The SME Stream

What happens to the future of work if half your workforce gets left behind?
In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Rose Powell, General Manager People & Capability at Vitaco Health Group, to explore what future-focused People & Culture looks like inside a complex, vertically integrated organisation.
Rose's leadership philosophy was shaped early in her career when she moved from a command-and-control manufacturing environment into the very different world of higher education. It was there that she began recognising empathy, care, and connection not as leadership weaknesses, but as strengths. That experience helped shape the servant leadership approach she continues to practise today.
At Vitaco, Rose leads People & Capability across a workforce spanning manufacturing, distribution, science, quality, sales, marketing, and corporate functions. She explains how Vitaco's Mini Business Unit model, Pillar Fundamentals, and skills matrix give manufacturing employees a structured pathway to build capability, learn end-to-end processes, progress their careers, and increase their earning potential.
The conversation also tackles a bigger question facing manufacturing: what skills should organisations be developing when technology is changing the work itself?
Rose shares her involvement in industry and vocational education, why future manufacturing workers will need a different capability mix, and why organisations also have an obligation to help their existing people become more adaptable. She discusses the value of reverse mentoring, including what Vitaco has learnt from younger interns bringing new AI knowledge and ways of working into the organisation.
For Rose, capability is more than knowing how to perform today's job. It means understanding how that job may need to be done differently and having the will to make that change happen.
That becomes particularly important with AI. Rose warns of the risk of creating a divide between employees who sit behind desks and those who don't. With many frontline employees traditionally lacking company emails, laptops, and access to the same digital tools as corporate teams, she argues that organisations need to be intentional about democratising access to technology, information, and learning.
Rose and Lisa also explore how strong cultures survive rapid growth, what constructive employer-union relationships look like, and why trust is built well before anyone reaches the bargaining table. For Rose, regular conversations with delegates and genuine relationships mean disagreement does not have to destroy trust.
What You'll Learn
How Rose's early career experiences shaped her servant leadership style

Why empathy, care, and connection can be leadership strengths

What People & Culture looks like across a complex, vertically integrated workforce

How Vitaco develops manufacturing capability through its Mini Business Unit model

How skills matrices can connect learning, career progression, and remuneration

Why capability development needs both technical and human skills

How employers and unions can collaborate on workforce development

Why traditional qualifications may not always keep pace with changing jobs

What future manufacturing employees will need to succeed

Why existing employees need support to remain adaptable as technology changes

How reverse mentoring can bring new skills into an organisation

What younger workers can teach established leaders about AI

Why capability is about more than knowing how to perform today's job

How purpose can support innovation and organisational growth

Why AI risks widening the gap between desk-based and frontline employees

How Vitaco is increasing frontline access to digital information and learning

Why organisations need to democratise access to technology

How culture can remain strong as organisations scale

Why consistency of purpose and messaging matters during rapid growth

What constructive employer-union relationships look like in practice

Why relationships with union delegates matter outside collective bargaining

How trust allows employers and unions to disagree constructively

Why People & Culture professionals need genuine commercial understanding

Why frontline leaders need more than technical expertise

How organisations can identify and develop leadership potential earlier

Why workforce planning increasingly needs to focus on capability rather than fixed job titles

