Can Kiwi companies compete in staff development?

March 6, 2017

Can Kiwi companies compete when it comes to staff development?

A new Massey University research project will measure the extent to which New Zealand firms invest in executive education – and compare this to companies in the United Kingdom and Australia.

The New Zealand Executive Education Survey 2017, which is a partnership between Massey Business School researchers and the IMNZ (Institute of Management New Zealand), is modelled on the well-known Corporate Learning Survey conducted by the Henley Business School in the United Kingdom.

The Massey and Henley business schools will share the results from their respective surveys and the Australian Institute of Management will also participate, allowing the capture of comparative data from Australia.

The survey is a first for New Zealand and Massey School of Management lead researcher Professor Jane Parker says there is very little New Zealand executive education data.

“This research area is, in many ways, exploratory in New Zealand. We want to get a sense of the scale and nature of executive education in this country but we also have some specific questions we want to explore,” she says.

“These include whether employers see staff development as an ‘optional extra’, and whether there is a link between executive education and productivity.”

Professor Parker expects New Zealand’s survey results to be influenced by the large number of small businesses here.

“We will have to wait for the results to come in but there is a marked difference to the scale of the businesses in the UK. New Zealand may show more outsourcing of the HR role by small businesses and a lower level of engagement with executive education due to the perceived cost.”

This has implications for attracting and retaining talent in New Zealand, says IMNZ chief executive Steven Naude.

“We live and work in a global environment where talent is more mobile, so it’s important for New Zealand employers to know how they compare to those overseas if they are to retain the best people,” he says. “If executives are moving to New Zealand with an expectation of continuing development, there could be frustration if those expectations are not met.”

Mr Naude says the survey results will be valuable for HR professionals operating in a fast-changing sector.

“The demands for innovative, real-time, flexible development are increasing all the time – development professionals have to deliver more with less and faster. We hope this research will not only assist Kiwi businesses to respond to these changes, but also help them to predict the next wave of expectations.”

The New Zealand Executive Education Survey 2017 will gather the perspectives of senior managers, middle managers and high flyers (those who have been identified as future leaders). The survey will be conducted by researchers from the MPOWER (Massey People, Organisation, Work and Employment Reseach) hub.

It’s key research objectives are to analyse:

• The scale and nature of executive education activity in New Zealand.
• Which organisations are offering executive education programmes, and to whom.
• What continuing development means for high flyers.
• Whether New Zealand has capability gaps.
• Whether training models are changing.
• Whether executive education has positive benefits for productivity.
• How New Zealand compares to the key labour markets of the United Kingdom and Australia.

The survey will be open until March 24 and can be accessed here: http://bit.ly/EES2017

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