Why work with us

Flexible working

Whānau Āwhina Plunket is committed to promoting your well-being and ensuring you have a great work-life balance.

Depending on the nature of the role and using an ‘if not, why not’ approach, you can discuss a few of the flexibility options below:

• FlexiSCHEDULE – flexible start and finish times, or taking time out during the day to attend to personal matters and catching up later; part-time arrangements (including for leadership) or a compressed week (longer hours over a 4-day week or 9-day fortnight).
• FlexiPLACE – requests to work remotely from another office, home or location, either regularly or from time to time
• FlexiROLE – opportunities for job sharing, cross-functional roles, or phased return to work (e.g. after injury or parental leave) or phased retirement 
• FlexiLEAVE – extended periods of leave and other types of leave such as study leave.

The nature of frontline care and whānau-facing roles means some of these options may not be suitable. However, for our frontline nursing and client-facing roles (aside from PlunketLine), mahi is predominantly Monday – Friday, ensuring you have the weekends and nights to do what is important to you.

Enhanced Parental Leave

Our mission is to give every New Zealand child the best possible start. Ensuring our kaimahi (employees) have less financial stress while getting to know a new addition is another way we contribute to this. We offer the following for primary carers who have worked for us for over 6 months:

• We do a combination of topping up the IRD parental leave payment and lump sum payment upon returning to work to ensure you receive the equivalent of 16-18 weeks of your standard pay
• Upon your return the annual leave accrued while on parental leave will continue to be paid at your ordinary standard rate of pay
• We also offer practical support like a phased return to work, to help your whānau get into a rhythm and find a healthy balance.

Milestone Leave Top-Ups

We’re lucky to have many kaimahi who choose to stay and build a career here. As a part of rewarding that loyalty and dedication, after five years we increase your annual leave entitlement, and also give long service leave to recognise significant work anniversaries.

Our pro-equity journey is aimed at delivering better care to groups who statistically experience significantly poorer health outcomes and/or additional barriers to receiving safe and responsive care.

This includes whānau Māori, Pacific People, Migrants and Refugees, Asian whānau, Rural Communities, Tāngata Whaiakaha (Disabled People), young parents and rainbow whānau.

We recognise kaimahi may belong to one or many of these groups, and we’re eager to ensure the lived experience is not only respected but is weaved into our journey to deliver better care.

To do this, we’ve started to develop communities of interest and support where kaimahi can come together to share and feed into our strategic direction. Currently we have Māori, Pasifika and Asian kaimahi networks.

Kaimahi at our in-person Pacific Fono

As a Te Tiriti o Waitangi partner, we are committed to celebrating Māori culture and continuing to build the cultural competency of all kaimahi. We do this in a number of ways including: 

• online karakia sessions twice a week
• weekly 'Te Mahere Reo' sessions to grow confidence in using te reo rangatira at mahi
• celebrating Matariki, Koroneihana, Waitangi Day, Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori, Mahuru Māori and Te Matatini.

Support for kaimahi Māori

Kaimahi Māori are key to us successfully delivering culturally safe care and better outcomes for Māori whānau. In return, we have ensured we provide wairua nourishing and professional development opportunities such as:

• Hui-ā-tau: annual wānanga for kaimahi Māori focused on elevating lived experience to inform organisational initiatives and implementation of Te Rautaki Māori – Nga Pae o te Harakeke and Te Mahere Mana Taurite – The Equity Roadmap 
• Hui Whakarauora: regional hui for mātauranga sharing and professional growth
• Ngā Pou Hihiri: our team of Māori advisors who strengthen cultural fluency and provide input into future initiatives and current practice.

Supporting your wellbeing at work is important to Whānau Āwhina Plunket. We believe wellbeing is not just an add-on; it’s a fundamental necessity for a thriving workforce.

We want to ensure all kaimahi have the tools, support and the workplace culture to empower them to do their best mahi for the communities we serve.

In order to ensure wellbeing is embedding into our culture, we have a Wellbeing  group made up of kaimahi from all across the organisation who meet quarterly to discuss our wellbeing plan and initiatives to help promote and ensure wellbeing is a key part of our mahi.

We also have several staff benefits to support your Mental and Physical Wellbeing:

• Fitness Passport: opt into receive unlimited access across an extensive choice of fitness facilities
• A well health day: take a planned day off deducted from your sick leave balance to use for any reason related to your self-care or to enhance your well-being
• Internal library of digital resources, including webinars, recipes and articles
• Free annual flu shot
• Access to our EAP programme which includes
  • Rongoā Māori support
  • Counselling
  • Financial, legal and career guidance

Our kaimahi get access to a number of discounts including:

• Childcare (Plunket kaimahi who enroll their tamariki with BestStart are entitled to 15% off their fees)
• Insurance
• Wills
• Holiday homes
• Rental cars
• with our retail partners, including Resene & JB Hi-Fi.

As a large national organisation, there are a lot of options to grow your career here. All our positions are listed internally and as an existing kaimahi, you’ll have the benefit of existing relationships and business knowledge

All kaimahi have access to our Professional Development Fund, where you can apply to have formal study, workshops, seminars and other personal and professional development funded.

Training and Professional Development Recognition Programme

As well as our funded postgraduate certificate for nurses and certificate for Kaiāwhina and Karitane, we also offer Professional Development Recognition Programme (PDRP) for both nurses and health workers. This is an NZNO recognised, clinically focused competency-based programme that recognises and rewards clinical excellence, with some financial benefits associated at higher levels.

Career options as a nurse

Being a nursing-led organisation creates a number of avenues for Registered Nurses to grow and expand your career, including leadership, education and specialist advisory positions.

You can browse our current vacancies and apply online on our careers website.

View current vacancies