Recently, I met up with a senior leader whom I admire because of the way he practises mindfulness in his leading. The focus of our conversation was being authentic and mindful in our leadership. We agreed that a good definition of mindfulness is about being awake to and aware of what is happening to ourselves…
Have you ever asked yourself this? It is a term that is often bandied about in leadership discussions. But what does it actually mean and why is it important for HERA to talk about it? Recently, being a charismatic leader has come up in many conversations for me (and not by my initiation). It’s prompted…
Surprisingly, this appears to be the case according to research recently released. An interdisciplinary team involving researchers with backgrounds in engineering, intercultural communication, and applied linguistics from universities in the United Kingdom, Belgium, Australia, and Japan conducted the research. They analysed written materials with intercultural communication as the subject, as used in engineering education. They…
History helps us understand change. The world around us is in a constant state of change, and understanding this in society plays a pivotal role in being able to interpret the world that we see now. Up until now the history of HERA has been recorded in typical factual style. But, we believe there is much more to…
What do you ACTUALLY do? Your answer can help our industry better promote itself. There is no doubt that heavy engineering has an image problem. We’re consistently hearing how hard it is to attract and retain quality staff. Students are not choosing it as a study focus. Apprentices are hard to find. Women are not…
At HERA we have a real commitment to help our members address the challenges that are facing them. One we hear often is the skills gap which is hindering our members from delivering what’s in their pipeline – particularly as we look to the future. As a research association, it’s often hard to find a…
It’s not often you’d expect a heavy engineering research association to talk homelessness to their membership. But, having recently discovered that three homeless people were sleeping in the undercover area at the back of HERA House – here we are. The discovery led to some really challenging discussions amongst HERA House tenants on how to…
Sitting for long periods is thought to slow the metabolism, which affects the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar, blood pressure and break down body fat. This makes it a serious health and safety consideration with emerging awareness of its impacts. A range of studies show growing evidence for the serious consequences of pro-longed sitting.…
2018 has been a big year for HERA. Firstly, we had a change of leadership from Wolfgang Scholz to myself – HERA’s first ever female CEO! We also had the retirement of our longest serving employee, Peter Hayward. At the same time, we recruited two new team members; Musarrat Begum as our new Information Services…
New Zealand’s R&D and innovation performance – can we do better? The answer is yes! NZ’s expenditure on R&D is benchmarking alarmingly low. This is the key takeaway from MBIE’s recently released 2018 Research, Science and Innovation System Performance Report. But why does this matter? According to the OECD and Treasury, low R&D investment…
