At Port Taranaki growing our people is one of our most significant strategic objectives.

We aim to empower our people by giving them the opportunity to learn, grow and teach. That includes on-the-job training towards qualifications, leadership and coaching training, promoting from within and openness and transparency from management down.

Developed by our senior leaders, we have established an in-house programme called MyJournal, which gives our staff greater ownership of how they work.

“We want to encourage greater feedback from our staff,” says Port Taranaki head of HR and safety Delys Tansley. “In their own private journal they can record what they have been working on, how they are progressing and how they are feeling about work.

“From this we encourage them to take the front foot in how they work and find solutions to problems.”

Alongside this, our company is changing the mindset around management.

“We have established coaching training – a two-year development to shift the focus from managers instructing staff to managers coaching staff. Each manager gets a coach and learns how to guide rather than tell.

“We hope to produce more insight into who we are, improve engagement and have it lead to a development-based performance process.”

Providing a career pathway is behind the establishment of six new marine deckhand positions.

“We want to bring people through our company and have marine careers,” Delys says. “The deckhand crew receive on-the-job training and work towards becoming Qualified Deck Crew (QDC). From there they can upskill to be a launch master and manage the launch.”

There is also a determination to promote from within. Many of our staff have had their talents recognised and have moved up into leadership positions.

Adaptability, resilience and taking the lead are what drive us to provide world-class shipping, trade and logistics services. Our staff are leading the way.