By Beth Caunter
The RBA warmly welcomes global organisation Schindler Lifts to their new location on Rosebank Road.
Founded in Switzerland in 1874, Schindler Lifts provides expert manufacturing, installation, and maintenance of elevators, escalators and moving walkways. The company, which operates in over 140 countries around the world with a team of over 70,000 people, came to New Zealand in 1989. The Schindler team here takes pride in providing safe, seamless, and reliable urban mobility solutions to businesses in every corner of New Zealand.
“We install, modernise, and maintain lifts and escalators right across the country,” says Marketing and Communication Officer Alana Brenan. “This year we are celebrating our 35th birthday here in New Zealand, so it is great timing for us to move to a new home. The move to Rosebank signals an exciting change in our journey within New Zealand; we are looking to forward to building on our success and getting involved in the community. We want to make sure that we’re supporting local businesses.”
Schindler Lifts’ new location on Rosebank Road has been a long time coming. The business had been operating from Nugent Street in Grafton for the past 30 years and had “massively outgrown the space,” says Alana.
Schindler’s new location will be the head office and base for their northern region operations. The workplace will have over 100 employees, with a mix of head office staff, technicians, installers, commissioners, and technical specialists. Alana says that having a multi-functional space big enough to accommodate their warehousing and training needs is the biggest advantage for the organisation.
“Our new headquarters has been designed in line with Schindler’s vision of elevating lives in urban environments. Our products are manufactured overseas and shipped to New Zealand, and our impressive warehouse will enable us to plan and improve customer experience.”
Another important element of the space are the training facilities to upskill their teams and partners. Schindler is deeply committed to training their team to an exceptionally high level of competence in all things technical and safety related.
“Inside our warehouse, we have what we call a training tower, which is a fully operational, two-stop lift that our apprentices, technicians, and installers use for training purposes,” describes Alana. “If we have new installation techniques or new parts coming in for different factors of a lift, we use the training tower to prepare our team before going out onsite. We also have a range of different simulators that allow our frontline staff to simulate work in a real environment. This allows them to get trained in fault finding, new services or technical innovations and technology”.
Incoming talent also benefit from Schindler’s dedication to developing their people. Ten percent of Schindler’s New Zealand workforce is apprentices, and the company’s four-year apprenticeship programme not only includes Schindler’s particular training and qualification in service and installation, but also the ability to earn certification as a New Zealand registered electrician. Schindler is the only lift company in New Zealand to provide this.
The Schindler team here in New Zealand, which Alana is proud to describe as culturally diverse, also benefits from incredible career opportunities afforded by the global reach of Schindler Group.
“In New Zealand, we’ve put a big emphasis on providing our people with opportunities to move into different roles throughout the business, and this also means that we have a lot of international opportunities. Our people can travel overseas and get experience within other Schindler countries, but also vice versa — people can come to New Zealand and get experience here.”
“People development is at the core of who we are and what makes us an attractive employer,” she adds. “If you’re in an office-based role and you wanted to get some exposure to what it would be like working in the frontline, our teams will arrange for you to go out on site and do what we call ‘ride alongs,’ where you can spend a day in the life of a technician. Or if you wanted to move from a human resources role into a finance role, our management team would facilitate those opportunities for you.”
Schindler is also proud to find unique ways to engage with and give back to the community around them. Alana says that the Schindler team sees their emphasis on safety as a key part of their positive impact.
“Safety doesn’t just mean the safety of how a lift or escalator operates,” she says. “It also means the safety of our passengers and the community who need vertical transport to access their homes, families, and day-to-day needs. We’re improving the quality of life for the communities in which we live and work.”
Schindler’s training tower also has a unique benefit for the community.
“We offer the Fire and Emergency department in Auckland the ability to come in and do training on our training tower. Our Training Manager, Eric Ryda, will spend a couple of hours with fire crews, taking them through the process of how lifts operate and how to get people safely out in the event of an entrapment. “
With Schindler’s strong commitment to people, both their own and in the community, it’s no surprise that what Alana enjoys most about her job is engaging with the people around her.
“Our business is in all corners of New Zealand, and that gives us the opportunity to talk to different customers and understand their building transportation needs.”
“We have such a diverse range of people within the business with really different skills,” she adds. “From head office to technical teams, we are all committed to keeping people moving. That is an amazing mission to work towards.”
To find out more about Schindler Lifts, visit www.schindler.co.nz or get in touch by phoning 0800 724 463.