12 months to find a chef."

He thought there was a shortage of trades people across the board. Costs involved with training programmes were holding people back.

A lack of accommodation in rural towns like Te Aroha also added to the problem.

"People from the cities don't want to come into a country town, even from Hamilton.

"In Te Aroha, there's no accommodation, no where to rent."

Blackford said he had been spoilt for the past 11 years where he had been able to lease out the restaurant at the tavern to people who had "worked hard but made good money".

"With the summer coming up, we're going to miss out if we can't find anyone."

Blackford agreed there were plenty of Aucklanders moving to Te Aroha but most were retirees, and not looking for a new career challenge.

"They're people who have probably made about $500,000 or $600,000 on selling their property, and paid about $300,000 for a good house in Te Aroha.

"They've got cash in the pockets but not looking to work, they're 70-plus. You're not getting anyone in their 40s or 50s coming here."

Blackford said he was still hopeful someone suitable would answer his call for help before the summer season starts.

"We just want a qualified person who is happy to work evenings and weekends especially, that's where you're going to get most of the work."

Head hunting chefs

In Hamilton, the city's top restaurants were head-hunting chefs from each other because they couldn't find new people to fill the void.

More successful city restaurants were offering higher pay rates to retain chefs.

Lawrenson Group owns 16 restaurants and pubs in Hamilton's CBD.

Its chief executive John Lawrenson said his HR manager kept watch on recruitment websites to find new staff.

Their search showed chefs were the sixth most advertised in the country and the least responded to.

With no new qualified chefs answering advertisements, Lawrenson said there was a fair bit of work going on to lure head chefs from other restaurants.

He thought there were only about five or six good restaurants in Hamilton and about the same number of "good cafes".

"The sad reality is there's not a lot of good qualified chefs around."

Pay rates had "skyrocketed" to about $35-$45 per hour, in an attempt to keep staff.

Long hours and difficult working conditions were a few of the factors Lawrenson thought were limiting a chef's career.

"Working as a chef is hard. They work long hours prepping, work 12 to 14 hour days and we try to juggle the hours for them so they have four days on and three days off.

"Kitchens are very hot places to work in. It can get up to 30 degrees [Celsius] in the summer."

Some chefs moved into the industry in their late 20s but by their early 30s were ready to get out.

"They leave and become a rep or open up a cafe somewhere. As a result the demand for chefs continues to rise."

He believed many restaurants were considering applicants from as far as Asian to work in commercial kitchens.

Shortage of chefs

New Zealand Restaurant Association Chief Executive Marisa Bidois said chefs were on the skill shortage list for the country.

"We have done a lot of research on how difficult it is for our industry to recruit any particular position. Chef seems to be one of the most difficult," she said.

A recent NZ Restaurant Association survey found from 200 members, 65.57 per cent said it was "extremely difficult" to find a chef and 28.67 per cent said it was "difficult" to find a chef.

"We had 0.82 per cent - that's not even a whole person - who said it was easy," Bidois said.

"It's such an important issue. It's a hot topic for our industry."

Bidois also said more than 60 per cent of members stated finding a suitable candidate had increased in difficulty over the past year.

The New Zealand Restaurant Association runs a Pro Start training programme, working alongside the government to try recruit and promote the industry to unemployed people.

It's aimed toward people the association believes can make a suitable transition into the industry and offers month-long training and on-the-job experience.

The programme runs in Hamilton and Auckland.

"Our employment rate is extremely low - there are not enough people to cover submissions at the moment.

"There are great stories from people who come through the programme but it is difficult in general for employers to find the right people."

Bidois has seen small community restaurants get creative when it comes to pitching their job offers.

Businesses propose a lifestyle change, cheaper rent and a balance between work and home life, she said, but Bidois understands the difficulty.

"Through speaking with other members, they've said it can take months to find the right people, but that's not through lack of trying.

"There's been substantial growth in the hospitality and tourism industry in the last five years. It's grown a lot and grown quickly.

"All of these things are good for the industry but it puts more pressure on finding the labour."

This article was originally sourced from Stuff NZ.

Clarity around the distinctive and different roles and responsibilities of independent public servants and political staff will give the incoming government and its staff a fresh start, says Public Service Association national secretary Glenn Barclay.

The Code of Conduct for Ministerial staff, introduced by the State Services Commission today, will support political staff so they don’t overstep the mark when working with independent public servants.

"Political staff are public servants too. They deserve State Service Commission guidance around standards of integrity and conduct as much as any other group," Glenn Barclay says.

"Over the past few years it has become increasingly clear to the PSA that more tangible supports are needed to protect public servants for perceived or actual misconduct. Political advisors can be subject to pressure from a range of sources. This code will provide them with some protections as well as helping the delivery of free and frank advice.

"All public servants, whether under the State Services Code of Conduct or the Ministerial Code of Conduct, now have guidance around recognising and respecting the roles and responsibilities of their colleagues," Glenn Barclay said.

