Expert On Burnout, Four-day Work Week, Māori Employee Wins Top AUT Award

The Auckland University of Technology (AUT) has awarded its preeminent academic award, the AUT University Medal, to the Business School’s Professor Jarrod Haar (Ngāti Maniapoto, Ngāti Mahuta) at this evening’s Excellence Awards event. 

A Professor of Human Resource Management in the Department of Management and the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Work Research Institute, Professor Haar shot to international prominence in 2018 for his research into the benefits of the four-day work week. 

Professor Haar is renowned as a media-friendly scholar who can translate his research into ideas and actions that the public can understand, relate to, and learn from.  

His research includes studies into employee burnout, wellbeing at work, good leadership, and the experiences of Māori in the workforce.  

Perhaps not surprisingly, in these pandemic times, the demand for Professor Haar’s research has been higher than ever.  

Throughout COVID, for example, he has been crunching data from his Wellbeing@Work study.   

The iterative study has been tracking the New Zealand workforce since February 2020, giving a clear if sobering picture of workers feeling increasingly anxious and burnt out, and employers urgently seeking research-backed tools and strategies to support their teams.  

Backed by his belief that “numbers bring out the human experience”, Professor Haar has spent the bulk of his 19-year academic career gathering and crunching data to identify, understand, and explain the challenges, opportunities and unique issues facing the New Zealand workforce.   

AUT Vice-Chancellor Derek McCormack says Professor Haar epitomises the best of academia.  

“Jarrod is a sought-after research collaborator, postgraduate supervisor, and examiner; he is a prolific author, media commentator, and an acknowledged expert in his field.  

“Most of all, Jarrod is incredibly generous in his desire and ability to share his research, which has a real-world impact on how we work – as employers and employees. Particularly in these unprecedented times, research like Jarrod’s matters more than ever.” 

Watch the video about Professor Jarrod Haar

Read Professor Jarrod Haar’s academic profile 

About the AUT University Medal  

Introduced in 2013, the University Medal is the pre-eminent academic award of AUT. It is presented to a member of the University community at the Excellence Awards event in recognition of a sustained and outstanding contribution that reflects and enhances the academic development and reputation of the University. 

Read the Vice-Chancellor's Citation for Professor Jarrod Haar 

The 2021 winner of the AUT University Medal joined AUT in 2016 after completing a PhD at Waikato University. 

With a strong combination of research, supervision, teaching, and service excellence, he has over 400 refereed academic outputs, including 120 journal articles. 

He has given 53 keynotes or invited presentations. He has won $5 million in research grant funding and is also a named researcher on a $100 million Science for Technological Innovation National Science Challenge.  

He is an award-winning writer with 10 best paper awards, an award-winning lecturer, and enthusiastic participant in teaching. As a quantitative researcher, he enjoys mentoring students and colleagues towards publication.  

Active in graduate research supervision, he has brought numerous PhD and masters research students to successful completion, as well as participating as examiner for many others. 

In 2018, he was appointed as a Member of the Marsden Fund Council and is the Convenor of the Marsden Economics and Human Behavioural Sciences panel. He was admitted as a Fellow of academy of the Royal Society of New Zealand Te Apārangi in 2020. He is also a Research Fellow of the Australia and New Zealand Academy of Management, and a Chartered Fellow of the Human Resource Institute of New Zealand. 

His research interests embrace a wide range of management areas, with a particular focus on Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour.  

He is an active collaborator and sought-after media commentator, and does this in a relaxed, informal, and fun manner.

He has tribal affiliations of Ngāti Maniapoto and Ngāti Mahuta. 

He is a Professor of Human Resource Management in the Department of Management, and the Deputy Director of the New Zealand Work Research Institute. 

I am pleased to announce that the winner of the 2021 University Medal is Professor Jarrod Haar. 

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