Senior Workforce Planner

Kia ora! 

The right workforce planning decisions keep an airline moving. As our next Senior Workforce Planner, you'll help shape those decisions every day. This is an opportunity to influence workforce strategy across one of New Zealand's most complex operational environments, helping ensure we have the right people, in the right place, at the right time. 

As a senior member of our Resource Planning Chapter, you'll combine strategic thinking with technical expertise to deliver workforce planning solutions that improve operational performance, enhance customer outcomes and support commercial success. You'll also help grow capability across the chapter by coaching others and leading continuous improvement. This role will be based at our Auckland Airport Campus.

In this role, you will: 

• Develop and continuously improve workforce plans that support safe, efficient and commercially sustainable airline operations. 
• Partner with cross-functional squads to deliver workforce planning initiatives quickly, effectively and with minimal operational disruption. 
• Use workforce data and analysis to provide trusted advice that influences business decisions and improves planning outcomes. 
• Evaluate workforce initiatives through robust cost-benefit analysis, identifying opportunities to improve productivity, efficiency and value. 
• Present clear insights and recommendations that enable leaders to make confident, evidence-based decisions. 
• Coach and mentor workforce planners, building technical capability and strengthening planning excellence across the chapter. 
• Lead continuous improvement initiatives that simplify processes, reduce complexity and deliver measurable business outcomes. 

Success in this role will include: 

• Delivering workforce plans that balance operational, customer and commercial priorities. 
• Influencing strategic workforce decisions through credible analysis and trusted relationships. 
• Lifting workforce planning capability across the Resource Planning Chapter through coaching, collaboration and continuous improvement. 

You'll ideally bring: 

• Extensive experience in workforce management with recognised expertise in workforce planning and solving complex planning challenges. 
• Deep knowledge of workforce management practices, including rostering, resource planning and training optimisation. 
• Experience supporting either Air resource groups, including Pilots and Cabin Crew, or Ground resource groups, including Airports or Maintenance. 
• Strong analytical capability with the ability to translate complex data into practical recommendations. 
• Strategic thinking skills, with the confidence to challenge assumptions and influence decision making. 
• Sound understanding of regulatory requirements, union agreements and workforce optimisation tools. 
• Proven experience coaching others and sharing technical expertise to build team capability. 
• Outstanding communication and stakeholder management skills, with the ability to influence leaders through trusted, evidence-based advice. 

If you bring most of this experience, along with transferable skills and the drive to grow, we'd love to hear from you. 

We want our people to live their best lives and access great benefits that support life both inside and outside work. 

• Generous Staff Travel benefits for you, with the opportunity to share travel privileges with your friends and whānau. 
• FlexiLeave, giving you the option to purchase up to four additional weeks of leave each year. 
• Ongoing learning and development opportunities that help you build your capability and grow your career. 

Take flight and apply now! 

Applications close 19th August 2026.  

At Air New Zealand, we are proudly committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and believe in creating a truly inclusive workplace where everyone can be themselves and thrive. Our people are our greatest asset – because while everything else we do in our operation can be replicated by our competitors, it is our people that truly set us apart. We are firm believers in celebrating the differences and diversity of thought our people bring to their roles. We encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds, including those with a disability, additional health and mental health needs, and/or are neurodiverse to apply for our roles.

If you have encountered any accessibility barriers and require further information or reasonable accommodations to our recruitment process, please reach out to the recruiter listed on this job advert so they are able to support you to freely participate equitably in our recruitment and selection process.

Whāia te pae tawhiti kia tata. Ko te pae tata whakamaua, kia tina.

"Seek to bring distant horizons closer. Once near, seize them and make them your reality."