Organisational Health and Capability

Our people are integral to our outcomes. We employ over 9,000 staff, the vast majority of whom (over 90 percent) are employed in frontline roles. These people interact with offenders every day and have the greatest opportunity to help offenders turn their lives around.

Health, safety and wellbeing

Corrections staff function every day in an exceptionally challenging environment. To enable them to undertake their work, we must prioritise health and safety, and empower our staff to take responsibility for this.

We will build on the progress we have already made through the implementation of our health and safety strategy: Everyone Safe, Every Day. We will provide strengthened health and safety leadership, ensure staff have access to the safety equipment they need to be safe, monitor operational fatigue, address physical and psychological stress among staff, and expand the wellbeing services that are available to them.

Integrity

Our staff are expected to role-model positive law-abiding behaviours and must be invulnerable to manipulation and pressure from offenders.

Our Integrity Support Team will maintain a strong focus on integrity through the promotion of an open and honest culture within Corrections, and by holding staff members to account for their actions.

Diversity

The prison population is diverse. To understand and care for these people, we must ensure that our staff can relate to and share the cultural points of view each person brings with them on their journey. This is acutely important for Māori and Pacific peoples – these groups are significantly over-represented in the criminal justice system.

Corrections will continue to actively recruit and develop a diverse base of potential candidates and existing staff. We will nurture an environment where cultural diversity is valued, women are encouraged to succeed and grow, and differences are celebrated.

Recruitment

The growing prison population has necessitated an approach to recruitment that takes into account the increasingly strained demand for custodial staff. Additionally, the challenging environment of prisons means that significant checks and a multi- step approach are required to ensure the quality of candidates.

We will continue our existing work to streamline and centralise our high-volume recruitment function to maintain the quality of candidates and make the complex process as simple as possible for them.

Development

Every day, our staff carry with them a wealth of Corrections knowledge and offender-management experience. It is important that our employees are given the opportunity to grow, develop, and demonstrate this experience on a more senior platform.

Corrections will continue providing staff with clear development pathways, encouraging secondments as a way to broaden experience, and promoting from within.