A "kaitiaki of culture and leader of leaders”. That was the fitting description of Pam Roa by her team when they nominated her for CEO of the Year at this year’s Waikato Chamber of Commerce Business Awards.
Pam took home the CEO of the Year gong and the metal fabricator and manufacturing company she and husband Les founded in 1992, Longveld, took out the People and Culture Award.
And while Pam is the first to encourage her team to “step into your light”, she wasn’t so sure about entering the CEO of the Year category.
“Humility is a huge part of the culture of Longveld but I frequently remind our people that doesn’t mean hiding your light,” Pam says.
“It's our job as leaders to lift our team into a place where they can shine. Actually, that’s just our job as humans.
“I walked into a senior leadership team meeting one morning and they said ‘Pam, there’s this thing we want to do and we need you to agree to it’. We debated it. Well, I debated it. And they reminded me, you’ll have to walk your talk on this one.”
Pam readily admits agreeing to the nomination was nerve-wracking.
“It’s a vulnerable thing to do, putting yourself out there. You’re being judged by your peers. It’s other successful business leaders who are assessing you and your performance.
“But courage is one of our key values. That’s about doing the right thing even if it’s the hardest thing, and stepping up. The CEO of the Year award celebrates my team’s success as much as mine, because I didn’t get here without the people around me who have had to adjust, learn and adapt as much as I have.
“Appreciation is an important value for us too. That’s about not just respecting others, but taking it a bit further and showing genuine appreciation for things they do. So in nominating me, my team was living our values and wanting me to be recognised.”
And the judges were impressed with what they saw in Pam.
They said her passion for people and development shone through during the judging process. She impressed with her strong focus on people and values, noting that she is an articulate, knowledgeable and passionate leader who is people and future-focused.
Indeed she is. She was one of the first advocates for a four-day work week in manufacturing.
The judges commended Longveld for its remarkable transition to a four-day work week, a bold achievement in a trade-based environment.
“We started looking at a four-day work week back in 2018 when Perpetual Guardian moved to a 32-hour work week. I wondered how we could achieve that in our manufacturing environment where at the time we were essentially selling hours on the tools.
“I could see it becoming a worldwide movement, and I realised that if we didn’t make a move as an early adopter, it would eventually be done to us, which would be much more difficult. At the same time I’d been learning about Industry 4.0, and the nature of disruption and exponential change. The future of work was going to change exponentially and I wanted us to be proactive in this.”
Longveld tracked down a couple of other manufacturing companies that were operating some form of four-day work week to get ideas. Pam consulted carefully with the team about the concept.
“We surveyed everyone and 80% said an outright yes to a fourx10-hour day work week trial. 15% were happy to try it if could work around difficulties for them. Only 5% said no, and when we worked through that with them, we were able to make adjustments for them so they could also participate.”
After a seven-month trial, staff were surveyed again and there was overwhelming support to continue.
“Our aim is to lift productivity to enable more interesting work, better pay, better quality of life for less hours at work. It goes hand in hand with Industry 4.0. The four-day work week for us wasn’t on its own a silver bullet to increase productivity, but it has made the team far more flexible in how we show up for each other. Covid also helped cement that flexible mindset… a willingness to be open to new ideas and listen more to each other.
“That’s now having a big impact, and reducing work hours for the same pay is ultimately the goal. There is no doubt that is difficult in a trade environment. We need to work smarter with Industry 4.0-enabled technology to achieve this.
“One of our guys coined our Fridays off as ‘Friday MYday’. For our young dads that’s meant the choice to spend time at home, kindy or in the classroom with their littlies. For others it means getting down to Ruapehu for a ski without the crowds, or taking three-day minibreaks. There have definitely been plenty of epic Friday fishing trips and more time to be on the sidelines at Saturday sport with the whaanau.”
The intentional focus on people and culture harks all the way back to when Pam and Les first started the business in the early 90s.
“I remember seeing some unsavoury practices and being told ‘oh that’s the steel trade, that’s just how it is’. I thought ‘we can do better, we can lift the bar a bit’. And when we’ve achieved that, we’ll lift the bar a bit more.
“We’ve always had an approach of being wholehearted, another key value here. We’ve created a safe place for people to bring all of themselves to work, no matter what’s happening. We didn’t have any formal leadership training back in the day, we just kept asking ourselves ‘how would we feel in this situation? How would I be want to be treated?’.”
It was that people-first approach that caught the judges’ eyes.
The judges commended Longveld for leading through diversification, digitisation, and upskilling. “Their commitment to diversity is outstanding, fostering a culture that embraces gender and ethnic diversity, neurodiversity, and whaanau needs. Longveld’s efforts to build a diverse talent pipeline, especially by encouraging women into trades, is a standout feature. With 19 nationalities represented in the business and a 10-year partnership with trade training organisations, Longveld has reimagined workplace structures and is a true industry leader.”
And while Pam is rightly proud of the two awards, that humility quickly kicks in again when she talks about Les’ and her leadership qualities and what it means to be in business with her husband.
“Les and I are always ourselves. Who we are at home is the same as we are at work. That has been the basis… sticking to core values, having the courage to keep holding our line. What’s worked for us over 30 years in business together is that we deeply appreciate the strengths each other brings and give each other space to do what we do best.”
