The SME Stream

Today on the podcast, I speak with Sarah Meikle, founder of All India Permit Tours, a specialist travel business creating small group tours and tailor-made holidays to India.
After a long career in tourism and marketing, including 15 years with Wellington on a Plate, Sarah decided it was time for something new. With a long-standing love of India, she took the leap and turned that passion into a business of her own.
In this episode, we talk about:
✈️ Turning a lifelong passion into a viable business
💡 Knowing when it’s time for a new chapter in your career
📣 Finding customers and building trust and credibility
📱 Marketing a business when you’re the person behind everything
🙌 Going from a senior role to doing it all yourself
Sarah is a great example of someone who has taken her experience, backed herself and built a business around something she genuinely loves. And you can hear just how much she loves what she does.
Whether you’re thinking about turning a passion into a business or navigating your own next chapter, there’s plenty to take away from this conversation.
Sarah is currently in India, so it’s the perfect time to follow along at @allindiapermittours. And if India has been on your travel wish list, this episode might just be the nudge you need to start planning that trip!
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

A job description might tell you what a role is supposed to be. It does not necessarily tell you how somebody actually lives that role.
In this episode of HR Unlocked, Lisa Oakley sits down with Dr. Deepika Jindal, Subject Group Lead for Management at the University of Auckland and Director of the Master of Business Management programme, to explore the relationship between work, identity, leadership and the changing role of HR. Deepika's research interests include job crafting and career crafting.
At the centre of the conversation is job crafting.
Deepika describes job crafting as the way people proactively shape the tasks, relationships and meaning within their roles. While a job description may be given from the top down, individuals inevitably bring their own strengths, passions and preferences to how that job is performed.
That agency can create stronger engagement and more meaningful work, but it also needs to work for the organisation. Deepika argues that managers can benefit from having job crafting conversations alongside traditional performance discussions so that individual preferences, team requirements and organisational outcomes remain aligned.
From there, Lisa and Deepika explore the wider skills required of modern HR professionals.
They discuss why knowledge alone is not enough, and why problem solving, ethical judgement, political awareness and the ability to work with incomplete information matter so much in real organisational environments. Deepika explains that HR professionals need to be comfortable with complexity and ambiguity rather than expecting every workplace issue to have a clear black-and-white solution.
The conversation also reframes organisational politics.
Rather than seeing political skill as manipulation or self-interest, Deepika describes it as the ability to understand different stakeholder interests, read the environment and influence towards an outcome that benefits both people and the organisation.
HR's position across teams, functions and leadership levels can give practitioners a valuable view of those dynamics and an opportunity to build bridges across the organisation.
The episode then moves into leadership, trust, fairness and judgement before turning to careers themselves.
Deepika challenges the idea that our identity should be tied to a particular job title. Instead, she discusses the concept of “possible selves”, recognising that careers and professional identities can continue to evolve throughout our lives.
She closes by sharing her current research into career crafting among New Zealanders aged 65 and over, examining meaningful paid and unpaid work, identity, wellbeing and how organisations might better retain the experience and capability of older workers.
What You’ll Learn
What job crafting actually means

Why most people are already crafting their jobs, whether they realise it or not

How job descriptions differ from the reality of how people perform their roles

Why agency can improve meaning, engagement and performance

How managers can introduce job crafting into performance conversations

When job crafting can create problems for teams or organisations

Why collaborative job crafting can help teams allocate work more effectively

The relationship between autonomy, engagement and job crafting

Why line manager behaviour has such a significant influence on employee experience

Why having good HR policies is not enough if managers implement them inconsistently

How organisations can balance consistency with different team contexts

Why professional development needs to be connected to individual motivation

Different ways professionals can maintain their relevance without necessarily completing another full qualification

Why practical skills matter alongside academic knowledge

Why HR professionals need to become comfortable operating in grey areas

How data, judgement and instinct can work together in workplace decision-making

The role HR can play in bridging academia, evidence, leadership and practice

Why different leaders may require different influencing approaches

How organisational politics can be viewed as a positive professional capability

What it means to “read the room”

Why listening, observing and sitting with discomfort are important leadership skills

The difference between respectful disagreement and simply being agreeable

How cognitive dissonance can affect HR practitioners and leaders

What “disagree and commit” can look like when different perspectives are genuinely considered

How HR can balance commercial requirements with human consequences

Why fairness and consistency matter so much to employee perceptions

Why good intentions do not automatically create positive employee experiences

How trust develops through consistent behaviour over time

Why technical expertise needs to be paired with people skills

How judgement develops through experience, reflection and failure

Why scenario planning and cross-functional perspectives can strengthen decision-making

Why professional identity should not be tied too tightly to a job title

What “possible selves” means for career development

How meaningful work may change later in life

Why organisations should think differently about retaining older workers

Key Takeaways
People naturally shape their jobs. Job crafting recognises that people adapt tasks, relationships and meaning to make roles more personally meaningful.

