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offshore kiwis

A key focus for New Zealand in 2022 is to refresh and strengthen our global trade relationships, and to not only reconnect our country to the world but also the world to Aotearoa. And it is here that our offshore and returning Kiwi community should play a vital role. 

One million Kiwi live offshore. This community offers New Zealand an incredible resource of skills, knowledge, connections and experience. Harnessing the power and inspiration of this community is key to ensuring a smooth and successful recovery and navigating the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead as we work to re-energise our economy and show our trading partners we remain competitive on the world stage. 

Research shows 18% or almost a fifth of Kiwi live offshore, many of them in countries which are several months further down the track with their opening up strategies. These Kiwi have already navigated various reopening challenges and are keen to share this knowledge particularly with the business community. The recent discovery of the Covid Omicron strain is a timely reminder that the pandemic situation will continue to shift and evolve. This is yet another reminder of the huge potential to be gained from learning from the ongoing experiences of this community. 

Ganesh Nana, Chair of the New Zealand Productivity Commission – Te Kōmihana Whai Hua o Aotearoa, recently urged New Zealand to “be proactive in ensuring the distinctive skills, knowledge, experience, and connections of our offshore and returning Kiwi community are used to lift innovation, productivity, and the wellbeing of all in Aotearoa.”

Utilising the power of a country’s offshore community or diaspora, is not a new phenomenon. In fact many countries around the world are actively engaging in research on how best to leverage this growing opportunity.

The International Organisation for Migration predicts that over the next decade, governments, multilateral organizations and corporations will be drawn to the diaspora sector, with investment in it growing substantially. The sector will be seen as a “whole-of-government” issue that needs time, attention and resources. 

IOM spokesperson for Asia and the Pacific, Itayi Viriri, says diasporas have a huge potential for leading sustainable development in their countries of origin and this potential is often most evident in island nations with large diaspora communities such as New Zealand. 

“Members of a diaspora can help open doors for their country of origin politically, through public diplomacy and economically, through nostalgic trade and their own commercial activities. These opportunities would otherwise be difficult for the country to achieve due to limited visibility on the international stage, lack of connectivity due to geographic remoteness, and/or limited resources for formal diplomatic or trade promotion activities. This bridging role of diaspora communities is an invaluable resource for countries of origin, however it cannot be assumed as a given. Institutions in the country of origin must work to build and maintain the trust of their offshore community who may easily feel neglected or disconnected if there is a lack of proactive outreach.”

Across the world we can see inspiring examples of how connecting with a country’s offshore community has a positive impact on the growth and development of a nation. 

For example, the Institute for International Economics found that Koreans living in the United States have generated an increase of trade between the two countries by around 15-20%. 

The Korean Government considers offshore communities to be valuable sources of global talent and potential investment. By leveraging its overseas population with an eye towards enhancing national economic competitiveness, Korea trades more with countries where a larger number of ethnic Koreans reside. In 2017, more than 600 small and medium-sized companies in Korea signed deals with Korean entrepreneurs living overseas to further enhance Korea’s economic profile.

Further research this time into offshore Indian communities in the US further supports this economic advancement theory. Indians living and working in Silicon Valley in California, showed  27% regularly exchanged information on jobs or business opportunities and technology with people back in India. 46% had been a contact for domestic Indian business and 23% had invested their own money into Indian start-ups. 

There is no reason why New Zealand shouldn’t be able to harness similar benefits from our offshore community. Our Kea Future Aspirations Survey showed 25% of Kea’s offshore community are interested in being a brand ambassador for New Zealand, 18% are interested in New Zealand board and advisory positions and 17% are interested in giving time and mentorship to NZ businesses. The opportunities that this community presents are there for the taking. 

As we look ahead to 2022 and focus on reconnecting with the world we must make sure that we are not wasting an opportunity to harness the power of our offshore community. Next year will represent a key turning point in our battle against Covid and it is vital that we all work together to ensure the best outcomes for the productivity of all Aotearoa. 

Kāhore taku toa i te toa takitahi, he toa takitini – we cannot succeed without the support of those around us.

If you’d like to enlist the ideas, experience and networks of our offshore Kiwi to support your business, get in touch with Kea and let’s engage more of our global explorers for a more productive New Zealand. 

CONTRIBUTOR

Toni Truslove

Kea Global CEO

Kea New Zealand

Kea member


COMING HOME?

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Join the Kea community, NZ’s online home for returning Kiwis.

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Resources

We’re here to support returning Kiwi. Here’s our list of resources to help you plan your return and next steps.

