Through a mix of digital, spatial and physical touch points, Te Pou o Te Tangata guides Inland Revenue’s people to embrace a culture that serves all New Zealanders. A modern and thoughtful expression of collective culture.

This enables them to guide their people to better serve all New Zealanders. Through meaningful engagement with IR staff and leadership, several key values were defined. What IRD needed was a narrative and way of inspiring all staff to embrace a shared journey.

Te Pou o Te Tangata is a thoughtful expression of collective culture.

A Working Group was organised to bring expertise from across the organisation, supported by three co-leads: Craig Thomas - Kaihautū Rautaki, Wiremu Panapa - Pūkenga and Emily Hookham - People Strategy & Capability.

The Working Group brought critical expertise in terms of how to ensure cultural concepts, narratives and activations were shaped and delivered in an authentic way.

Inland Revenue had defined three key values. We helped bring that into a clear cultural narrative. Te Pou o Te Tangata is inspired by a karakia that connects identity, values and shared effort to achieve things together.

• Nurtured by Papatūānuku: Te Pou is grounded upon Papatūānuku connecting people to the whenua of Aotearoa and to embody a culture that is from this place. That unified connection creates the foundation, or Tūāpapa for collective action.
• Inspired by Ranginui: Ranginui brings balance to our pou and represents the source of inspiration and space to grow and reach higher for better results over time. This becomes the Tihi, or heights of aspiration.
• Embodying values: The body of Te Pou are the three values that people live by every day. Whanaungatanga forms through relationships and shared experiences. Manaakitanga strengthens and supports people to be better. Mahi Tika strives for integrity in every action, everyday.

Shared passion and energy flows through every design.

We drew upon a variety of visual language to create a diverse system.

• Whanaungatanga is expressed through whakairo carving and the spiral representing connections and shared experiences.
• Manaakitanga is represented by kōwhaiwhai painting. The mangopare, a symbol of dynamic strength and energy lifts people up to achieve more together.
• Mahi Tika is represented by tukutuku weaving, the kōwhiti cross stitches represent the many daily actions that are needed to strive for integrity.

The values are connected to each other through the whakarare motif.

All designs are placed within a grid system that includes connective “whakarare” to reinforce the importance of shared passion and energy.

Environmental design flowed the visual language throughout buildings, giving people a visual reminder of the culture that binds them together. A devoted space was created to house the carved Pou.

The success of the project was the multi-faceted way Te Pou o Te Tangata was formed and then launched. Launch events brought staff together to learn and define goals to embody the new culture. Training resources were made available online for people to hear stories of their colleagues and to learn the karakia.

A key priority of this project was to ensure deep acceptance from all staff at all levels. We managed this in a number of ways, including:

• Having in person sessions to craft the narrative, refine concepts and resolve areas of concern with the Working Group, drawing upon their expertise.
• Sharing the work with senior leadership and co-designing the work and how best to embed staff within it. This required taking the senior leadership on a journey to further ground them in their role to advocate change.
• Workshopping how best to land the roll out to best support staff at various levels of understanding of te ao Māori values and the need for change.
• Recording stories of staff of diverse cultural backgrounds talking about how they live the values.