A recent article about On Arrival published by The Chamber of Commerce
The owners of On Arrival, Don & Eve Casagranda were recently interviewed by the Chamber of Commerce, after twice being recognised as Best Professional Services Company at the Annual Awards Ceremony.
When Eve was 5 years old she and her family escaped from East Germany and fled to Canada. When Don was a young lad his father abandoned the harsh coal-mining life in Scotland and also took his family to Canada.
Many years later Don and Eve met, married, started a family – and immigrated to New Zealand!
These people - as you might have already guessed - know a thing or two about moving house and country!
When Don was offered a senior role by a large NZ company he and Eve decided the move was the right thing to do for themselves and their kids. A week or two after getting here they were no longer quite so sure. “In those days” Don tells me “it was all about the job and the employee. The family was put in a hotel as close to the new office as possible and left to their own devices. The attitude was to get the new person working and everything else will be fine. But it often wasn’t".
“If a migrant decides to return to their country of origin within 12 months of arriving in New Zealand 86% of them will cite an unhappy family as the reason” Eve tells me. “For employers bringing in new staff - only to lose them within a year - is a huge cost to the business. We learned as new arrivals ourselves all those years ago that a happy home makes for a happy employee - and a happy employee stays in their job”.
It is a time they have never forgotten and it was why they started ‘On Arrival’ in 2000. Since then their business has helped many hundreds of new employees settle into a new country as fresh immigrants or a new New Zealand town as a domestic transfer. “In this day and age no one should have to go through what we had to endure” says Eve “and companies cannot afford to bring in or transfer important staff members only to have them unsettled by issues at home. A happy family makes a settled employee – and a settled employee is a performing employee” she says.
‘On Arrival’ will do everything they can to help their clients adjust. They will open bank accounts, find the right rental accommodation (and make sure it has crockery and bed linen) plus provide info on important things like school zones and supermarkets. Partners are introduced into the community around them so they do not feel alone and isolated. ‘On Arrival’ will remain accessible to their re-settled clients until they are no longer required – often right up to the moment they buy their first house, and afterwards. And now, as new arrivals themselves in The Bay from Wellington, they are once again reminded just how valuable their re-settling services are!
With people and contacts in most New Zealand towns and all across the world they can help anyone moving anywhere. So if you are an HR Department who has done all the hard work to get a new staff member to their first day on the job – make sure you have Don and Eve on the team keeping them in it!
don.casagranda@onarrival.co.nz
eve.casagranda@onarrival.co.nz
Don mobile: 027 444 8195
On Arrival - New Zealand Immigration
New Zealand Immigration is made easy with On Arrival
