ABOUT OSTIX
ABOUT OSTIX
Ostix is an operational workforce strategy and redesign consultancy for organisations that depend on scarce skilled field work.
It works at the intersection of labour markets and operations. The concern is not only whether enough people can be hired, but how work is designed, learned, coordinated, led and divided among people, machines and technology—and how the resulting system affects productive capacity, service quality, resilience and the long-term supply of capable people.
Ostix’s current evidence base and sector specialisation are in arboriculture and utility vegetation management. The work combines original labour-market research, organisational diagnosis and direct operational implementation.
PERSPECTIVE
My route into workforce strategy began with enterprise development and business ownership. While studying enterprise development, I entered arboriculture in 2007 then founded Tree King in Auckland in 2010. Over the following years, I developed technical qualifications and extensive field experience while learning how the business and its production system worked from the inside.
Persistent difficulty obtaining enough skilled arborists restricted the company’s growth and contributed to my decision to sell it in 2016. The experience left me with a broader question: Why is is so difficult to find skilled staff?
That question became the basis of my Master of Business Studies research. The study was deliberately bounded to New Zealand arboriculture, where my industry knowledge provided access to employers and workers. The underlying problem was broader: How labour supply, wages, working conditions, training, job design, skill deployment, physical sustainability, self-employment and product-market conditions interact to produce a persistent shortage.
While completing the research, I returned to Tree King as a climbing arborist. This gave me three perspectives on the same problem: business owner, frontline worker and researcher. I later moved into project and business-improvement roles, working alongside the owner, management team and employees on recruitment, training, flexible work, crew structures, role design, communication and management systems as the company grew.
Tree King’s development was collective, and its experience does not prove that the same interventions will work elsewhere. It does, however, provide a valuable longitudinal case through which workforce ideas can be examined against operational reality. That combination of enterprise, research and field experience forms the foundation of Ostix.
WHAT OSTIX DOES
Engagements begin with the operational outcome the organisation needs to improve: Productive capacity, service delivery, quality, growth, resilience or the ability to mobilise work. Ostix then examines how the workforce system currently produces that outcome and which interactions within it matter most.
Depending on the situation, this may include:
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Labour-market conditions and the alternatives available to current and potential workers.
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Critical roles and the allocation of work among skilled employees, developing workers, machines, technology and contractors.
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Selection, early productivity, training economics and time-to-capability.
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The use of scarce skilled time, crew composition and work allocation.
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Leadership, decision rights, accountability, peer norms and workforce culture.
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Physical demands, working hours, flexibility and occupational longevity.
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Status, reward, progression, self-employment and exit.
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Management capacity, knowledge transfer and operational information.
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Contract structures, workload variation and supporting technology.
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Whether the employment promise matches operational reality.
The initial output is an evidence-based explanation of how the system is performing, what is producing the current results and what needs to change. This includes the likely economic significance, credible intervention options, prerequisites, trade-offs and potential unintended consequences.
Where change is justified, Ostix can help design, test and evaluate the response. This may involve changes to work architecture, technology, trainee development, crew systems, roles, progression, schedules, management routines, culture or the employment offer.
Employer branding, careers content and recruitment communication may support implementation, but they are not treated as substitutes for improving the workforce system itself.
Qualifications & Research
Master of Business Studies (Distinction in Management) [view document]
Bachelor of Management Studies (Enterprise Development Major) [view document]
Master’s thesis: Skills Mismatches and Worker Shortages in the New Zealand Arboriculture Industry
FAQ
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