Copilot Training NZ, home

17.8% of Wellington employees work in government

Microsoft Copilot training for Wellington public-sector offices

Office integration makes a pilot practical when staff can explain the files it uses. Learn Copilot through briefing drafts, meeting reviews and internal guidance, with information owners involved from the start.

EnquireWhere Copilot helps
Illustration generated with AI.
Employees in government
50,020Wellington, February 2025
Share of Wellington employees
17.8%1 of 16 regions
Share across New Zealand
6.4%all regions, February 2025
Location quotient
2.78×more concentrated than nationally

Government in Wellington

Greater Wellington has listed offices in the capital, Upper Hutt and Masterton, while Wellington City Council provides a broad range of local services.2,3 A training group can therefore include different locations and responsibilities. Use an invented cross-office service project to practise checking which decisions, sources and actions belong in an administrative record.

TheColab delivers at agency and council workplaces across the Wellington region, with remote options for distributed teams. Bring an approved public report and a fabricated workbook. Your Microsoft administrator should confirm the enabled Copilot experience before the session, because work grounding and application features vary with licences and configuration.5

Paid employees in government went from 40,296 in February 2020 to 50,020 in February 2025 (+24.1%).

Share of paid employees in government, by region

Share of employees in government by region, Wellington highlighted
RegionChartShareNZ×
Wellington (this page) 17.8% 6.4% 2.8×
Manawatū-Whanganui 9.5% 6.4% 1.5×
Northland 6.2% 6.4% 1.0×
Waikato 5.0% 6.4% 0.8×
Canterbury 4.8% 6.4% 0.8×
Gisborne 4.8% 6.4% 0.7×
Marlborough 4.8% 6.4% 0.8×
Auckland 4.7% 6.4% 0.7×
Hawke's Bay 4.6% 6.4% 0.7×
Bay of Plenty 4.5% 6.4% 0.7×
Otago 4.4% 6.4% 0.7×
Taranaki 4.4% 6.4% 0.7×
West Coast 4.4% 6.4% 0.7×
Nelson 4.2% 6.4% 0.7×
Southland 3.6% 6.4% 0.6×
Tasman 2.1% 6.4% 0.3×

Paid employees at business locations in the region, February 2025. The tick marks the national share. × is the regional share divided by the national share.

Source: Stats NZ, Business Demography Statistics, February 2020 and 2025.

Local context

  • The 2025 GCDO survey identifies capability, security and privacy barriers across participating national organisations.1 The Public Service AI Framework asks agencies to align with responsible use and human accountability, while its guidance is not binding.4 A pilot should address those issues through a defined task and reviewer, rather than assume an office licence is an agency approval.1,4

Organisations are named for local context only. No relationship with them is implied.

Towns in Wellington

Each town page has its own figures and local brief.

Or see Microsoft Copilot training across Wellington.

Where Copilot helps government teams

  • Draft a briefing in Word

    Reference an approved public report and a briefing structure. Copilot supports drafting in office applications.5 Ask for evidence, assumptions and options in separate sections. The analyst checks the source wording and confirms what decision the draft actually requests before an authorised official reviews it.

    • Policy or committee adviser
    • Copilot in Word

  • Review a working-group recap

    Use a Teams practice meeting about a fabricated service project. Copilot can summarise meetings and identify action items.5 Ask for confirmed decisions and unresolved questions. The chair verifies ownership and corrects any suggestion presented as agreement before the recap is accepted into the project record.

    • Working-group chair
    • Copilot in Teams

  • Check an operational summary

    Give Excel a synthetic table of requests by category and period. Microsoft's documented app capabilities include spreadsheet assistance.5 Request the grouping logic, exceptions and totals. Recalculate the result and inspect uncoded rows before writing a narrative; an apparent trend may require checking the recording process first.

    • Service reporting analyst
    • Copilot in Excel

  • Clarify an administrative email trail

    Summarise a fictional Outlook exchange about responsibilities for a public-information update. Copilot includes email drafting and summaries.5 Identify the latest instruction and unanswered questions. The officer reads the original exchange before drafting a reply, checks the recipient and seeks confirmation where authority or scope remains unclear.

    • Business support adviser
    • Copilot in Outlook

  • Test a source-grounded staff agent

    Build a Copilot Studio prototype over approved office guidance. Studio supports selected knowledge sources and pre-publication testing.6 Try conflicting versions, incomplete enquiries and questions outside its scope. Require a source reference or referral to the owner, then let information and systems staff review access before widening the pilot.

    • Public-sector platform maker
    • Copilot Studio agents

Run a controlled briefing exercise

  1. Confirm the pilot accounts, authorised source report and official who owns review.
  2. Draft a Word briefing with its evidence and uncertainties made explicit.
  3. Compare the statements with the source and ask the reviewer to resolve omissions.
  4. Record the accepted exercise and access decisions before expanding the pilot.

Courses

  1. 1Introductory

    Microsoft Copilot foundations

    A first hands-on session on Copilot Chat and Copilot in Outlook, Teams, Word, Excel and PowerPoint.

  2. 2Organisation

    Copilot rollout and readiness

    Prepare the tenant, choose a pilot, and measure whether people use Copilot well.

  3. 3Advanced

    Copilot Studio agents and advanced Excel

    Build and test a Copilot Studio agent for one internal process, and go further with Copilot in Excel.

Government in other regions

Other industries in Wellington

See Microsoft Copilot for government and public services across New Zealand, or all training in Wellington.

Government in Wellington: questions

What should an agency check before training?

Confirm the enabled features, permitted files, staff accounts and review owner. Microsoft's experiences differ in grounding and app integration.5 Use the preparation step to decide which exercises can run in the approved environment.

Do we need to connect every document library?

Start with a deliberately limited approved reference set. Existing permissions determine Copilot's access scope.5 Information managers should inspect sharing and document currency before the pilot uses a broader set of work material.

Can the staff agent answer public enquiries?

The exercise builds an internal prototype for evaluation. A public-facing service needs a separate agency decision, testing and ownership. The Framework stresses transparency and accountable oversight in public-service AI use.4

Who maintains the workflow after the workshop?

Assign a business owner for the guidance and a platform owner for access and testing. Record source changes and review sample outputs when documents move or responsibilities change. This gives staff a clear place to report an incorrect answer.

Train your government team in Wellington

  1. ScopeHeadcount, sites, Microsoft 365 plan and licences, and the teams you want to start with.
  2. PlanWe propose a course, a pilot group and a format, and agree the files and meetings to use.
  3. TrainOn-site or over Teams, in Outlook, Word, Excel and Teams, with your own work.
  • In person
  • Remote
  • Half-day workshop
  • Full-day workshop
  • Team rollout

Independent training by TheColab. Not affiliated with Microsoft.

Enquire

Tell us about your team in Wellington. We reply by email with a suggested course and format.

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Sources

Written 6 October 2026. Employment figures come from Stats NZ Business Demography Statistics.