The PSA says there is space within New Zealand’s constitutional framework for political advisors to sit alongside independent public servants. But says it is critical that there are parameters around each role to protect the individuals involved as well as the integrity of our democracy.

This article was originally sourced from Scoop Politics.

Summerfruit NZ and the Meat Industry Association of New Zealand (MIA) have this week signed the Government Industry Agreement for Biosecurity Readiness and Response (GIA) Deed, joining the fight against pests and diseases that could significantly impact New Zealand’s economy.

By signing the GIA Deed, Summerfruit NZ and MIA join the fifteen other industry sectors that have agreed to work with Government, and each other, to combat the threat of an incursion of a pest or disease.

Summerfruit NZ represents the collective interests of New Zealand’s apricot, cherry, nectarine, peach and plum growers. The value of the New Zealand summerfruit industry approached $140 million for 2016-17 and is well on the way to reaching its goal of being a $250 million industry by 2035.

Tim Jones, Summerfruit NZ Chair said, “Like all horticulture industries, Summerfruit NZ faces a large number of biosecurity threats that could damage the livelihoods of our growers.”

“Biosecurity is an investment, not a cost”, said Mr Jones. “GIA creates a foundation for us to have a more informed interaction about the biosecurity system with MPI and other GIA industry partners. This includes ways biosecurity might be improved, making recommendations for improvements where required, planning for the risk of any biosecurity incursion and taking a lead role in the event of an incursion.”

These comments were endorsed by John Loughlin, MIA’s Chair. “Biosecurity is fundamentally important to the New Zealand meat industry as it underpins our reputation for producing safe, high quality product,” said Mr Loughlin.

“A large-scale biosecurity incursion like foot and mouth disease could devastate the meat sector and seriously impact the wider New Zealand economy,” he said. “The recent Mycoplasma bovis incursion in South Canterbury highlights how even a relatively unknown disease can have a big impact on the industry. Customers increasingly demand meat and pharmaceutical products that have a disease-free status – maintaining New Zealand’s unique international biosecurity status gives our industry a major advantage.”

“We look forward to working in partnership with Government and other industries to maintain and improve New Zealand’s biosecurity readiness and response.”

MIA represents New Zealand’s meat processors and exporters, and its members account for more than 99% of the meat processed in New Zealand. The meat sector exports almost $8 billion annually, and is New Zealand’s second largest export and single largest manufacturing sector.

GIA Manager Steve Rich welcomed the two new arrivals on behalf of the wider partnership, saying that the new additions are a tangible demonstration of the future of biosecurity in New Zealand. “Here you have two very different sectors, but with common interests to achieve better biosecurity, joining together to deliver better outcomes with their peer industries and Government.”

“MIA and Summerfruit NZ joining the GIA partnership means the vast majority of New Zealand’s land-based agriculture sectors are now represented in GIA, along with Government. We look forward to working with them to jointly manage biosecurity readiness and response,” said Mr Rich.

This article was originally sourced from Scoop Business.

Drug and Alcohol Practitioners’ Association Aotearoa–New Zealand (dapaanz)

The Drug and Alcohol Practitioners’ Association Aotearoa–New Zealand (dapaanz) says the government’s proposed package to deal with methamphetamine addiction in New Zealand is out of balance and shows it still has its thinking wrong on drug harm reduction.

Dapaanz Executive Director Sue Paton said it’s great to see more resources being promised to tackle methamphetamine, but that the government still seems to think it can punish the problem away.

“It’s a shame that unfortunate comments about human rights have distracted from the proposed investment into education and treatment for people addicted to methamphetamine. But it’s also a shame that more than half of the $82 million set aside ($42 million) will be spent on enforcement.

“This is out of balance with our government’s own National Drug Policy which stresses innovation, proportionality and compassion over outdated war on drugs thinking, and it’s completely out of accord with what we know works.”

Ms Paton said experts in the drug treatment sector have been telling the government for years that the best way to reduce the supply of any drug is to reduce demand for it, and the only way to do that is to support people to come off their addiction.

“Education, treatment and more rehab beds will help with that. Harsher penalties, cancelling benefits, more drug dogs and entering people’s houses without a warrant will not. Even the government’s own advisors and the police are saying we can't arrest our way out of this problem.”

Ms Paton said people with an addiction were often caught between a rock and a hard place. They want to stop, but fear coming forward because they might be treated like criminals. But when they finally do put their hands up for help they find there’s no treatment available or that they have to wait three months.

“The education and new treatment places promised will help, but will still only be scratching the surface of what needs to be done. Dapaanz would like to see much more, if not all, of that $82 million put towards treatment. It’s the only thing that will make a real difference in reducing drug harm.

“Countries like Portugal and Holland have been taking this approach in recent years and their rates of drug use, drug-related crime and their prison musters have plummeted as a result – so what drug treatment experts in New Zealand are saying has been proven overseas.”

Ms Paton says it takes courage to try something new, but that’s why our National Drug Policy talks about innovation.

