There seems to be only one topic of conversation among businesses at the moment – staffing!  I even learned a new term this week.  The rage quit.  When the people that are left are putting in the big hours and covering for more roles than you can imagine, enough is enough.

We met with senior Immigration officials recently in a bid to connect them to the realities of national policy setting and when processes and systems don’t support what is being offered.  There just aren’t any easy answers and I am constantly amazed at the innovative solutions businesses are coming up with to keep the doors open.

Speaking of innovative, this week I am proud to welcome Sharon Fifield to the team.  Many of you will be familiar with the dynamo that is Sharon and she is bringing her passion, connections and ideas to a new role with us, as the Head of Business Growth.  As the name implies, Sharon is going to be focused on enabling our business community to reach its potential.  Workforce, attraction, retention and development will be a key component of this, as is partnership, innovation and technology.  I am really excited to see what she will be delivering in the near future and have no doubt you will be hearing from her and seeing her soon.

While Sharon will be adding to your options of sharing your views with us, your continued support of our business confidence survey has been critical to inform our advocacy over the past couple of years.

Along with QLDC, Ignite Wanaka, The Lakes Weekly and jobfix.co.nz, we are encouraging local businesses to participate in the final quarterly Business Confidence Survey for 2022.

The more data collected enables trends to be tracked and eventually, we will be able to forecast what is to come based on the data collected over time. Please take the survey today as your input is vital and the more companies that take the survey the more robust the data will be.

We encourage one response per business and suggest business owners or senior managers complete the survey on behalf of the business.

We know your time is valuable and in recognition of this, on completing this survey you can enter the draw to win a $500 Mediaworks voucher and a bottle of Peregrine wine. Congratulations to Nomad Safaris who won the Q3 survey prize!

The survey is open from Wednesday, 9 November for all businesses in the Southern Lakes area and closes at 5 pm on Wednesday, 23 November.

Complete the Business Confidence Survey Q4.

Last, but not least, I hope to see many of you at our Annual General Meeting on Thursday, 24 November.  A chance to reflect on the year and hear from NZSki, who are kindly hosting us at Coronet Peak again from 5pm.

We will also be announcing the successful board members so please make sure when the link comes your way that you make it count.  We are fortunate to have both Jo Finnigan (St Moritz) and Hamish Walker (Premium Real Estate) re-standing but also Johnathan Chen (Remarkables Park) and Jenna Adamson (Wynn Williams).  You can find out more about them on when voting opens on Monday, 14 November.