The new 12.8-hectare Tauranga site is expected to be a key factor in solving the country’s Gib plasterboard shortage once it fully opens in late 2023.
About 60 people have secured jobs at Tauranga’s $400 million plasterboard manufacturing and distribution plant, with another 20 expected to be employed by Christmas.
Fletcher Building’s recruitment drive for its new Winstone Wallboards Gib factory in Tauriko has gone better than expected in a tight labour market, with the company already filling 80 per cent of about 100 jobs, including manufacturing operators, warehouse and distribution positions to maintenance and management roles.
The hunt is now on for workers to fill the remainder of dispatch operation roles next year.
In April 2022, Fletcher confirmed only about 30 per cent of its Auckland staff will relocate to its state-of-the-art, supersized Tauriko site - leaving about 70 local jobs up for grabs.
The new 12.8 hectare Tauranga site is expected to be a key factor in solving the country’s Gib plasterboard shortage once it fully opens in late 2023.
Winstone Wallboards national human resources and change manager Suliana Mailangi said the company aimed to employ about 100 people at its new Tauriko Gib plant.
“Our target was to fill 50 per cent of those roles. We are now sitting at about 80 per cent. So, we are ahead of schedule.”
Of the 100 staff, Mailangi said 30 were relocating from Auckland, with some people already there now.
“Of the new hires, approximately 14 people have started with us, and are currently in training. Some are training on-site in Tauriko, and the others are training in Auckland.”
Mailangi said people so far had been recruited from all across the region, including Pyes Pā, Tauranga, Katikati, Matamata, Rotorua, and Kawerau.
“The vast majority of people are already employed.”
The company began planning to relocate 30 per cent of its Auckland staff about 18 months ago.
It gave people a relocation support package, which enabled staff relocating to visit Tauranga and familiarise themselves with the area “well in advance” of moving. Those people were “on-track” to getting their rental properties, she said.
Tauriko manufacturing manager Leon Viret said all of about 60 manufacturing roles, including operators, team leaders, engineers, and management, had been filled. About a third of those jobs were being filled by people relocating from Auckland.
“It has been a successful campaign in a tight labour market.”
Viret put the success down to strong community engagement and working with a range of partners, including Western Bay of Plenty economic development agency Priority One, local iwi and hapū, and the Solomon Group - which offers free industry-related educational courses to support the Bay of Plenty. The group has campuses in Tauranga and Rotorua.
“They helped to give us an introduction to the community.”
Radio campaigns, recruitment drives, and word-of-mouth advertising had also helped attract people to the company, he said.
“It meant we were not short of applications.”
Viret said the new state-of-the-art local facility was a drawcard, along with “the fact that it is New Zealand-made”.
Tauriko distribution manager Pat Wilson said they were on-track to have about 80 per cent of about 50 roles in the distribution team filled by Christmas. It would start recruiting again for the remaining roles in early 2023.
“We have filled leader positions, a few operations roles... the last 20 per cent are dispatch operations roles.”
About a third of those jobs were being filled by people relocating from Auckland.
Eva Phillips has been at the company for about five weeks now after applying for the transport supervisor role.
Phillips, who lives in Mount Maunganui, said she had applied because the company appeared to have a friendly work environment. She attended training once a week at the Auckland site, driving there with colleagues in a work car supplied by the company.
“It was more about the people than the money for me... it was about going to a job that I wanted to go to every day,” she said.
“For me, it is being able to say I started at Tauriko, one of the biggest sites to ever be built. That is more than a thrill for me. When I retire, I can say I was there when it opened.”
Priority One chief executive Nigel Tutt said it has been involved with Winstone Wallboards since the company first started looking at moving from Auckland.
“While the employment market is tough at the moment, Winstone Wallboards have been successful because they have built strong local partnerships and have worked hard on their proposition as an attractive employer.
“We are looking forward to the plant opening in 2023.”
The new Tauriko facility was expected to be selling plasterboard by May 2023, and to be fully completed by September 2023.
