August 2009

Strategic Research and Evaluation Unit

Contents

• 1 Executive summary
  • Purpose
  • Partnership
  • Approaches
  • Workplace Outcomes
  • Partnership outcomes
  • Lessons
• 2 Introduction
  • Purpose
  • Background
  • Implementation
  • Evaluation Methodology
  • Evaluation Objectives
  • Evaluation approach
  • Evaluation methods
  • Analysis
  • Report structure
• 3 Project objectives and approach
  • Partnership agreements
  • Objectives and approaches
  • Workplace selection and assessment for readiness
  • Use of WPA seven drivers of productivity within the consultancy approach
  • Workplace projects
  • Initial Assessment
  • Common areas of improvement identified by the consultant's assessments
  • Summary
• 4 Projects at the workplace
  • What worked and why?
  • Impact on improvements to productivity
  • Workplaces that experienced significant improvement
  • Business consultant effect significant
  • Direct value encouraged participation
  • Networking with other workplaces
  • Seeing the benefit of the changes made within the project timeframe
  • Building on existing knowledge on how to improve workplace productivity
  • Workplace readiness critical
  • What did not work and why?
  • Challenging to facilitate change when workplaces were not ready
  • Projects trigger for potential change
  • Change not always recognised by consultants
  • Productivity difficult to easily define/measure
  • Summary
• 5 Partnership outcomes and challenges
  • Partnership objectives and outcomes
  • Industry Training Federation (ITF)
  • Employers and Manufacturers Association (Central)(EMA)
  • Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU) and Dairy Workers Union (DWU)
  • New Zealand Master Contractors (NZMC)
  • Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Northland (NCoC)
  • Partnership challenges
  • Assessing readiness of workplaces
  • Working in partnership
  • Balancing government accountability
  • Summary
• 6 Lessons
  • Key lessons
  • Understanding the readiness of workplaces
  • Leadership underpins productivity improvement
  • Relevance of WPA Seven Drivers of Productivity
  • Seeing the benefits encourages participation
  • Partnership model effective for complex issues
  • Partnership process could be improved
  • Summary
• Appendix One: Seven Drivers of Workplace Productivity
• Appendix Two: Workplace Productivity Project Partners
• Appendix Three: Principles for each partnership
• Appendix 4: Workplace Productivity Assessment Tool (WPAT) Assessment Questions