Senior Advisor, Continuous Improvement

Civil Defence Group; Wellington; On-site; NZD 109,000 - 128,000; Full time

Benefits offered by this job

Department leave

Wellbeing allowance

Vision allowances

Job summary

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) seeks a Senior Advisor, Continuous Improvement in Wellington. You will lead learning from experiences, identify systemic issues, strengthen decision-making and translate evidence into practical improvements across New Zealand's emergency management system.

You will design learning processes, analyse data from multiple sources and facilitate conversations to drive clear insights and actions.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated experience in organisational learning, evaluation, continuous improvement, assurance, and systems learning.
• Strong facilitation skills for reflective or sensitive conversations.
• Strong analytical skills to identify systemic issues and improvement opportunities.
• Ability to translate evidence into clear insights and practical actions.
• Strong written and verbal communication across audiences.
• Experience building trusted relationships and influencing without authority.
• Systems-thinking to connect events to system performance.
• Commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and inclusive practices.

Skills

Organisational learning

Facilitation

Analytical ability

Communication skills

Relationship building

Systems thinking

Judgement

Te Tiriti o Waitangi commitment

Tools

Data analysis tools

AI tools

Job description

Type: Permanent

Location: Wellington

Closing Date:5pm, 4 November 2026

Mō tēnei tūranga mahi | About this role

Every emergency, exercise, review, inquiry and operational challenge creates an opportunity to learn. This role helps transform experience and evidence into insights, action and measurable improvement across New Zealand's emergency management system.

As Senior Advisor, Continuous Improvement, you will help NEMA and system partners learn from experience, identify systemic issues and recurring themes, strengthen decision-making, and translate evidence into practical improvement. You will design and facilitate learning processes, analyse information from multiple sources, and turn complex evidence into clear insights, recommendations and actions.

The Continuous Improvement Unit supports learning from exercises, emergency responses, evaluations, reviews, inquiries, assurance activities and everyday work. It helps people reflect on experience, connect evidence, identify recurring themes, strengthen decision-making and translate learning into meaningful improvement. The unit also coordinates responses to external reviews and inquiries.

As NEMA is an operational agency, there may be a requirement to respond to emergency activations in the event of a national emergency response. This may include potentially long hours and challenging working conditions, e.g. an emergency could occur at any time of the day or night and may require working shifts and/or working weekends.

NEMA provides thorough training prior to you being required to assist in a response. NEMA will do all in its power to support staff in meeting their work and family responsibilities during an emergency. The welfare and wellbeing of our staff is of utmost importance.

Your response role will be in the Continuous Improvement subfunction.

Due to the nature of our role in Emergency Management, NEMA has a very dynamic work environment and as a small agency, staff are often required to pivot and change focus on their work at short notice. Attributes of adaptability, agility, resilience and curiosity are all required on a daily basis, in and out of times of emergency response.

Ko wai koe | About you

You are curious, analytical and comfortable working with complex issues where evidence may be incomplete and there are no clear answers. You enjoy helping people make sense of experience, identify patterns and understand the factors influencing performance and outcomes.

You build trusted relationships quickly and engage credibly with frontline practitioners, subject matter experts and senior leaders. You are skilled at bringing together different perspectives, navigating ambiguity, facilitating constructive conversations and influencing decisions without formal authority.

You can connect individual events and experiences to broader organisational and system performance, turning complex information into clear insights, practical recommendations and meaningful improvement. You value reflective practice, evidence-informed decision-making and continuous improvement.

Most importantly, you are motivated by helping organisations learn, improve and achieve better outcomes for the people they serve.

Huanga Whaiaro | Key requirements

• Demonstrated experience in organisational learning, evaluation, continuous improvement, assurance, systems learning or a closely related discipline.
• Strong facilitation skills, particularly for reflective, evaluative or potentially sensitive conversations.
• Strong analytical skills and the ability to identify systemic issues, patterns, trends and opportunities for improvement from multiple sources of evidence.
• Ability to translate evidence into clear insights, recommendations and practical improvement actions.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including communicating uncertainty, risks and evidence-based findings clearly to a range of audiences.
• Experience building trusted relationships and influencing without formal authority.
• Systems-thinking capability and the ability to connect individual events and experiences to broader organisational and system performance, patterns and outcomes.
• Sound judgement, professional credibility and the ability to work independently on complex issues.
• Demonstrated commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi, inclusive ways of working, and improving outcomes for diverse communities.

It would be advantageous if you also have experience in:

• Emergency management or another complex operational environment.
• Reviews, inquiries, assurance, evaluation, exercises or after-action review processes.
• Public sector advisory, governance or accountability environments.
• Strong technical aptitude, including information management, data analysis, emerging technologies and AI-enabled tools that support organisational learning and continuous improvement.
• Machinery of Government processes and the wider public sector system.

Ko wai mātou | About us

The National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) provides national leadership to New Zealand's distributed emergency management system. NEMA's primary focus is on the performance and capability of the emergency management system as a whole, across all hazards and all risks and the 4 Rs of risk reduction, readiness, response and recovery.

NEMA values diversity and inclusion. We want our workforce to reflect the diversity of our communities. We value and respect the contributions of our people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, skills and perspectives.

We are committed to doing our part to deliver on the Crown's commitments to Māori under Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We strive to actively build te Ao Māori perspectives and capability into our day to day work, values and practices.

Ta matou e tuku | What we offer

This is a unique opportunity to help shape how NEMA and the wider emergency management system learn from experience and improve performance. You will work on nationally significant events, reviews, inquiries and improvement initiatives, helping decision-makers understand what happened, why it happened, and what should change as a result. Your work will influence organisational learning, strengthen capability and support system-wide improvement across some of New Zealand's most complex and important challenges.

We pride ourselves on the quality of our staff and understand the importance of fostering a working environment where excellence is recognised and where staff are encouraged to develop their own talents and potential. We welcome diversity, in all its forms and we believe it is a strength.

NEMA values staff health, safety and wellbeing, and a positive work life balance is encouraged.

The indicative BASE salary range for this role is $108,800 – 128,000.

NEMA offers other benefits such as Department leave, Wellbeing allowance, Vision allowances and more.

Whakaritenga Haumaru | Security Requirements

Due to the security requirements of this role, applicants must be a New Zealand citizen or New Zealand Permanent Resident.