As 2025 Comes to a Close — A Year of Steady, Practical Progress
As the year wraps up, we’ve been reflecting on the conversations, challenges, and wins we’ve shared with NZSDA members in 2025. Once again, it’s been a privilege to support the people behind the signs.
Across the industry, we’ve continued to see familiar themes: recruitment pressures, retention questions, and the never-ending juggle of managing day-to-day operations while staying compliant and people-focused. But alongside those challenges, there’s been real momentum building.
This year has shown a noticeable shift toward intentional people practices, clearer job descriptions, better onboarding, more structured performance reviews, and a growing focus on developing leaders at every level. Members are seeing the value in working proactively rather than reactively with their people, and it’s leading to stronger teams, less friction, and far more confidence.
More sign businesses are taking time to step back and ask important questions:
- Is everyone clear about their role and responsibilities?
- Do we have the right people in the right seats?
- Do our managers feel confident having tough but necessary conversations?
- Are we setting people up to succeed from day one?
And encouragingly, we’re seeing real improvements where clarity, communication, and structure have been put in place. Small changes, like consistent onboarding checklists, regular catchups, or updated role descriptions, have made a big difference.
Looking ahead, 2026 is shaping up to be a year where capability building becomes a strategic advantage, not a nice-to-have. This is where our new leadership brand, Growth Sprint, will keep supporting members with practical, straight-forward development tools for managers who are busy, hands-on, and want to lead well without overcomplicating things.
Thank you again for all your support. Wishing you a safe, restful break and a positive start to 2026. We look forward to continuing the journey with you in the new year.
Ngā mihi,
The Network HR Team
