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In this Issue
Introducing our new Employer Services GM
Lost mobile phone key to graduate success
Former CEO gets award in New Year Honours

Life Changing Careers campaign gets funding boost

Welcome to Careerforce's January update
Tēnā koutou

A personal whakatauki that I recently shared with the Careerforce whānau, and which I felt was a reflection of what 2022 has in store for us is: he manako te kōura i kore ai. This broadly translates as “wishing for the crayfish won’t bring it”. 2022 is going to be a year of change for Careerforce as we move towards our transition into the Te Pūkenga organisation later in the year. There is much mahi to be done, but with a sense of excitement at the same time.

Despite all the upheavals and uncertainties created by Covid-19 and the RoVE reforms across 2021, I was very pleased with the significant improvement we saw across a number of our performance areas. This improvement didn’t happen by chance, but rather the result of a number of initiatives and activities that we rolled out over 2021, and as part of a concerted plan and determination to improve our learner outcomes. This focus will continue over 2022.

Finally, in this newsletter, we are very pleased to introduce Stephanie Clark as our new Employer Services General Manager, replacing Andrew Saunders who left late 2021. Many of you will know Stephanie as our Northern Regional Manager, and her appointment to the national role followed an extensive internal and external recruitment exercise.

Best wishes for a very successful 2022.

Ngā mihi nui

Jane Wenman
Careerforce Chief Executive

Careerforce offices under current
Covid-19 restrictions

Following New Zealand’s move to the red setting on the Covid-19 protection framework, our offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch are currently closed.  However, we plan to continue with business as usual, or as much as possible under the circumstances. Your regular contacts will be available via their usual contact details, albeit not face to face. If there is anything we can do to support the commencement or continuance of your staff training, please let us know. We’re ready and willing to help.
Introducing new Employer Services General Manager
We're excited to introduce Stephanie Clark who takes over the role of Employer Services General Manager from Andrew Saunders who left Careerforce in October.

While still at school, Stephanie worked at the coal face in one of our sectors, as a rest home health care assistant. Fast forward and Stephanie was Marketing/Product Manager for the consumer electronics giant, Monaco Corporation.  

She gained Industry training experience during her 7 years at the Retail Institute of New Zealand as Business Development Manager, before joining Careerforce in September 2016 as Regional Manager Employer Services Northern.

From January 2022 Stephanie now manages the rapidly expanding national employer services team at Careerforce. She is passionate about building equitable outcomes for traditionally underserved learners, such as Māori, Pacific peoples, and disabled learners, and that appropriate supports are available for learners with literacy and numeracy requirements.


In her spare time, Stephanie is a keen sports team manager, which includes volunteering her time and services to managing water polo.

A lost mobile phone becomes graduate’s key to success
Besides a looming deadline, Filimone ‘Tukai’ Rainibogi says losing his mobile phone was just the motivation he needed to complete his level 3 qualification. The Fiji-born Wellness Partner at Masterton’s Lansdowne Park Retirement Village has recently graduated with the New Zealand Certificate in Health and Wellbeing (Level 3) (Health Assistance). Tukai started the programme in August 2017 and needed to have it completed by 31 August 2021. “I was given more than enough time,” he laughed.

Tukai’s biggest distraction to his studies was his mobile phone. So, when it dropped out of his car earlier this year and got lost, he said he was grateful for the push it gave him to finish his final assessments.

“I didn’t actually want to buy another phone, so I stayed for three months without one. In that time, I finished my studies and even started reading a book.

“It’s given me a gift that I had all along.”  You can read about Tukai's story here.

Former CEO, Ray Lind, receives award for services to industry training governance
Congratulations to Ray Lind, who was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit in the recent New Year Honours 2022. Ray was CEO at Careerforce from 2011 to 2018.
Ray’s award is for services to industry training governance and his New Year Honours 2022 Citation reads:

“Mr Raymond Lind has had a career in the social sector in corporate management and governance, notably as Chief Executive of Careerforce from 2011 to 2018.

Mr Lind influenced more industries in the care sector to join Careerforce, growing the number of individual trainees registering their qualifications with the ITO from 10,455 to 21,110 between 2012 and 2017.

 
Web pages help support trainees and keep them on track
One way to support learners to get motivated as we head into a new year, is to remind them about the many supports available on the Careerforce website.  
The training support section of the website gives advice not only for new learners to help get them started, but for those already on their learning journey, to help them stay engaged and motivated throughout.

Trainees can learn about the who, what and when of workplace training, their rights and responsibilities as a trainee, study tips, and more. They can find out how to access resources from the Careerforce library and view and download their training progress reports via a secure portal. To see this and additional support, including an explanation on how the assessment process works, please direct your trainees to this page: www.careerforce.org.nz/training-support

 
Remind your staff to register for iportal
 
Since December last year, access to the Careerforce Resource Library is now only via a secure login on the Careerforce iportal site.

