The workplace is one of the last places we still show up together

The Helen Clark Foundation's Social Cohesion report, released this month, makes for uncomfortable reading. Social cohesion in Aotearoa is declining across every measure — belonging, participation, trust in institutions, sense of fairness. Loneliness has risen from 1% in 2010 to 14% of people reporting it often. The community infrastructure that used to hold us together — clubs, congregations, neighbourhood networks — has thinned out significantly compared even to Australia.

What's left? Largely, the workplace.

The report identifies 41% of New Zealanders as "ambivalent" — moderately connected, low participation, no great hostility but no active engagement either. Not perpetrators. Not champions. Just present. This is the group most likely to witness something uncomfortable at work and say nothing. Most likely to see a colleague struggling and look away. Most likely to have the capacity to act and not know how.

The report also finds something useful: contact works. Having sustained, meaningful interaction with people different from yourself consistently predicts stronger belonging, more accepting attitudes, and greater willingness to engage. Proximity alone doesn't do it, and one-off events don't either. What shifts behaviour is repeated, purposeful contact around shared goals.

The workplace is one of the few places in New Zealand where that kind of contact still happens naturally — where people from different backgrounds, ages, and experiences spend sustained time together. And the stakes in that environment are real. In the past year alone, 27% of Māori, 30% of Pasifika, and 26% of Asian New Zealanders reported experiencing discrimination. That's the daily reality for a significant portion of any workforce, and the ambivalent majority sits right alongside it.

Be There works in exactly this space. The programme builds the relational skills to act when something's wrong — to check in, call in, or step up — and it does it through the kind of structured, repeated interaction the research says actually shifts behaviour. It's grounded in kaupapa Māori and trauma-informed practice, which matters when nearly half of Māori and Pasifika New Zealanders sit in the alienated cluster the report describes.

The report is honest that no programme fixes the economic conditions driving disconnection. Financial stress is the dominant predictor of low cohesion, and that requires policy, not training. But the report is equally clear that belonging matters independently — that even among people who are struggling financially, a strong sense of belonging keeps people participating in their communities.