Kāinga Ora proposing workforce changes

Formal consultation has started today that could see the removal of net 673 roles, predominantly in corporate, back-office and other support functions. Of these 195 are currently vacant.

Frontline tenancy management roles are not directly impacted by the proposed changes.

“When Kāinga Ora was established in 2019, its mandate saw it rapidly expand to deliver thousands of new social houses and urban development projects and other functions,” says Kāinga Ora Chief Executive Matt Crockett.

“That period of growth, however, was not financially sustainable. Kāinga Ora has since announced its reset and now needs to resize its workforce and renew the organisation to align to this new direction.

“Our organisation model and workforce need to reflect our new, narrower focus on managing and providing social housing in a financially sustainable way. We need to align to this tighter focus, and reduced volume of activity, while enabling more cost-effective provision of housing and support services to our tenants. Unfortunately, that means there may be job losses."

Mr Crockett confirmed that while there is proposed to be some impact in customer facing roles, including housing placement and call centre teams, this would not negatively impact on the support and services provided to tenants.

“We have carefully looked at how many people we have in these roles now, and how many people we'll need while continuing to maintain our service levels.

“I would like to reiterate the support we provide to the people and whānau in our homes will not be impacted.

“We’ll continue to respond to requests and queries promptly and the proposed changes would not slow down or affect how quickly we match people to a suitable Kāinga Ora home.

“While our people have been aware that workforce changes were coming, it has been a difficult day. Our priority now is ensuring we do everything we can over the coming weeks to support them through this process,” Mr Crockett says.

Kāinga Ora staff have from 3 April to 22 April to give their feedback on the change proposals. Decisions will be made and communicated following consideration of staff feedback, with the aim of having the resizing process completed by 30 June 2025.

The Public Service Association is being consulted. When decisions on the proposals are made, updates will be provided on the Kāinga Ora workforce change pages.

Kāinga Ora headcount numbers as of:

• 31 December 2023 – 3,514
• 31 December 2024 – 3,018
• 31 March 2025 – 2,819