Case Study: How realestate.co.nz Became New Zealand’s Best Small Workplace, Twice

Great Place To Work® Certified™ · Case Study · New Zealand

realestate.co.nz has topped the small category of the Best Workplaces™ in New Zealand list two years running, in 2025 and again in 2026. In the most recent survey, 95% of its people said it is a great place to work, up from 93% the year before. At a typical company in Oceania, 61% say the same.

The more interesting number is one the company found a year earlier, when it looked at a single group inside its own results.

The 2025 Trust Index™ survey came back strong across the wider team and noticeably weaker in the middle management layer. Just over half of the company’s middle managers said they felt encouraged to balance work and personal life. The same proportion described realestate.co.nz as a psychologically and emotionally healthy place to work, and the same proportion again said they felt trusted to do their job without being closely monitored. The figure was 57% in each case.

Twelve months later, each of those measures read 100%.

Key outcomes

• No. 1

  Best small workplace in New Zealand

  realestate.co.nz topped the small category of the Best Workplaces in New Zealand list in both 2025 and 2026.

• 57→100%

  Middle manager scores, 2025 to 2026

  Four measures where realestate.co.nz middle managers scored 57% in 2025 all reached 100% a year later.

• 80%

  Wellbeing leave taken

  Take-up of the company’s 10 extra days of ECG Wellbeing Leave averaged 80% over the past 12 months.

Why certify a culture you already believe in?

To find out whether it holds up when somebody else does the measuring. realestate.co.nz was already running an annual engagement survey with a six-monthly pulse check, and the results were good. Leadership believed the culture was strong and had the feedback to back that belief up.

What it did not have was an outside benchmark. Certification supplied a globally recognised framework and a way to compare the company against other organisations, which no internal survey can do no matter how well it is written. The annual survey and the six-monthly pulse checks still run alongside it.

What did the survey find that nobody expected?

That the managers were the exception. Across the wider team the 2025 results were strong. The middle management layer came back looking like a different company, at 57% on encouragement to balance work and personal life, 57% on psychological and emotional health, and 57% on being trusted to work without close monitoring.

The headline question told the same story. In 2025, 71% of middle managers said realestate.co.nz was a great place to work. Across the company as a whole, 93% did.

That gap mattered more than its size. Managers set the day-to-day experience for everybody who reports to them, and a manager who is not getting work-life balance is badly placed to protect somebody else’s.

How do you move a manager score from 57% to 100% in a year?

By giving managers more of the business and more of the People team’s time.

realestate.co.nz runs four strategic initiatives. Managers were brought into the monthly progress discussions on all four, which gave them sight of what was happening across the company and a say in where it was heading. The company describes the change in terms of clarity, ownership and influence over the direction of the business.

The People & Culture team increased one-on-one coaching with managers at the same time, creating a standing slot to work through problems, build leadership capability and offer support.

Twelve months on, all four of the measures the company had flagged sat at 100%: encouragement to balance work and personal life, trust to do the job without close monitoring, clarity of management expectations, and psychological and emotional health. The proportion of middle managers calling realestate.co.nz a great place to work went from 71% to 95%.

What is ECG Leave, and do people use it?

Ten extra days of paid wellbeing leave a year, and yes. ECG stands for Excellence, Care and Growth, the company’s three values. The days sit on top of standard annual leave, and people take them to recharge, to deal with life outside work, or to spend time on whatever matters to them.

The take-up figure is the one to watch. Over the past 12 months, an average of 80% of the available ECG Leave was used, which the company reads as a sign that people feel able to take the time created for them.

The wider offer runs to comprehensive health insurance, an employee assistance programme, flexible working, learning and development allowances and scholarships, and enhanced parental leave for both primary and secondary caregivers.

Wellbeing does not sit with People & Culture alone. An employee-led Sustainability & Wellbeing Committee helps shape the approach, and leaders are expected to run teams where people can say what they need out loud.

How do senior leaders stay close to the work?

Three fixed rhythms, one of them weekly. Every Friday the company meets virtually for All Hands, where new starters, birthdays and anniversaries get named and teams show work they are proud of. Senior leaders are in the room, sharing updates and recognising contributions from across the business.

Monthly business updates cover how the company is performing and where it is going. Quarterly in-person days bring the whole team together to learn, connect and celebrate.

For a team more geographically spread than it used to be, that calendar does work proximity once did for free.

Where does Certification fit in?

Candidates meet it before they meet anyone. The employer brand runs through Humanforce, LinkedIn and SEEK, with Certification as the independent signal that the culture in the job ad matches the one inside the company.

Employees do a fair share of the recruiting themselves. The referral programme pays NZD 1,000 when a referred candidate joins, and the 2026 results suggest the advocacy is real. 98% of employees said they are proud to tell others where they work, and 98% said they would strongly recommend realestate.co.nz to friends and family.

Beyond recruitment, the badge appears on LinkedIn and social media, in the PR boilerplate, in the About Us section of the website, on company cars, on the screens in external meeting rooms, on stickers, in email signatures, and as banners on SEEK and Humanforce.

The Impact

What comes next

Two things at once. The team is more geographically spread than it was, so connection that used to happen by accident now has to be scheduled. And as a digital business, realestate.co.nz is working out which skills its people will need as AI changes the job.

The stated aim for the next 12 to 24 months is to have people feel equipped and excited by that change, which the company breaks down into AI and digital fluency, innovation, a growth mindset and adaptability, worked through together as a team.

The 2025 survey found a group that needed something. The 2026 numbers say they got it.