Lighting the Way to Staff Wellbeing with Hella NZ
Industry
Lighting design and manufacture
Products
Location
Pakuranga , Auckland
“Peter was very personable and open to questions from all on some pretty sensitive topics.”
A Positive Approach
Mental resilience refers to a person’s ability to adapt to change and uncertainty. People who possess this type of resilience are flexible and calm during times of crisis. They use mental strength to solve problems, move forward, and remain hopeful even when they are facing setbacks.
Resilience training is becoming recognised as an essential skill to live and lead in uncertain times and the EMA has significant expertise in this area, particularly through its expert presenters such as Peter Simunovich.
“Many resilience courses act to mitigate the symptoms of stress, whereas I believe we need to be going to the source of the problem in the brain itself,” says Simunovich.
“Through creating an understanding of where and how anxiety issues are triggered, we are better placed to ‘short circuit’ negative thinking before it snowballs into bigger issues.
“We can’t control what happens to us, but we can control how we interpret and react to these issues.”
Lighting the Way
Lighting the Way
Simunovich recently ran the EMA course Stress Management and Mental Resilience with Hella New Zealand at its premises in the Auckland suburb of Pakuranga.
Hella is a leading designer and manufacturer of energy-efficient lighting products for the automotive, trucking and marine industries. Last year, the company celebrated its 50th anniversary in New Zealand.
With 260 staff, the operation here is a small outpost of what was initially a large family-owned German company.
But following the acquisition by French automotive tech giant Faurecia in 2022 to form a combined group, it became part of the seventh largest automotive supplier in the world.
Hella has a long relationship with the EMA. As a big company with a small footprint in New Zealand, Hella relies on the employer AdviceLine to help with its HR queries.
As a fast-paced company, Hella NZ also wanted to invest in health-related training and its relationship with the EMA meant the decision of who to present the course was an easy one.
Hella IT Applications Engineer Reuben Hill attended the course and was certainly impressed.
“I have been working in corporate New Zealand for more than 20 years and have attended countless seminars, training courses and networking events – Peter is the best presenter I’ve seen (ever).”
This course was run in the Hella offices because it was more convenient for them to bring staff up from different branches to their central facility and included 14 team members, from shopfloor workers to some in management positions.
“The course in structured to include some neuroscience of stress and anxiety, then to apply this to everyday relatable experiences and provide active tools to acknowledge when a problem exists, then to apply controls to our thinking,” says Simunovich.
“Above all, it needs to be entertaining. All too often, such courses tend to have a somewhat dark undertone. It’s possible to laugh and learn at the same time.”
Hill says that says Simunovich formed a quick rapport with the entire audience at Hella and everyone was “captivated”.
“I found his style to be engaging, interesting, funny, knowledgeable and not too overbearing – just the right balance.
“Peter was very personable and open to questions from all on some pretty sensitive topics.”
Experience and expertise
As well as using his training skills for the EMA, Simunovich teaches human sciences and lectures in public health at universities and polytechnics across Auckland.
He expanded on his career in occupational health and safety, particularly providing injury prevention training and exercise-based rehabilitation, into neuroscience-based mental health and wellbeing initiatives.