The Library has been transitioned from the Careerforce website to Careerforce's iportal.
We've contacted trainees, to explain how they can continue to access the resources using their new iportal login, and we're pleased that over 1000 trainees have already registered.  We encourage you to remind your staff (trainees) about this in case they have yet to register.

Also, as employers, for those of you who don't currently have an iportal login, you too will need to set up a login to access the resources.  To do this, simply go to the iportal homepage here and click on 'Register a new account'.

 
Life Changing Careers campaign receives funding boost
Just prior to Christmas, we received a very welcome Christmas present from the TEC in the form of confirmation that we had been successful with a proposal for further Life Changing Careers campaign funding.

This proposal, jointly submitted by Toitu te Waiora and Careerforce, has received $430,000 in funding from the TEC's Covid-19 Response Fund. Careerforce will continue to lead and develop this campaign, and is presently developing the campaign rollout plan for 2022.

This funding success was a reflection of not only the exceptional campaign performance to date, but also of the workforce pressures our sectors continue to face, and which have only been exacerbated by Covid-19. The need to build greater diversity into the care and support workforce has never been greater.

Pictured: Toitū te Waiora Chief Executive Donovan Clarke (left) and Careerforce General Manager Marketing, Communications and Insights Paul Williams celebrate the campaign funding.

 
Last month we ran a survey to explore any early impacts of the campaign on recruitment. Thank you to everyone who provided valuable feedback via this survey; winners have been notified.
 
Great News - free enrolments continue through 2022
The Government's Targeted Training and Apprenticeships Fund (TTAF) is currently funded to run until December 2022, but this fund only covers the portion of the enrolment up until this date.

If, for example, a learner is enrolled in a Health & Wellbeing Level 3 programme in October 2022 and which has an expected duration of 12 months, TTAF will only cover the portion of the enrolment from October to December (25%).

However, as a show of support for our pressured sectors, the Careerforce Board has made the decision that Careerforce will cover the residual enrolment fees, and we will not be looking to charge partial enrolment fees (on a pro-rata basis) for any TTAF eligible enrolments across 2022, as some other providers are. This is great news for our cash-strapped sectors, and we hope continuing to remove a significant impediment to training for our employers and learners will continue the achievement of workplace based programmes and qualifications.

The Careerforce Board has also made the decision to extend free enrolment of the Level 5 Diploma in Business (Leadership & Management), amounting to a continued saving of $2,000 for each enrolment.

 
New Aka Toi functionality coming soon
We’re excited to announce that new functionality will soon be coming to Aka Toi, the online  learning and assessment platform:
  • Assessors will have easy access to their trainee’s progress report showing which modules have been started and which have been completed.
  • Trainees will have their own version of the MARKER table where they’ll be able to see the marked status of their submitted assessment tasks.
 
More information will be available for trainees and assessors before the new functionality is launched.
Aged Care Apprenticeship enrolments have closed, but support continues
We'd like to remind you that enrolments into the New Zealand Apprenticeship in Healthcare Assistance for Aged Care (Level 4) Complex with contexts in palliative care, dementia and complex conditions closed at the end of 2021.  This was to ensure apprentices have enough time to complete the apprenticeship programme by the end of 2023.

Please note however, that apprentices already enrolled in these apprenticeships will continue to be supported by Careerforce and their apprenticeship advisor to complete their qualification.
How to access the most up-to-date Training Agreements and other forms
This is just a reminder that the Training Agreement form can be accessed from the forms page on the Careerforce website.  It's important that you use the latest forms, as these are updated from time to time.  This also applies to other forms, such as the Organisation Registration Form, or the Standalone Unit Standard Application.

Accessing forms from the website each time you need them will help to ensure you are always using the latest forms and providing the correct information.
You may also find this guide helpful: How to fill out a standard training agreement form
 
For those of you who print off the Training Agreement and complete it by hand, can we ask that all information is clearly handwritten.  We have received a few bounceback emails recently because email addresses have sometimes been difficult to read. Thank you!

Jobs for Good – list your vacancies now
Each month we have approximately 100 live vacancy listings and we have listed well over 1000 jobs on the site to date.  We are also driving people to the site via google advertising. If you have a vacancy, make sure you don't miss out.

Remember, Jobs for Good is free, it’s easy to list vacancies, and it’s super-targeted.

Popular links
Find out more about:
  • Careerforce Qualification Programmes >> More
  • Gateway and Vocational Pathways >>More
  • How to contact your local Careerforce Workplace Advisor >>More
 
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