We care for our team and treat every member as a part of our wider whanau. We are proud to have many long-term employees and employees representing multiple generations of families. As of May 2024, 20% of Hancocks staff have tenure of ten years or more, 15% have fifteen years or more, and 8% have been with the company twenty years or more. To achieve these results, we provide all staff with tools to help their health and wellbeing, and to develop personally and professionally. Our initiatives allow us to nurture our people now, while providing skills to create brighter futures.
We have a strong focus on Health & Wellbeing at Hancocks. To ensure we are helping our people live healthy lives, we provide:
- Free life insurance, with a Funeral benefit
- Free Southern Cross health insurance
- Free annual flu vaccinations
- Free annual health checks
- A smoke-free work environment
- Regular health workshops
- Free gym on-site at Te Whare Tuuranga and Christchurch
We provide access to an Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) with voluntary and confidential counselling available to all staff, free of charge.
Hancocks culture is defined by diversity and inclusion. We work to create an environment that embraces our people's individual and collective potential by fostering inclusion, collaboration, and connections. We maintain a zero-tolerance approach to Discrimination, Sexual Harassment, and Bullying, and all other forms of harassment. This is defined, made available, and agreed upon by all staff in the Hancocks Employee Handbook. All accidents/incidents, no matter how small, must be reported to managers and recorded in the risk inventory and reported monthly to the board.
At Te Whare Tuuranga, we maintain 40 m2 of gardens onsite. Our team share responsibility for planting, watering, weeding, and harvesting, and the produce is then shared with the team. In maintaining the gardens, our staff learn how easy it is to grow food at home. Our car park has also been planted with fruit trees (apples, lemons, limes, and mandarins) which will eventually provide fruit for the team to enjoy.
Te Whare Tuuranga staff receive at least six fresh eggs every fortnight (warehouse staff receive eggs one week, office staff the next) from the 96 hens kept onsite. Providing eggs saves our staff an estimated $27,000 every year collectively.
Our hens are fed and watered daily by staff and live free-range in a self-contained natural environment. Our hens are kept to the Five Freedoms Standard developed by the UK governments Farm Animal Welfare Committee (FAWC) in that they are:
- Free from thirst, hunger and malnutrition
- Free from discomfort
- Free from pain, injury and disease
- Free to express normal behaviour
- Free from fear and distress
To encourage our people to stay and progress their careers at Hancocks, we partner with Edvance Workplace Education and Training to provide Foundation education in Literacy and Numeracy for Adults for our staff. We also provide Leadership Courses to help retain and upskill our staff for leadership roles.
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We provide all expecting staff and spouses with a baby hamper delivery, full of baby essentials such as nappies, Ecostore soaps, nappy balms, shampoos and powders, nursing pads, safety first outlet plugs, wipes, and more. We have given out 23 hampers since 2020.
Te Whare Tuuranga is adjacent to Te Akitai Waiohau Iwi land with protected waterways, home to native aquatic life. All reasonable steps are taken when working outdoors to ensure the environment is not at risk, and all contractors are expected to meet our standards for environmental care. We periodically pick up litter from the street to ensure it does not enter the waterways.
Hancocks actively supports community initiatives such as:
- Supporter of Kindness Collective with organised food drives.
- Arranging Gumboot Throwing fundraising events and matching staff contributions for I Am Hope.
- Donations to Gumboot Friday.
- Eyeglass collections for Lions International Recycled Eyeglasses.
- Supporter of Movember.
- Supporter of The Breakfast Club.
- Supporter of Piha Fire Brigade & Piha Surf Lifesaving.
- Supporter of Brain Injured Children Trust.
- Te Whare Tuuranga Op-Shop: Collecting donations onsite for a sustainable swap-shop with excess sent to Pacific Islands.
- Donated to Olympic 49ers Class Association.
- Donated to the Puhoi Voluntary Fire Service.
- Donated cans of Scapgrace RTDs for the Big Brothers Big Sisters of New Zealand Fundraiser.
- Hosting the bi-annual Bosty Bash fundraiser.