STRATEGIC WORKFORCE ADVISORY

A workforce plan that thinks beyond the next hire

For businesses competing for specialist skills, running lean on critical knowledge, or carrying real visa-expiry risk across their team.

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Most New Zealand businesses don't have a workforce strategy beyond "we'll hire someone when we need them." That works in a tight role with a deep local labour market. It doesn't work when you're competing for specialist skills, your team is one or two people deep in critical knowledge, or a significant chunk of your workforce is on visas with expiry dates.

You need a plan, not a hundred-page document, a clear, practical picture of where your team needs to be in three years.

What workforce advisory means in practice

You'll get help thinking through:

Where you need New Zealand citizens or residents, and where you genuinely need to look offshore
The visa cycle map for your existing migrant staff, who's due for renewal when, who can move to residence, who'll need to leave under stand-down rules
Salary thresholds for the visa types you rely on, and how your pay structure needs to adapt when the median wage changes (which is most years), or when new visa categories are introduced which depend on past salary levels
Whether to pay an hourly rate or a salary, and how to handle overtime in a way that doesn't break Employment Relations Act rules or visa conditions
HR systems that prove compliance, not just for the audit, but for the next Accreditation renewal
First-time employer support, if you're about to hire your first migrant, we'll walk you through what to expect before, during, and after the hire

When employers come to us

The most common scenarios we help employers work through

"We hired heavily from offshore after Covid and now a big chunk of our workforce is approaching visa expiry."

You can’t automatically replace migrant workers with other migrants — a fresh labour market test may be needed, and skill levels may have changed. Sometimes the right answer is residence applications for the existing team. Sometimes it’s a phased recruitment plan over the next two years. We’ll work out which.

"We've never hired a migrant before and we're about to."

First-time employer? We’ll walk you through Accreditation, the Job Check process, the AEWV application, and what your HR systems need to look like to keep you compliant from day one. You won’t be left to figure out the difference between ANZSCO skill levels and median wage multipliers on your own.

“Our role’s skill level matters more than we realised.”

The skill level of a role doesn’t just determine which visa your hire can get — it determines whether they can bring family, they can ever apply for residence, and which pathway they can use. Getting this wrong at the offer stage is expensive to unwind.

“Immigration NZ just changed the rules and we don’t know what it means for us.”

Policy changes hit overnight in this industry. In April 2024 Immigration NZ took their system offline in the morning, and when it came back online in the afternoon there were new rules for minimum skill and English requirements, visa duration, and who could bring family. In May 2026, INZ announced — with six days’ notice — that English language requirements would extend to skill level 3 AEWV roles, affecting around half the AEWV cohort. We help our employer clients quickly understand which staff and roles are impacted, and how they need to respond. That’s what strategic workforce advisory looks like in practice.

"We need to think about pay differently."

Salary that covers all hours worked sounds simple. In some industries and role types, it isn't. Whether you pay by the hour or by salary affects visa eligibility, overtime obligations, and your ability to demonstrate compliance. We'll help you structure it properly.

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How the engagement works

Workforce advisory works on a flexible basis, sometimes a one-off review, sometimes an ongoing retainer where we're embedded with your HR or management team. You'll get:

Current-state review

A review of your workforce and visa situation as it stands today

Three-to-five year plan

A practical plan, mapped against your actual visa cycle

Regular reviews

Quarterly or six-monthly check-ins to keep the plan current

A direct line

Straight to your adviser when something unexpected comes up

A Waikato manufacturer with around 100 staff had hired heavily from offshore after Covid, staff came in on a mix of ANZSCO codes and visa expiry dates, with a big share of the workforce approaching AEWV expiry at roughly the same time.

We mapped every visa holder's expiry and stand-down date, then split the team into groups: those who could extend, those who could move into a new role, those who could move onto a residence pathway and stay for good, and where a phased recruitment plan made more sense for the rest.

Residence applications are now under way, every Job Check and AEWV application was successful, and the employer kept the core of its skilled workforce with a clear two-year plan in place.

Find out where your workforce plan actually stands.

We'll spend 30 minutes with you mapping out where your team is now and where the pressure points will be in the next three years. No pitch, no obligation.

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