Job crafting works best when it creates a win for everyone. Individual agency still needs to align with team and organisational needs.

HR requires skills, not just knowledge. Problem solving, ethical judgement and the ability to navigate ambiguity are critical because real workplace problems rarely come with every piece of information.

Political skill does not have to mean manipulation. It can mean understanding competing interests and knowing how to influence towards a useful outcome.

Context matters. HR has a valuable organisation-wide perspective, but different functions, leaders and subcultures may require different approaches.

Judgement is learned. Experience, reflection, success, failure, information and perception all contribute to the judgement calls people make.

Fairness matters as much as intention. Employees respond not only to what leaders intended, but to what was implemented and how they experienced it.

Trust is built through consistency over time. Words alone do not create credibility. People watch what leaders repeatedly do.

Your job title is not your identity. Keeping a more flexible sense of professional identity creates room for different careers and future possibilities.

Career development does not stop at a particular age. Deepika's current work examines how people aged 65+ continue crafting meaningful careers through both paid and unpaid work.

About Dr. Deepika Jindal
Dr. Deepika Jindal is the Subject Group Lead for Management at the University of Auckland, where she teaches human resource management and related courses.
She is also Director of the Master of Business Management programme and maintains active research interests in job crafting and career crafting.
Deepika chairs HRNZ's Academic Network Committee and is a member of its Auckland Regional Network Committee. Her recognition includes HRNZ's Academic Impact Award in 2023, along with the 2025 Leadership Award and HR Person of the Year recognition discussed in the episode.
Why This Episode Matters
HR professionals operate in the space between competing interests.
They are expected to understand organisational strategy while also understanding how decisions affect people. They need evidence, but they also need judgement. They need technical capability, but they also need relationships, influence and political awareness.
Deepika's perspective brings academic research into those very practical realities.
This episode is a reminder that the future of HR will not only depend on knowing more. It will depend on becoming better at interpreting complexity, reading context, building trust and helping people find meaning in changing work.
Resources & Links
Connect with Dr. Deepika Jindal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepika-jindal/
HR Unlocked: https://linktr.ee/hrunlocked
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Could a $5,000 investment at birth help set every New Zealander up for retirement?
Nadine Higgins speaks to Fraser Whineray about his KiwiSaver 2.0 proposal, including automatic enrolment at birth, compulsory employer contributions that rise gradually over time, and bringing the self-employed into the system.
They also discuss the trade-offs around first-home withdrawals, who ultimately pays for higher contributions, and why Whineray wants KiwiSaver access protected from changes to the pension age.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

What does it really take to build a million-dollar business? And what are the lessons you only learn by actually doing it?
I've built businesses across multiple industries, from shapewear and e-commerce to haircare, beverages and education. But behind every success have been plenty of mistakes, setbacks and lessons I wish I'd known sooner.
In this episode, I'm answering six of the most common questions I get from business owners and sharing the biggest lessons I've learnt along the way.
We get into why focus is more important than having a million ideas, the traits that separate successful entrepreneurs from everyone else, how to overcome imposter syndrome and how to get the attention of people who could open doors for your business.
I also share the three signs I look for to know whether a business is actually on the right track, why making sales doesn't necessarily mean you're building a successful business, and what continues to motivate me after achieving some of my biggest financial goals.
Whether you're just starting out, struggling to grow or wondering what comes next, this episode is packed with practical advice, honest reflections and lessons you can apply to your own business today.
Ready to take your business further?
🔗 Book a free strategy call: https://www.makeithappen.org.nz/
🔔 Subscribe for weekly episodes on business, marketing, strategy and scaling.
🌐 Learn more: http://makeithappen.org.nz/
🌐 Instagram: @makeithappen
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

National's unveiled a 26 point plan for its first 100 days if re-elected.
The first pledge will be introducing KiwiSaver changes to parliament, including $15,000 for every newborn, and making the scheme compulsory.
Other promises include cutting student loan repayments, extending paid parental leave, boosting Pharmac funding for cancer medicines and capping council rates increases.
Nicola Willis says the party's been campaigning hard on these issues and voters should know what to expect.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.