Northland Regional Council is to permanently shift to a reduced-hours-for-same-pay regime for its 332 staff after a close 5-4 vote around the council’s top table.
Achieving the same improvement in staff remuneration through salary increases would otherwise cost about $2.88 million a year, a report to the 22 September Northland Regional Council (NRC) meeting said.
That would be equivalent to an estimated 5.09 percent rates increase.
NRC’s move comes after a three-year trial that started in December 2023 and is due to expire on December 11.
The trial evaluation report by NRC people and culture manager Shane Cleary said the council introduced the trial to test whether a modest reduction in working hours could support staff wellbeing, attraction and retention while maintaining service delivery and cost neutrality for ratepayers.
Under the arrangement, full-time employees’ salaries remain unchanged while their working hours move to a 72-hour fortnight.
For about 300 staff, the move from a 75-hour to a 72-hour fortnight is equivalent to a 4.2 percent increase in their effective hourly pay and three fewer hours of work each fortnight.
But for about 30 staff who previously worked 80-hour fortnights, the move to 72 hours is equivalent to an 11.1 percent increase in their effective hourly pay and eight fewer hours of work each fortnight.
This 30-strong group is made up of NRC’s seven-member executive leadership team, 11 Kaipara Moana remediation programme employees and 12 other staff.
Cleary’s report said the reduced-hours arrangement improved NRC’s position from last to sixth among New Zealand’s 11 regional councils when pay was assessed on an hours-adjusted basis.
The report said the 72-hour fortnight was chosen instead of a four-day week to provide greater flexibility while reducing operational risk and supporting service continuity.
The trial was made permanent by a narrow 5-4 majority, with NRC chair Pita Tipene casting the deciding vote.
Tipene said the council was taking an innovative approach to balancing staff wellbeing and productivity.
“Society is changing. The 40-hour week is not necessarily the way employers and employees work anymore.
“Working patterns had particularly evolved since the Covid-19 pandemic.
“We’re trying to create a balance between staff productivity and hard work and the quality of their lives.”
He said that was being achieved while the council had delivered a zero rates increase this financial year.
Cleary said no additional staff had been required because of the reduced-hours arrangement and there had been no demonstrated reduction in service delivery.
Statutory obligations, audit requirements, reporting deadlines, governance support, consent-processing timeframes and biosecurity programme delivery continued to be met despite the reduced-hours regime, he said.
Staff turnover fell from 12.97 percent before the trial to 10.1 percent in 2025-26, while the most recent survey found employees rated their new hours structure at 4.92 out of five and 84 percent reported having a healthy work-life balance, up from 69 percent before the trial.
Tipene cast Tuesday’s deciding vote in support of councillors Jack Craw, Colin “Toss” Kitchen, Amy Macdonald and Arama Morunga, who all voted to make the regime permanent.
Councillors John Blackwell, Joe Carr, Geoff Crawford and John Hunt voted against doing so.
Crawford described the move as embarrassing at a time when some people in the community were struggling.
He said the decision was driven largely by emotion and feel-good sentiment and that information presented in support of the regime was weak on data.
Hunt argued some of the report data was outdated and questioned the need to improve NRC’s remuneration ranking when Northland had New Zealand’s lowest per capita income. He also questioned the increase in staff numbers during the trial.
In contrast, Macdonald said councillors had done significant work to understand the regime and received good evidence in its favour from management and staff.
She said the arrangement reflected modern workplace realities and allowed people to better manage their work-life balance.
Kitchen said the decision came at a time of uncertainty over Northland local government reform and acknowledged the work staff had done.
Morunga said reduced staff turnover during the trial was beneficial because it cost $60,000 to recruit a new employee.
Tipene said any future local government restructuring could affect the scheme, with a future unitary authority able to decide whether to retain it.
LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air.