READ MORE

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Filed Under: COVID-19 recovery, Global Kiwi, Kiwi coming home Tagged With: Coming Home, Covid-19, Economic Recovery, Future Aspirations Survey, Growth, offshore kiwis, opportunity

New Zealand needs to ‘work smarter, not harder’ is the implication – and an injection of smart, skilled, internationally experienced Kiwi and their capital could certainly help New Zealand improve this statistic.

But that opportunity currently hangs in the balance as thousands of talented offshore Kiwi reassess their place in the world, and if there is a better life for them ‘back home’.

The Kea Future Aspirations Survey of offshore Kiwi and those recently returned, suggests a large group of these global citizens still plan to return, but the landscape is rapidly changing.

Takutai Atrium

Sir Peter Gluckman recently said, “The window of opportunity for New Zealand to attract talent is evaporating as the developed world becomes vaccinated. Other countries, like Singapore, have moved swiftly, turning Covid-19 into opportunities to their advantage. 

“Start-up and scale-up are very different, and scale-up requires globally orientated expertise we are short in – we need to work with these returning Kiwis or risk being left behind,” he said.

A key issue for returning Kiwi is satisfactory employment.  While local businesses talk about skill shortages and a desperate need to attract international talent, our Kiwi explorers are expressing a growing disillusionment about the return home, with an issue of feeling valued front and foremost.

In fact, there is a significant mismatch between what Kiwi employers say they are offering and the experience of returnees. 

On the positive side, the report shows that 64% of Kiwi businesses are proactively seeking internationally experienced Kiwi to fill positions.

Yet, while 46% of businesses indicate international experience is highly desired and a plus, only 38% of returnees expect local businesses to fully understand and value their overseas experience.

And while local employers suggest that returnee wage expectations are too high, returnees say they’ve already discounted themselves to meet the market.

In fact, 52% of returnees indicate that they expect to earn less, or significantly less, in New Zealand – a financial set-back, coming on top of the many issues of getting through MIQ, finding somewhere to live, getting visas for partners, school for kids and more.

The ongoing call for the careful opening of borders to allow more skilled migrants essential to business and exporters, is getting louder by the day.  NZTech CEO Graeme Muller said recently there could be as many as 10,000 open tech roles in the market this month alone. Are we missing the opportunity to engage Kiwi who have, or are about to return home?

It seems that New Zealand employers are underestimating the total package that internationally trained and skilled expats present. 

Ganesh Nana, Chair of the New Zealand Productivity Commission Te Kōmihana Whai Hua o Aotearoa recently commented that: “Internationally experienced Kiwi contribute to Aotearoa through distinctive skills, knowledge, and connections that can help lift innovation and the governance of our businesses and industries. 

“We should look to capitalise on the strengths of returning and offshore Kiwis to deliver productivity lift and improvements to the wellbeing of all New Zealanders,” Nana said.

However, returnees are only half the story. The offshore Kiwi community is telling us they want to proactively contribute to New Zealand’s post-Covid recovery and ongoing success – if we give them the opportunity. The Kea report shows that of the 59% of Kiwi choosing to remain offshore, half of these are wanting to contribute to New Zealand in some meaningful way – with 18% of these interested in board and advisory positions. Their understanding of international business, the latest in technology, business processes and importantly their networks all serve to give our businesses a distinct advantage – if utilised!

The race is now on – with other nations starting to emerge from lockdown, vaccinating their populations and opening borders, the post-Covid talent grab has begun. 

With New Zealand having one of the highest offshore populations in the OECD, the time is now if we are to take the opportunity to leverage their skills, knowledge and networks.

So, more needs to be done – urgently – to engage with our most talented Kiwi explorers whether they are remaining offshore or coming home, to help them with the hurdles they face and to properly value their skills and experience for the benefit of all. 

This means as a nation we must recognise the value of our offshore population and better factor their potential into our planning and policy decisions.

It should also include: 

  • Closing the gap between returning kiwi and employers – encouraging employers to see the longer term, bigger picture implications of employing, valuing and retaining internationally experienced and skilled talent.
  • Looking further afield for board appointments, advisory positions, hard to fill roles or investment with our offshore Kiwi a great place start. A gift from the COVID-era is a new appreciation for distance working, let’s set this in motion.
  • Recognising that while the world’s borders remain closed now, the Post-Covid era will come, and with it, new opportunities and a need for fresh ideas and capital. Let’s foster our relationships with offshore Kiwi now and plan to be part of that future.

