OjiFS Engages with Tomorrows Workforce

Our Packaging teams attended the NZ Careers Expos in Christchurch 11-13 May and Auckland 15-17 June, engaging directly with the workforce of tomorrow.

A contingent of students, including their families, teachers, and career advisors from across 44 secondary schools in the Canterbury region and 41 in the Auckland region (plus the general public), attended the three-day expos to learn more about career opportunities available to them.

As New Zealand’s largest fibre-based packaging manufacturer, OjiFS was there to showcase our new state-of-the-art facility, Packaging Southern, at the Christchurch event, and promote the variety of Auckland-based OjiFS facilities, at the Auckland event.

The focus for our corrugated box-making facilities, Packaging Southern in Christchurch and Packaging Northern in Auckland, was on machine operator roles where we have current vacancies. These roles involve a wide variety of daily production and continuous improvement activities using the latest technology in the industry, and gaining experience in:

• Health and Safety (Risk Analysis, Behaviour Based Safety, Hazard Identification, Fire Warden)
• Fundamentals of Corrugated Box Manufacture
• Printing
• Machine Operation
• Root Cause Analysis
• Use of Hand Tools
• Preventative Maintenance Activities
• Procedure Development / Modification
• Cost / Benefit Analysis

We extended this focus at the Auckland expo to include roles at other Auckland-based sites:

1. Our Paper Bag facility, that manufactures around 100 million bags a year for the dairy, horticulture, cement, flour and sugar industries - for local and export markets.
2. Fullcircle, our nationwide paper recovery service, that integrates with our Penrose Mill for recycling back into paper grades, and in turn, back into corrugated boxes via our OjiFS Packaging facilities.

There was a fair bit of interest from curious teenagers (and their parents and teachers!) in who we are and what we do. We welcomed the opportunity to tell our sustainability story and explain how OjiFS powers the bio circular economy in New Zealand.

Our teams who attended the events thoroughly enjoyed engaging with teens, future engineers, and potential employees.

The Spin the Wheel game, made from our own corrugated cardboard and by our talented structural designers, was a huge hit - and the edible prizes went down a treat too!

Mostly, we hope we helped educate and inspire tomorrow's talent, so they can make informed decisions on subjects to study and are clearer on their career direction.

We hope to see some of those we met become valued OjiFS employees in the near future.