Drive past any roadworks site in New Zealand and you’ll see the same thing: cones, signs, a lane shift, and somewhere in the middle of it all, an STMS quietly making sure nobody gets hurt.
It’s one of those roles the public barely notices until something goes wrong, or when delays create frustration for road users. What most people don’t see is that the Site Traffic Management Supervisor is often carrying more pressure than almost anyone else on site, and it’s a big reason the role has a reputation for high stress and ongoing retention challenges.
At Success Group, we work closely with traffic management companies across New Zealand, and we’ve seen this pattern up close. This is our take on why STMS is such a demanding role, why wellbeing and fatigue continue to be important industry considerations, and why supporting existing teams requires more than simply asking people to take on additional work.
What Makes the STMS Role So Demanding
An STMS isn’t just standing on the roadside with a sign. The role carries responsibility for the safety of road workers, road users, and the public, all at once, and that responsibility doesn’t come with a lot of margin for error.
A typical shift can involve:
- Constant decision-making under pressure. Site conditions shift throughout the day (weather, traffic volume, unexpected hazards), and the Traffic Management Plan often has to be adapted on the spot, correctly and immediately.
- Managing challenging public interactions. STMS staff regularly deal with motorists who are late, annoyed, and looking to vent, right in the middle of managing a live worksite.
- Managing important compliance and documentation requirements. Site reports, TMP documentation, and incident records all have to be accurate, on top of the physical work of setting up and maintaining the site.
- Varied and demanding working hours. Many STMS roles involve early starts, long days, weather exposure, and call outs outside normal hours.
- Leading teams during busy or resource-constrained periods. STMS are expected to manage crews and keep sites running smoothly, even when short staffed.
Any one of these on its own is manageable. Stacked together, day after day, they can contribute to fatigue and burnout if the right support is not available.
Why This Is a Shared Industry Consideration
It’s tempting to treat stress and burnout as something for the individual to manage: resilience, time off, a better attitude. But when an entire role across an entire industry is known for high pressure and ongoing retention challenges, that points to something bigger than any one person. It suggests that workforce planning and organisational support also have an important part to play.
When traffic management companies are short staffed, the instinct is often to lean on the STMS and crew members who are already there, giving them more shifts, more sites, and more responsibility spread across fewer people. In the short term, it keeps projects moving. Over time, it’s a pattern that can contribute to good, experienced staff leaving the industry altogether, which only adds to existing staffing pressures.
Without the right support, staffing pressures can become a cycle: limited resources place additional pressure on existing teams, prolonged pressure can contribute to fatigue and turnover, and turnover can create further staffing challenges.
Where a Recruitment Partner Actually Changes the Picture
This is where we believe the conversation needs to shift, from “how do we get more out of our current team” to “how do we make sure our current team isn’t the only lever we’re pulling.”
A good recruitment partner isn’t just there for when a role is vacant. Done well, it’s a workforce planning conversation that happens before the pressure builds, not after someone has already handed in their notice.
Forecasting, not just filling gaps. Talking to your recruitment partner about upcoming projects and peak periods means qualified STMS and Traffic Controllers can be lined up in advance, rather than scrambled for at the last minute. https://successrec.co.nz/employers/
Access to qualified, ready to work staff. A recruitment agency with a strong pool of certified STMS and TC candidates means a business isn’t limited to whoever happens to be available internally when things get busy. https://successrec.co.nz/apply_here/
Flexible support for peak demand. Not every busy period justifies a permanent hire, but it does justify not running your existing team into the ground. Temporary and contract staffing exist precisely for this: extra capacity when it’s needed, without long-term overheads when it’s not.
Protecting the people already on the team. Bringing in additional qualified support during busy periods is one of the most direct ways to reduce the load on existing staff, which protects both their wellbeing and the safety standards the role depends on.
Fatigue and safety-critical work don’t mix well. An overstretched, exhausted STMS isn’t just at risk of burning out personally. The flow-on risk to site safety and compliance is real too. Bringing in the right support isn’t a nice to have. It’s part of doing the job safely.
Success Group’s Position
We believe the answer to managing ongoing workforce pressure is by supporting businesses to plan for workforce capacity and having access to qualified temporary and permanent staff when additional resources are needed.
We work alongside businesses to understand upcoming demand and build pipelines of qualified staff, helping ensure additional support is available when workloads increase, before those pressures begin affecting wellbeing, retention or operations.
Looking after our community of staff who help keep our roads safe starts with making sure they have the support and resources needed to do their jobs safely and effectively.
