Skills For Good - May 2019: Coaching, Supporting Māori success, plus lots more

Kia ora koutou

Thanks for taking the time and opportunity to read Skills for Good. It is intended to provide a smorgasbord of information, and I hope you are finding it valuable. I have recently resumed my Employer Services role after a short stint as our acting CFO. I am enjoying re-engaging with our field team and with our clients. Our clients call it as they see it, and this is reflected in our employer survey results. As per the story below, overall satisfaction has improved year on year, but there is no doubt that there is room for improvement. Next month I look forward to sharing the results with you and informing you of our committed actions.

Ngā mihi nui
Andrew Saunders
General Manager Employer Services

Submissions to the public consultation around the proposed Reform of Vocational Education (RoVE) closed on 5 April, with over 1500 submissions made. These submissions are now being considered, and an announcement on recommendations is expected in late June.

In the meantime, it is very much business as usual for trainees, Careerforce, and our relationship with employers. Regardless of proposal outcomes, we can provide an absolute assurance that any employees who commence a training programme, will be able to complete the programme and be awarded the qualification. The one thing that won’t change throughout this entire process, is the recognition of the need for, and the absolute importance of industry training.

For more information around RoVE, you can go to the Careerforce website, or to the official consultation website.

Careerforce, Access Community Health, Idea Services, and Oceania Healthcare recently celebrated the signing of Te Tiriti o te Whanaungatanga.

The whakapapa, or genesis, for te Tiriti came from a series of Māori workforce development hui across 2018. These hui acknowledged decreasing success rates amongst Māori trainees, and identified that traditional approaches to improving trainee performance and outcomes were unlikely to work.

"What became very evident was the lack of confidence and sense of connection amongst many trainees, and that a whanaungatanga approach could be very beneficial," said Gill Genet, General Manager for Business Development at Careerforce.

The parties to te Tiriti came together for the first time in September 2018, and after a series of workshops and staff surveys, came up with the principles that form the basis of Te Tiriti o Whanaungatanga. Key participants included Sue Coulter, Oceania Healthcare HR Manager; Janine Gera, Access Community Health National Manager – Learning & Development; Trish Brosnan – IDEA Services Learning and Development Manager; Jeff Brewster, IDEA Services Learning and Development Qualifications Advisor; and Turaukawa Bartlett, Kaiwhakahononga – Careerforce Māori Engagement and Development. 'Read More' to see the full media release.

The proposed reforms of vocational education have been a distraction in recent months, but we hope to be able to share top-line results and resultant Careerforce actions in the next Skills for Good newsletter.

In the meantime, it’s pleasing to report that we had a great response rate from employers, and that we achieved a slight increase in overall satisfaction. However, there are undoubtedly areas where we can improve, and we are absolutely committed to this, which we hope will contribute to again improved overall satisfaction when we conduct our third annual survey towards the end of 2019.

Health and Wellbeing review – submitted to NZQA
Reviewed qualification documents and other supporting documents have been submitted to NZQA for approval. We will we update you with any outcomes once we hear back from NZQA.

Youth Work review – submitted to NZQA
Submitted the recommendations along with the required supporting documents and attestations to NZQA. We will we update you with any outcomes once we hear back from NZQA.

Cleaning review – consultation planning
We are now gathering information in preparation for the review of the New Zealand Certificate in Cleaning (Level 2) with optional endorsement in Health Care Facilities Cleaning and the New Zealand Certificate in Cleaning (Level 3) with optional strands in Specialist Cleaning and Supervision. A schedule of consultation is coming soon.

Rehab Support review – consultation planning
We are now gathering information in preparation for the review of the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Rehabilitation Support) Level 4 with strands in Brain Injury, Spinal Cord Impairment, and Chronic Illness. A schedule of consultation is coming soon.

Skills for Living review - consultation planning
We are now gathering information in preparation for the review of the New Zealand Certificate in Skills for Living for Supported Learners Level 1. A schedule of consultation is coming soon.

Vision Rehab Level 7 – initial planning
We are in the planning phase to review the New Zealand Diploma in Vision Habilitation and Rehabilitation Level 7.

More qualifications are to be scheduled for review soon. Visit the Careerforce website for more information about the Qualification Pathway Review.

The Client Services Team at Careerforce receive a number of emails asking when trainees should expect to receive their certificates once they have completed a qualification. Trainees’ certificates should take no longer than one month to arrive after the result of the final unit has been reported to Careerforce by the assessor.

What are the steps of this process?

Week 1
Each Monday Careerforce exports the results we’ve received during the previous week to NZQA. We then award qualifications with NZQA on Wednesday.

Week 2
The Monday after a qualification has been awarded, Careerforce sends a request to our external printers to print the certificates. These are printed and sent out via courier.

Week 3
The certificates should arrive at workplaces.

Did you know you can send us the following requests from the iportal?
Doing it this way ensures we have all the information we need to process your request as quickly as possible.

Submit a Training agreement (as pdf)
Send a General Enquiry e.g.

Remove a Unit Standard
Query a result

Request to Terminate a Training Agreement
Request to place a Trainee On Hold

Click here to open the iportal. If you don’t have a login, you can register here.
Give us a call at 0800 277 486 or log a General Enquiry on the iportal if you need assistance. This is how the menu is shown on iportal.

In each issue of Skills for Good, we're sharing top tips on how you can best support your employees with their training. Here is the full set of tips to date.

Careerforce Assessor for Leadership and Management, Grant Daly is a trained and experienced mentor and transformational coach. He differentiates mentoring and coaching saying, "Essentially mentoring is about partnering a Mentee with a Mentor to assist or support them to carry out a particular activity."

He adds, "Mentoring is a bit different to coaching, although the two terms are frequently confused. Coaching is personal performance-directed, and Coaches are experts in ‘not knowing’. They ask questions to help the Coachee find the answers within themselves."

The key difference is that coaches help staff learn rather than teach them. This allows staff to bring their own expertise and past experience rather than be told what to do.

We can definitely see the place for having both a mentoring system and a coaching culture in the workplace. Both ensure that staff not only learn new skills and perform to your organisation’s standards, but they also remain engaged and motivated in their roles.

Philippa Johnson-Alatalo, Service Manager at IDEA Services says, "Coaching to me is sharing knowledge and guidance with my team, getting to know my team as individuals and helping them to improve their own performance, stay motivated, learn and grow."

For more information about coaching including the benefits to staff, please check out the full article here.

Christchurch based SkillWise works with people with an intellectual disability and their families.

Through training, new experiences and connecting with people, SkillWise focuses on the ‘individual’ and how they can connect to a wide range of possibilities and the community.

Having the right skills and access to opportunities gives these people the power of personal choice, a sense of identity and the ability to form meaningful connections.

During a recent SkillWise Planning Week, where staff focused on Professional Development, ‘students became the teachers’. Two community facilitators, Frank Manzano and Ruchita Parekh facilitated a workshop for 18 SkillWise staff.

Frank and Ruchita are both currently studying towards the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Level 3) supported by Careerforce. Their day to day job involves providing support to assist people with intellectual disabilities become active community members.

As part of both the 2017 aged care and support pay equity settlement, and the 2018 mental health and addiction support worker settlement, workers can qualify for pay equity via either job tenure, or level of qualification.

For qualification based pay equity, support workers either need to have an actual New Zealand Certificate in Health & Wellbeing (Level 2-4), or a qualification which has been assessed as equivalent to it.

Careerforce was given responsibility for determining qualification equivalence, and to date, have assessed over 7000 New Zealand and overseas qualifications. You can find out more about the assessment process here.