At Kea, we engage with our offshore and returning Kiwi every day. We field constant emails offering support and connection, we match offshore Kiwi with those on the ground who need them and we celebrate every successful integration we participate in.  

If you’d like to enlist the ideas, experience and networks of our offshore Kiwi to support your business, get in touch with Kea and let’s engage more of our global explorers for a more productive New Zealand. 

Click here to access the full #KeaFutureAspirations report

CONTRIBUTOR

Toni Truslove

CEO

Kea New Zealand

Kea member

COMING HOME?

Join

Join the Kea community, NZ’s online home for returning Kiwis.

READ MORE

Resources

We’re here to support returning Kiwi. Here’s our list of resources to help you plan your return and next steps.

READ MORE

Jobs

Looking for a new role in New Zealand? Visit the Kea job portal and find your next career opportunity.

READ MORE

Filed Under: COVID-19 recovery, Global Kiwi, Kiwi coming home Tagged With: Coming Home, Covid-19, Economic Recovery, economy, Future Aspirations Survey, Growth, offshore kiwis, opportunity

In the MIQ video below, hear valuable insights on:

  • How to prepare for MIQ and what to expect from the experience
  • The release of new vouchers and the availability around Christmas
  • What quarantine is like for families and how to best prepare children
  • When and how MIQ requirements might change for people who are vaccinated

A huge thank you to Mobile Relocation Principal Bridget Romanes for giving our Kea Community the opportunity to participate in the Q&A. 

For more help in planning your return to Aotearoa, see our coming home resource list here.

Watch the full webinar recording below.

Filed Under: Kiwi coming home Tagged With: Coming Home, Managed Isolation, MIQ, moving home, offshore kiwis, returning kiwi

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

Borders May Close – Minds Need Not

As a Kiwi who lived offshore for almost eight years, I relished the opportunity to build on my New Zealand based skills and perspectives. 
Operating a digital business in a highly competitive market sharpened my ability to understand audience behaviour. It taught me how to use data to drive strategy, ways to develop alternate revenue streams and importantly, how to lead teams through change.
I was beyond excited at the prospect of bringing these, often hard-learned skills home to Aotearoa to see how I might be able to help grow a company on the soil where I grew up.  

Rude awakening

Arriving home four years ago, however, proved to be a rude awakening.
I was told by more than one recruiter that my skills were irrelevant in NZ, that I should be ready to halve my salary and hope to work my way back into a leadership position over the coming years. 

This is my story, but it is also the story of so many Kiwi returning home.  
We are a passionate nation, proud of what we achieve collectively. 
We love to see companies like Xero and RocketLab on the world stage. 
Yet we are also more than a little unwelcoming of tall poppies, particularly if they come in the form of Kiwi returning home. 
For some reason we feel a sense of abandonment that they left us, and more than a dash of incredulity that in a reality-shifting moment like a global pandemic, they would want to be home amongst family, familiar faces and places. 
As a small island nation on the edge of the globe we have learnt to be self-reliant and to build things our way.
Our response to the covid-19 pandemic was also purpose-built to make the most of our natural maritime border.  

Risk of closed minds

But I sense that in the current moment we are at risk of closing our minds, as well as our borders. 
As a country we need more high value innovative companies like Soul Machines and Seequent, we need to increase our frontier firms and our productivity. 
Part of this could be achieved through driving diversity of thought and including not only cultural differences from amongst our resident population, but also the different perspectives gleaned from our whānau offshore and recently returned.
In my work with Kea, I have seen the breadth and depth of passionate thought leadership and experience within our offshore network. 
These unique global Kiwi deliver innovation in a wide range of industries, for other nations. What might it take for NZ to open our mind to what they have to offer us?  
With the country riding high in global brand perception, we have more global Kiwi than ever wanting to support the country they are so proud of – through the talent or investment of those who choose to return, or the ideas and perspectives of those who remain offshore.

Carpe Kiwi

It is up to us as a community to navigate the solution, grabbing on to the amazing opportunity that exists.
On my return to Aotearoa, I had some soul searching to do. 
I needed to rethink my skill set and find the right terms of reference to appeal to a New Zealand-based company. 
Importantly, I had to find the right way to integrate myself into its team and culture. 
Returning Kiwi would do well to do the same.
But an enormous opportunity also exists for NZ to be open to new ideas and to find ways to amplify returning Kiwi skills that might not sit in a job description. 
We need to lose the fear of being told there’s another way of doing things and be ready to embrace healthy challenges to the status quo – the impact could be far-reaching.

