Adding value to the New Zealand economy

The Cole family from South Africa holidayed in New Zealand in 2004, leading to Donald, his wife and two sons making a life-changing decision to migrate.  "We decided to move for the sake of the children," says Donald. "We needed to improve their prospects. Many young people leave South Africa as soon as they can, so we decided to take the whole family on an adventure before the boys could go off on their own one."

Donald worked in banking in South Africa for 23 years, progressing to area manager level. Recognising it wasn't realistic to apply for jobs from South Africa, the family sold up everything it had and moved.  They have no regrets. "There are lots of options for the children," says Donald.

However, his job hunt started slowly. Without a work visa, Donald's CV often never made it past the screening programmes on internet job sites.  He believes that New Zealand employers are deterred from employing new migrants by immigration requirements."Some employers might have taken me on my expertise, but couldn't be bothered going through whole immigration process," he says.

After four months of searching, Donald was employed by ASB in his current role as a business account manager. "The job advertisement included a contact person, so I followed up my CV with a phone call to get a feel for what they wanted," he says. After two interviews, he was in.

Although Donald's role is several rungs down the ladder from area manager, he sees it as a good opportunity. "It's tough to come in at a lower position because companies have other managers ready for these roles. But I really believe that good things come to those who wait." And he acknowledges that just retaining a job in financial services during the past 18 months of recession has been quite an achievement.

Faye Luxton, ASB's General Manager Employee Development, says that migrants "often see things differently and ask different questions, offering different viewpoints, which can be really valuable.

"Migrants can often provide us specialist skills that are in short supply in the New Zealand market.  For us, that's specialist IT skills, specialist risk and credit skills, and some specialist financial skills as well. 

"In New Zealand we also have many small companies, so people's roles can end up being quite generalist in nature.  Many people also move between various roles, so when we need someone with a deep knowledge of a discipline, we often don't have that knowledge readily available."

Many of ASB's migrants are from the United Kingdom and South Africa. "It's a good cultural fit for us and both countries have strong banking sectors," says Faye. "Countries with larger populations often have different ways of structuring roles and they tend to be more specialist in nature.  This can offer us specialist skills that aren't readily available here."