“There’s a glimmer of hope in the government’s new proposal to increase education and treatment. Let’s focus on that and what the experts are saying instead of people having fewer human rights or becoming harsher as a society. Let’s stick with our National Drug Policy of innovation, proportionality and compassion because that’s what will truly work.”

This article was sourced from Scoop News. 

This important contribution to the New Zealand literature on volunteering is a report written by Volunteering New Zealand and the Department of Internal Affairs.

The report contains:

• Recommendations
• The current state of volunteering and volunteer-involving organisations
• Issues affecting volunteering in New Zealand
• The decline in volunteer hours
• Other observations about changes to the nature of volunteering
• Issues/barriers for volunteer-involving organisations and volunteers
• Issues/barriers for volunteer-involving organisations
• Issues/barriers for volunteers
• Looking to the future: possibilities for support, and other opportunities
• Proactive responses
• Better support for volunteering
• The need for Government to lead by example
• Improved Research

This article was sourced from Volunteering New Zealand.  

The 2017 Directors’ Alert was issued this month by Deloitte Global. This year’s publication is based on the need for courageous actions in the boardroom, highlighting the benefits of diversity and discussing some of the main disrupting factors that boards must address: technology, transparency, innovation and culture. The report serves as a useful tool for boards to approach these issues.

We strongly recommend you at least read the key “Q’s for directors to ask” on strategy (page 7), Culture (page 11, and the table on page 10), technology (page 19), disruption (page 23) and diversity (page 39). Click here to refer to these pages. 

The insights and challenges equally apply to profit focussed businesses and public benefit entities.

Related to the challenges facing all organisations is the generational disruption that millennials are to employers. The Deloitte Millennial Survey 2017 provides an update on how millennials view the world and work.

Last year, many millennials seemed to be planning near-term exits from their employers. But, after 12 months of political and social upheaval, those ambitions have been tempered, according to Deloitte Global’s sixth annual Millennial Survey. Young professionals now indicate they’re less likely to leave the security of their jobs, more concerned about uncertainty arising from conflict, and—especially in developed countries—not optimistic about their future prospects nor the directions their countries are going.

Next month we will cover benchmarking. As we have found that benchmarking has a very strong impact on organisation performance and also the outcomes achieved across the relevant industry. The highlighting of key differentiators in high and low performance can sometimes be surprising and definitely focus the efforts of an organisation to improve their outcomes!

For several years, we have been debating the issue of Millennials, with organisations focused on how to recruit and best manage this tech savvy, materialistic, and connected demographic. However, Generation Z – born between 1994 and 2010 – is currently entering the workforce and it is vital we understand who they are, what talents they bring, and what challenges we might face in engaging with them.

Understanding the values that Gen Z hold, and what drives them will help us to shape how our organisations meet their needs and maximize their contribution. This networking lunch topic will discuss the typical attributes we can expect of this new generation, what their likely motivations are, and how their career priorities may differ. Focusing on the psychology of young employees and how leaders might effectively influence this generation, this discussion offers insight into possible differences but importantly also highlights how they are similar to current generations.

We hope you can join us and connect with others in the industry to discuss if our organisations are ready for a changed world. To register, click on the dates below: 

Sydney - Wednesday 4 October 
Brisbane - Thursday 5 October 
Canberra - Monday 9 October 
Perth - Wednesday 11 October
Melbourne - Tuesday 24 October 

Engineering student Emily Campbell welcomes a renewed push to see more women in the male-dominated profession.

Engineers Australia recently announced a target to have women making-up 30 per cent of its 100,000 member organisation by 2020, including board members, managers, staff and volunteers.

New statistics compiled by the peak industry body showed women currently accounted for just 12 per cent of Australia's engineering workforce.

Across the three industries employing the most engineers - design, manufacturing and construction - the national pay gap favours men by as much as 22 per cent.

Ms Campbell, 23, an engineering and arts student at the Australian National University, said part of the problem was the historical perception of engineering as a man's job.

"It is a complex issue, but I think a lot of it does come down to the way we are socialised. Engineering has a bit of an image problem," she said.

"I think there are a lot of really great ideas out there to make sure have a diverse and inclusive workforce, but there's not a lot of cohesion about these things."

Engineers Australia board member Trish White said the industry needed to get better at attracting and retaining women.

"The first issue is that there is a lack of girls studying the required maths and science to become engineers in the first place," she said.

"Then we have the problem of the number of graduates that actually go into the workforce.

"We also have an issue with the number of women who remain in the profession as leaders."

Ms White worked as an engineer in the transport and communications industries before joining the Defence Science Technology Organisation and then entering the South Australian parliament.

She said engineering had come a long way since she first started in the industry, but there was still a fair bit of work to do.

"Workplaces today are much improved on when I started and had to deal with the open taunts and the open discrimination," she said.

"But, what still exists is a significant gender pay gap and a lot of workplaces lack access to flexible working arrangements, and there are still few women in senior leadership roles."

This article was sourced from Brisbane Times.