Key Takeaways
Empathy, caring, and connection aren't weaknesses in leadership. For Rose, recognising those qualities as strengths fundamentally changed the way she leads.
Developing frontline capability works best when employees can clearly see how learning connects to their role, career progression, and earning potential.
Future manufacturing capability will look different as automation, data, new systems, and AI change the nature of work.
Organisations have a responsibility to develop the people they already employ, not simply recruit different skills when technology changes.
Reverse mentoring gives organisations an opportunity to learn from younger employees who may already be highly comfortable with emerging technologies.
For Rose, capability is a combination of knowing how to do the job, understanding how it might need to be done differently, and having the will to make that happen.
AI capability cannot be limited to employees with laptops and company emails. Otherwise, organisations risk creating a new workforce divide.
Modernising only part of the workforce limits both organisational performance and future talent pipelines.
Giving frontline employees greater digital access can improve their ability to access business information, learning platforms, and their own information.
Strong organisational cultures require consistency as businesses grow. People need to continue understanding the organisation's purpose and what makes it distinctive.
Constructive union relationships are built outside bargaining. Frequent dialogue and genuine relationships with delegates create a stronger foundation when disagreement occurs.
Trust doesn't require agreement. It requires consistency, legitimacy, and relationships strong enough to withstand disagreement.
People & Culture professionals need to understand how their organisation actually operates, creates value, and makes money.
Technical excellence doesn't automatically translate into great people leadership. Frontline leaders need support to build confidence and people capability.
Future workforce planning needs to consider capabilities as much as job titles because organisations cannot know exactly what every role will look like in the years ahead.
People want to understand why change is happening, have a voice in it, and know their contribution matters.
About Rose Powell
Rose Powell is General Manager People & Capability at Vitaco Health Group, where she leads the People & Capability framework supporting a vertically integrated Trans-Tasman workforce across manufacturing, distribution, science, quality, sales, marketing, and corporate functions.
Her work focuses on aligning workforce capability with organisational growth, developing future skills, strengthening leadership, and creating practical pathways for employees to build their careers.
Rose brings extensive experience across manufacturing, higher education, and complex workforce environments. Her leadership philosophy is strongly influenced by servant leadership and a belief in growing others, building relationships, and creating opportunities for people to succeed.
She is also actively involved in conversations around vocational learning and the future skills needed by New Zealand's manufacturing and food and beverage sectors.
Why This Episode Matters
The future of work isn't only happening in offices.
As AI, automation, data, and digital systems reshape organisations, one of the biggest workforce challenges will be ensuring frontline and non-desk employees have access to the same opportunities to learn, adapt, and remain relevant.
Rose offers a practical view of what that looks like inside a large manufacturing environment, from structured capability pathways and digital access to reverse mentoring, vocational education, leadership development, and constructive relationships with unions.
Her perspective also challenges organisations to think beyond simply recruiting the skills they'll need next. Future readiness means investing in the people already inside the organisation and creating the conditions for them to evolve alongside the work.
For HR and People & Culture professionals, executives, manufacturing leaders, operational managers, and anyone thinking about AI and workforce transformation, this conversation offers practical ideas for building capability without leaving people behind.
Resources & Links
Vitaco Health Group: https://vitaco.co.nz/
Connect with Rose Powell on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-powell-9a00728/
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ACT Leader David Seymour discusses fiscal plan and tax cuts.
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The National Party has confirmed it doesn't have a firm policy on the Super age this election.
It's campaigned in the past on gradually raising entitlement to 67 - which is still the position.
But it isn't part of the Party's fiscal plan, out today.
Finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis says there needs to be consensus.
She told Heather du Plessis-Allan she can't dance alone - and when she invited other parties to the dance floor, they chose to play politics.
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National claims it has a credible path for paying down the country's debt.
The party plans to keep the Budget operating allowance at $2.4 billion —matching Labour's— and return to surplus in two years.
It would cut foreign aid and welfare spending to fund its election commitments, with $7.5 billion left over.
Tax cuts are off the table until New Zealand's in the black.
Finance Spokesperson Nicola Willis told Mike Hosking New Zealanders care about dealing with debt.
She says everyone understands that if a household's debt mountain is out of control, you go into a debt spiral, and it's no different for a country.
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Well, it looks like a matter of when, not if, given that Barbara Edmonds and Nicola Willis, Finance Minister and Finance spokesperson respectively, were appearing on Jack Tame's Q&A yesterday, and they've agreed they'll work together on the future of superannuation in this country.
