How Auror became a finalist for Best Places to Work New Zealand 2024

Just two weeks to go until the Best Places to Work Awards 2024, which celebrate businesses that excel at delivering not only for their customers but also their employees. 

Award categories this year include diversity and inclusion, tools and tech, wellness, and community and regional impact. For a full list of finalists, see here. 

The companies were marked on eight pillars: trust in leadership, connection, environment, innovation, wellbeing, connection with team, performance and growth, and tools and tech.

Ahead of the winners being announced on September 25, Caffeine caught up with one of the finalists: crime prevention and detection intelligence platform, Auror.

“Honestly, it feels like a dream come true for our team. The Best Places to Work awards are especially meaningful,” says Auror’s Katrina Hau, Director of People Experience.  

Founded in 2012, Auror is now partnered with New Zealand’s largest supermarket and the national police to both prevent and more accurately report crime using an innovative online platform. 

Today, Auror services over 80% of the retail enterprise market in New Zealand and has expanded to Australia, the United Kingdom and North America. 

But Hau says even as it has grown from a start-up to a scale-up, it’s been a key focus for the company to not lose sight of the people driving that growth. 

Over the last few years, Auror has initiated significant changes to increase transparency and promote wellbeing. 

“We now give everyone Friday afternoons off without them needing to sacrifice full pay because we want people to have the time to do the things that they enjoy the most and have a longer weekend,” said Hau.  

Auror also implemented salary band transparency across the whole company, so current employees can see the different salary bands at various levels while prospective staff can also see them on all job ads. 

Hau says part of implementing significant change at the company requires careful communication to ensure everyone feels heard and there are avenues for feedback. 

“Communication transparency is essential, and we try to have smaller but more consistent experiences as well,” she said.

“We do regular company win sessions and quarterly awards to acknowledge and celebrate the people in the team who are doing great work. Then weekly pulse checks from the team to make sure that people are week to week clear on what their priorities are and that they have a channel to raise concern if they’re feeling uncertain.”

And while giving everyone Friday afternoons off while not reducing pay feels like an easy win from a staff perspective, it wasn’t a decision made lightly. 

“I think it’s an investment, right? With every investment decision that you make, there is potential upside, but there is also a risk that if you invest, it won’t pay off,” said Hau.

While there is robust international research showing that a 4.5 or even 4 day work week can actually improve productivity at a company, it’s understandable that there’d be scepticism from the C-suite. 

“It was hard for us to make that switch because obviously, as you expect, we’ve got a lot of understandable concerns and good questions from our board. But we decided to invest in it because we believed in what the research is telling us.” 

At the end of the day, says Hau, it comes down to trust. 

“We are against micro-management or tracking how people do that hour clocking and clocking out anyway. If we trust people to do their work, we can trust that they can get it done. They’re telling us they can get it done in 4.5 days instead of five days; why wouldn’t we try it?”

Asked why she thought Auror was a finalist this year and staff felt drawn to the company, Hau pointed to its foundational mission.

“It’s really about the alignment to our purpose as a company and the wider social impact that we want to make in the community as well. Ultimately, what we exist to do is to help reduce crime and to create safer communities.” 

The years following COVID have forced a new conversation in workplaces worldwide over, with employees questioning not just whether they want to work from home but how at home they feel at work. 

Hau says being the ‘Best Place to Work’ is more about meaning than money for employees. 

“A lot of people are attracted to us because of that wider social impact. The work here is more than just your 9 to 5 generating profit that you can’t really see the benefits of. The people that we’ve hired often give that in terms of feedback.”

“In today’s world, people are looking for something more meaningful. If I’m going to spend most of my life at work, I want to be doing something good.”

Congratulations to Auror and all the other finalists. Caffeine is excited to attend the big night and bring you coverage of the winners.   

This story is brought to you by Best Places to Work. Caffeine is a media partner for the programme, covering best practices in New Zealand start-ups, from pay transparency to diversity, equity and inclusion. Find our content here. 

‍For more information about the Best Places to Work programme, please visit https://www.bestplacestowork.nz/awards/2024