Perspectives on Pacific workers feeling undervalued Continuing the theme of specialist skills commanding a premium, employers’ perspectives generally differed from those of Pacific workers concerning their value. Employers identified different drivers for what Pacific workers experienced as being undervalued. Some employers commented, for example, that it can be difficult to motivate Pacific workers to progress into more senior roles. One employer in the manufacturing industry said: [Pacific workers] will do the same job for 20 years and be really happy with that as well. And so, our challenge is to drive people into doing other things and putting their hand up and asking for something more … I think we do say, “Look, come across here and learn this new skill or come and do this.” They just don’t want to, and there’s a high proportion here who like coming to work, and I think it’s possibly coming to work and there’s a comfortable level in working with the same people. So they form bonds. “I don’t want to work somewhere that my mate’s not working, and I like going to that part of factory floor because I can chat to my guys, and we listen to music and whatever.” I think there’s a little bit of that. It’s not all, it’s probably 30 percent of the guys are really resistant to it. A lot of them will do it if we ask nicely, but if it’s not a permanent move into a high position, it usually comes back to where my comfort levels are, where my mates are where I like coming to work. They also identified how some values can work against Pacific workers, singling out loyalty in particular. This could mean that workers were missing out on the opportunity to gain more-diverse experience and command higher wages: The problem is they don’t move, and because they don’t move, at the moment the way to get a big pay increase is to leave the company you’re with and go somewhere else and go out onto the open market and compete with those immigration guys. Whilst the loyalty’s really great for us it’s actually not so great for them at the moment because they’re not using their feet to move and get the big pay increases. I suspect this bubble’s going to burst, a lot of these big wages. Especially in our sector at the moment, we’re competing in a space where we’re bringing people on as full-time 92 permanent employees but we’re competing in a market at the moment where we’re competing with construction companies that are taking people on short-term contracts. They can pay $40 an hour, and all they’ll do is, once the borders open, they’ll just turn the contract off, and you’re coming back in at 30 bucks. For us, we don’t want to overinflate because you’re a permanent employee, so we’re trying to bring you on at a market rate, and it’s really difficult. Our market data versus the reality of the employment sector and managing that and not overinflating our salary, because we know as soon as those borders open we’ll get a whole lot of new workers in, and those construction companies will turn down their rates, but we’ll be left with these high rates because we bring on permanent employees. Encouraging people into leadership positions was identified as a particular challenge by one employer: Then there’s the leadership skills. I think what we ask of our leaders potentially they may think I just don’t want to be bothered with it. So for things like going through discipline processes or having a conversation about health and safety, that may turn a lot of people off and just think I just want to be a worker and talk to my peers, but I don’t want to put my head up and do that. It is interesting, and because we do look at our pay matrices, and you do have to ask a question about why guys have been here 30 years. It’s still relatively well paid. They’re not at a 115 percent of the band or anything like that, but it tends to be that they just do the same role every day, and when you talk to them, “Do you want to do something else?” “No, quite happy.” Now whether they just don’t have the confidence to stand up and want to do it or not. One employer did recognise the value that Pacific workers add to the workplace and noted that employers could do more to draw on their strengths and talents: Despite all of those things, the five Māori women and five Pasifika women and then the men that are having all of the flavours of Te Moana-Nui-aKiwa in my workplace – wow, they’ve got range, because they can come in to my workplaces and, you know, the rate at which they have to tone