This is Nicola Willis:
"We can afford superannuation right now, but in the future the settings are going to have to change in order to ensure that it's sustainable and that every Kiwi knows that they can rely on the government to support them in their retirement. If we don't make changes, we are going to end up in a situation where we can't foot that bill. So what National has said for a couple of elections now, is let's come together and agree on a date in the future when we will start progressively, modestly increasing the age of eligibility in a way that is predictable and fair on New Zealanders, so that younger generations coming through don't miss out on the entitlement that people today are getting. And we have called on Labour to work with us on that, to do this in a way that's open, honest, transparent and fair."
And Barbara Edmonds, Labour's finance spokesperson, said absolutely, they're more than happy to have an accord, but they want to look at the wider issues around superannuation:
"Well, ultimately it comes down to the full retirement system. The conversation with New Zealanders needs to be what is KiwiSaver, when you have these large sums of money, what does that decumulation framework look like as people start to spend that money? What does universal super look like when contributions are being stopped by Governments? How do we stop that flip flop? How does housing, what does housing look like for our aged care? Is that part of that wider aged care system? Is it retirement homes? Are we building sufficient social housing to meet that need? So that conversation around universal super needs to happen within the wider conversation around the retirement system as a whole. What do Kiwis expect when they go to retire, young and old right now, and how do we get there?"
So big questions, but the agreement was around an accord to sit down together and work out, thrash out when and how the age of universal super will be raised. And ACT has always said they want to raise the superannuation age by three months every year, put contributions to the New Zealand Super Fund on hold, and they would include compassionate access for those who'd spent a substantial portion of their career in physically demanding jobs.
David Seymour spoke to Tim Beverage on Newstalk ZB yesterday:
"People are living much longer and having far fewer children. That means that the number of taxpayers per retiree is going down. Every other country is raising its age of entitlement to superannuation. And I know there's people who will try and get a few votes by saying, oh that guy's wrong, vote for me, we'll keep it all the same. I don't think that that is putting New Zealand's long term interests first. I think it's important that we make the adjustment, but we do it slowly so people can plan for it. It goes from 65 to 67 it affects no one that's already retired, and we do a few other things."
So National, Labour, ACT, all in agreement that the age of entitlement needs to go up, and it's just ironing out the finer points. I still don't understand why we would be giving superannuation to people who do not need it.
On the 1st of November 1898 New Zealand was the first in the world to give an old age pension, which we call the Super these days. There was stringent criteria, including open court hearings to attest that you were of good moral character before you could receive it. How many of the old rockers would pass that now, I wonder to myself? Myself included.
Through the Social Security Act in 1938 a two tier public pension system was introduced, and that lasted up until the 1970s, and then New Zealand Super became the Super that we have today, that Super's been around for more than 50 years without any kind of changes, which seems bizarre.
So in the beginning we had means testing and open court hearings for good moral character. I think we'll do away with those, thinking purely of myself here, I don't think we need to go through those.
In the 1930s, they changed it to a Super, but there was also means testing as well. In the 1970s it was just universal, didn't matter if you were a billionaire or not, you got the Super. Benefits and taxpayer funded payments these days tend to go to people who need them, other than Super. That just goes to everybody.
I'd love to hear from those of you 60 and under, because this is who it's really going to affect. All of you over 60 you don't have to worry. If it goes up as of the next Government, it'll be three months at a time, it's neither here nor there really.
But for those 60 and under, this is who it's really going to affect. Super in the future as far as I'm concerned would look like it does in Australia. 67 means and asset tested, and a resident of the country.
And like ACT, I think there should be the ability to get the Super early if you're in a truly physical job where your body's breaking down, or a really high stress job where you're exposed to all sorts of trauma, like a frontline responder or something like that.
But hopefully by the time somebody who's working now, who's 35 gets to 67 they'll have a good healthy sum locked away in their KiwiSaver. Hopefully they'll have their own house because you'll be able to buy one at a good price around about now. And then the super will be there as a backup, but if you need it.
Take it back to the future, take it back to how it was originally intended, so that it was mainly for single men, because in the olden days they believed that family should look after you. If you were a single man, you were stuffed once you got old and couldn't work anymore, so it was primarily for the single men who didn't have family that could take them in.
But keep it for those who need it, the same way that we give the dole to those who need it while they're looking for work in an ideal world, the sickness benefit, disability benefit, working for families benefit, for those people who need it. Not just holus bolus as a little yay for you, you survived to 65.
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