Summerfruit NZ has been working with MPI on the launch of the new Opportunity Grows Here labour campaign. The campaign kicks off in September and should create a wave of interest in summerfruit industry seasonal work and careers.
This season the preferred campaign platform for horticulture job listings and vacancies will be www.picknz.co.nz
Horticulture NZ is developing new job board functionality for the PickNZ site to be ready by early September, but in the short term the Work the Seasons job listing pages are still available to employers and employees.
With this in mind, and to help you to have enough staff for the coming season, here's a list of things that you can do now to get ready:
- Get in touch with your previous employees including backpackers and students.
- Advertise future work opportunities on backpacker, student job boards/webpages or Facebook pages and PickNZ. Ask them to fill in an Expression of Interest (EoI) form and use social media so you can get back to them with updated information on your vacancies.
- Update your business's online presence – is your website attractive and accurate? Update your unique value proposition, employment page, add FAQs or a work conditions page, check your contact details, and write some good news stories to add to your social media posts during the season.
- Organise supervisory skills and/or pastoral care training for your full-time employees.
- Review your HR processes in preparation for a flood of applicants closer to the season.
- Set up automated or templated email responses to speed up your response times when it gets busy, even if you are just acknowledging that you’ve received the applications or enquiries.
- Draft some newsletter/direct email content for your potential employees outlining timings and your recruitment/employment process this coming season which you can send out as the season gets closer.