I work for the Ministry of Social Development - we help vulnerable New Zealanders and help build safe, strong families. I am a Business Analyst in our Data Warehouse team, so I help work with other parts of MSD understand what data they might need for reporting, and assist with developing plans for visualising, sharing, and storing that data. I also work with my technical team to understand our capabilities and how we can assist with automating this reporting to help MSD generate high-quality insights. This requires good communication skills including ways to explain technical details in plain language, the ability to form relationships and good documentation skills.
I also help with workflow processes; attending our quarterly MSD-wide planning and triaging ad-hoc requests that come through to my team. Being able to spot areas for improvement in how we work has led me to be able to contribute to the team by having these conversations, resulting in tangible enhancements.
In addition to my role, I also have the opportunity to work on projects that I am passionate about; learning Te Reo, upholding good data governance practices, and helping build a community for young professionals within MSD.
My mother, brother and I moved to New Zealand in 2005, venturing into the unknown where we had no existing connections before we arrived. We settled down in Tāmaki Mākaurau, where I grew up in the safe streets of the North Shore. My twin brother and I were very active in school, performing arts and sports almost every day.
My mother is a very passionate gardener and so we grew up with an appreciation of composting and the value of worm farms! This led me to lead the school’s environmental group, and subsequently apply for the opportunity to be a delegate at the Sir Peter Blake Trust’s Youth Environmental Leaders Forum in my final year of high school. I also had the privilege of being selected as an ambassador to attend the Young Blake Expedition trip to the Sub-Antarctic, these opportunities fed my passion for helping with environmental issues, spurring me on to study a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Studies and Human Geography at Victoria University of Wellington. I completed a Conjoint Degree in Commerce as well, majoring in Marketing and minoring in Economics. This enabled me to delve into topics such as consumer decision making and behavioural economics, complementing my Science degree through understanding people’s decisions in the commercial world and how that can link to their environmental decisions.
I finished my studies just as the pandemic started, and struggled to find a full-time public service job, picking up more hours in my part-time tutoring gig, making it up to full time. I decided to apply for the ARG internship as I have research skills and have always wanted to work in the public sector. I didn’t expect to be placed in a Data Warehousing team, but I came on board to do research about how to report ‘ethnicity’ and have stayed to see this through to the completion of the first phase. I started as an intern at the end of 2020, became a graduate at the start of 2021 and was promoted to a Business Analyst at the start of 2022.
Someone with a different background could definitely do my job – I did not enter the position through a traditional path. You can study information systems, computer science, business analysis, or anything technical and be able to do this job. You can be good with people and do this job. The key skills required is the ability to communicate clearly, facilitate, relationship manage, and be a liaison for the transfer of knowledge. Both soft (people) and hard (technical) skills are valuable for this role, and you can come into it from different angles – I came from the soft skills and am learning the technical skills as I go and as a part of my development plan.
I love the people I work with and the kaupapa that we uphold: manaaki tangata, manaaki whānau, helping New Zealanders to be safe, strong, and independent. I love knowing we are all working towards a common purpose, and this enables me to collaborate across teams from all over the organisation. The flexibility of my work, the ability to work on projects I am curious about, is one of the coolest things. I get to choose what I work on and this enables me to focus on the things I find the most interesting and rewarding. I also think that it is really cool that there are so many opportunities for development in my job, including learning te reo, mentoring opportunities and employee-led networks (like a club for work) that I can get involved in.
I work for the Ministry of Social Development. We help vulnerable New Zealanders and help build safe, strong families. We have a huge team of staff, all working together to achieve these goals. With such a large organisation, it can be difficult to see your impact, if you’re not working directly on the front line. So, having a strong ‘why’ and actively reminding yourself of your ‘why’ when you feel disengaged is important! And taking the time to map the work you are doing to their front-line impacts is really valuable to keep this connection. It can also be very easy to feel like a little fish in a big pond, but if you have ideas, speak up, everyone wants to keep growing and learning and becoming better as a team and organisation – so find the people who will listen and share your ideas.
Go back in time and meet yourself at university... What would you advise him or her?