Open minds

While it may take a few years to improve cost of living, housing and traffic issues, the one thing every one of us can do right now, is to open our minds.
We are the employers, the policy makers, the community and the whānau who can welcome these valuable Kiwi back home.
 And for a group who largely made the call to give up their lives to return to the familiar, this emotional support could go an awfully long way to securing their ongoing loyalty and value.

CONTRIBUTOR

Toni Truslove

CEO

Kea New Zealand

Kea member

COMING HOME?

Join

Join the Kea community, NZ’s online home for returning Kiwis.

READ MORE

Resources

We’re here to support returning Kiwi. Here’s our list of resources to help you plan your return and next steps.

READ MORE

Jobs

Looking for a new role in New Zealand? Visit the Kea job portal and find your next career opportunity.

READ MORE

Filed Under: COVID-19 recovery, Global Kiwi, Kiwi coming home Tagged With: Coming Home, Covid-19, offshore kiwis

PHOTO: GETTY IMAGES

When Robert Muldoon famously quipped to a journalist that New Zealanders who migrated to Australia “raised the IQ of both countries”, his response diminished the value of those who left and reflected the indignation of those who remained.

As a nation we’ve always had a love/hate relationship with those who’ve departed (even as most of us have, at one time or another, departed). For almost 30 years there was a feeling that some of our best and brightest were abandoning us and heading to greener pastures. Those departures felt like insults directed at those who’d stayed. Whether through envy or tall poppy syndrome, we perceived that the departees earned more overseas, had greater career opportunities, travelled more, had more exposure to culture and more fun than those New Zealanders who remained.

But clearly, whatever Muldoon may have said or implied, the estimated one million New Zealanders we lost offshore were hard-working and smart. Among them were likely many of the best and most talented minds we’d ever bred, educated and trained here during our recent history.

When Kea was established in 2001, it was out of recognition that these expats, sitting just across the ocean, could provide essential human capital and the diversity of perspective New Zealand needed to build a great economy – innovative business people, tech entrepreneurs, exceptional creative talent… we just had to reach out and ask them to stay connected to NZ, to help. We did ask, and many answered.

Almost 20 years on, in the time of Covid, as many of these overseas New Zealanders now seek to return home and the country’s brain drain has reversed, they’re now finding a very mixed welcome.

That is a missed opportunity for New Zealand.

Not only are we failing to arrange a soft landing for these New Zealanders we have long lamented the loss of, they’re facing an unclear process and sometimes hostile rhetoric from the media and public – increasingly convincing them to stay away.

New Zealand has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to reap the benefits of a multitude of candidates with offshore skills, experience and perspective in a world where borders remain closed to non-citizens.  With the second largest offshore population in the OECD, New Zealand has a competitive advantage in the skills race.

In managed isolation right now (or waiting for a flight) potentially is the kind of talent established New Zealand businesses are increasingly looking offshore to recruit. Essential skills holders such as nurses, vets and diesel mechanics along with entrepreneurs, investors and technology masterminds. With closed borders, the flow of talent to those businesses will slow and potentially stunt the growth of some of our economic mainstays.

In addition to established business, more than ever New Zealand needs innovation, start-ups and investment. Looking at the bigger picture, we need to consider which industries are going to sustain New Zealand in the longer term, and what minds are needed to develop them.

We are in the process of missing an enormous opportunity to embrace the skills and perspectives needed to complement and diversify the New Zealanders’ brains already here to drive our recovery in the Covid era.

This opportunity is New Zealand’s “brain gain”. It’s about time we started proactively welcoming these people both in our attitude and the planning/infrastructure we put in place to ensure they thrive.

Kea launched its global Welcome Home Survey in August and is seeking the help of New Zealanders to forward it to their compatriots offshore. Let’s encourage our overseas friends and family members to check in with NZ, and build an essential data set to enable New Zealand to better support them.

It’s time to change the narrative and to instead say to these returning New Zealanders, “nau mai, haere mai, welcome home”.

CONTRIBUTOR

Toni Truslove

CEO

Kea New Zealand

Kea member

COMING HOME?

Join

Join the Kea community, NZ’s online home for returning Kiwis.

READ MORE

Resources

We’re here to support returning Kiwi. Here’s our list of resources to help you plan your return and next steps.

READ MORE

Jobs

Looking for a new role in New Zealand? Visit the Kea job portal and find your next career opportunity.

READ MORE

Filed Under: COVID-19 recovery, Global Kiwi, Kiwi coming home Tagged With: Coming Home, Covid-19, offshore kiwis

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