Nursery Supervisor

Kaingaroa Forest Estate is New Zealand's largest sustainable plantation forest, spanning 215,000ha in the Central North Island. It is the responsibility of Kaingaroa Tipu to manage this estate and as a Nursery Supervisor your contribution is essential to, cut, set and dispatch 7 million trees per season to the forest. This is a large-scale nursery operation, and we are looking for someone that can lead a team to achieve production targets while maintaining quality and safety.

About the role:

Based at our Rerewhakaaitu Nursery, this role is required to support and provide supervision of contract staff to ensure a supply of robust, healthy, high performing seedling/cuttings to the forest. For approximately half of the year, you will be organising, monitoring, and leading field staff collecting and setting cuttings. For the other half of the year you will be required to assist with general nursery duties like weeding the crop, general housekeeping, cleaning and repairing equipment.

Key tasks in this role include:

• Providing leadership and supervision to contract staff, ensuring the workforce is well-managed and operating efficiently.
• Overseeing all nursery operations in a cost-effective manner and in line with approved nursery regimes. This includes lifting tree stocks, harvesting and setting cuttings, planting and maintaining bare root plants, and various other nursery activities.
• Actively engaging in and championing our health & safety requirements on site.
• Ensuring all operations under your oversight follow company best practice and working with your line leader to maintain and continuously improve these standards.
• Using technology and record-keeping systems confidently as part of daily operations.
• Driving passenger vehicles and operating machinery such as forklifts when required.

Our ideal candidate:

To succeed in this role, you will bring previous frontline supervisory experience and the ability to build strong working relationships. Because this is predominantly an outdoor position, you'll need to be physically fit and comfortable working in all weather conditions.

If you have the right attitude, a willingness to learn, and a strong commitment to the work, we'd love to hear from you.

You will also need to be able to commit to early starts and potentially long days during our main season (May–October). This is balanced by shorter days in the off-season and additional time off over the Christmas period.

Applicants must already have eligibility to work in New Zealand and be currently residing here.

If this sounds like the opportunity for you, please apply via the Apply Now button by 18 January 2025.