Trust develops new qualification from literacy training

In this case study, Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust's Human Resources Manager, Shane Te Pou, talks about setting up workplace literacy training within the country’s largest Māori service provider for intellectually disabled people.

"We believe passionately in upskilling our people. We believe it’s integral to providing high-quality services and care."

• Overview
• Assessing our needs
• Implementing a response
• Measuring the outcome
• Improving for the future
• Top tips
• Any questions?

Overview

Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust is using workplace literacy training to help kaimahi (community support workers) get the foundation skills they needed to complete a new industry qualification and develop in their careers.

Who is Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust?

Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust (the Trust) is the largest Māori service provider for intellectually disabled people in New Zealand, with government-based contracts worth more than $30 million.

Its mostly Māori and Pacific Island workforce are employed around the clock in private and residential homes based in Te Taitokerau (Kaitaia and Kaikohe), Tamaki Makaurau (Auckland), Waikato and Te Waipounamu (Christchurch).

The majority of the Trust’s 500 employees are kaimahi with very few or no qualifications.

How do they run their training?

The Trust has embedded workplace literacy training into an innovative, new in-house industry-based programme called the National Certificate in Core Competencies, Level 3.

The national certificate teaches kaimahi about topics relevant to the workplace such as risk management, taking prescribed medicines, cultural safety, consumers’ rights and responsibilities, self-advocacy and personal care.

Yet it also features a lot of reading, writing, communication and critical-thinking exercises.

Approximately 80 kaimahi are completing the certificate every year – improving their skills, the skills of the Trust and the industry as a whole.

What did they expect to gain?

The Trust expected to help kaimahi get the foundation skills they needed to complete the new certificate and develop in their careers.

What were their key outcomes?

In 2 years, the Trust has also improved the quality of its services and boosted its national audit ratings. Anecdotal data shows staff are more confident, while organisational data shows recruitment rates are up 50% and accident rates are coming down.

Assessing our needs

Starting out

We started to investigate workplace literacy training in 2008 – eventually deciding to embed it within an in-house industry qualification instead of setting it up as a stand-alone programme.

We believe passionately in upskilling our people. We believe it’s integral to providing high-quality services and care.

We also see it as a good first step to helping our kaimahi (community support workers) get the foundation skills they need to complete industry qualifications – and develop in their careers.

We employ kai arahi (house leaders) and kai whakahaere (coordinators), many of whom start as kaimahi but need to pass formal qualifications for promotion.

The residential care sector as a whole is headed in this direction and we need to be in step with this change.

Yet, at the Trust, we also believe skills come in various forms and are acquired in different ways.

Many skills are learned in the classroom and through textbooks and so on. Others are achieved in life.

For example, many of our kaimahi are parents or come to us from the unemployment or volunteer sectors. As such many have developed a strong sense of patience, tolerance and acceptance. We see these softer skills as critical to our industry.

We also see that workplace literacy training can help us retain good people and complement some of the other initiatives we run. For example, the Trust offers free health insurance, gym memberships and smoking cessation programmes, and we’re part of Weight Watchers too.

As an organisation, Māori cultural values shape everything we do. We take a holistic view of people (both our employees and our clients), which comes through in our services, the way we upskill and support our people, as well as our overall kaupapa (organisational vision).

Improving the bottom line

Our bottom line is measured through 3-yearly audits by an external agency contracted to the Ministry of Health.

The audit process is extremely rigorous. It tells us if we are on track, what we’re doing well and where we need to improve.

A lot of evidence is collected about our performance, which is measured against strict criteria.

I’m delighted to say our most recent audit rated us more highly than the previous audit. It highlighted our HR and training, showed we were providing a very good service and moved us up a level.

This is a very important benchmarking exercise for us. To us, it proved workplace literacy training is having a direct and positive impact on the quality of our services.

Next year we want to benchmark against international standards to see how we stack up.

Implementing a response

Getting help

We work with two main training providers for workplace literacy and have learned a lot from both. Each provider has a separate but complementary area of expertise.

Workbase helped us measure the reading, writing, maths and communication skills of our people through a needs analysis.

They watched us work, looked through our documents and got a real feel for the work we do. They also reviewed our systems and processes to identify the workplace literacy skills required to carry out each role and each task within our organisation.

They helped us identify overly-complex documents and gaps between people’s skills and job demands.

Then we called on Ardent Training Consultancy after realising we needed expertise in the residential care industry to complement Workbase’s knowledge of literacy programme development.

Together they developed our in-house programme, the National Certificate in Core Competencies, Level 3.

It’s approved by the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA) and sets out the core competencies someone needs to begin work in our industry. We’re very proud of it. We want all our people to have it as a minimum qualification.

Making it work

We rolled out the national certificate to our Auckland employees in 2010 – so far we have around 80 kaimahi completing the programme annually.

Our people train in company time if they are rostered on or in their own time if they’re rostered off. It’s for an hour a week over 9 weeks.

They pay 30% of the cost of the course, which is reimbursed on completion. Our graduates also receive a $1,000 pay rise – which for many of them is a big incentive.

Training takes place in a formal classroom in Otara, so our people have to come from all over Auckland, from as far away as West Auckland in some cases.

Probably the biggest challenge will be to roll the programme out to the entire organisation and absorb the cost of covering people’s time in an organisation that offers services around the clock in 54 sites.

But our managers are supportive. I think management training over the past few years has shown them the value of further learning for everyone.

The New Zealand Institute of Management work with our managers to make sure they have the leadership skills they need to support all our training.

In fact, our attendance figures have been remarkable, with 97% attendance at our first class and 83% at our second.

Developing a training model

Our people need to have the basics sorted – reading, writing, maths and communication. They need good interpersonal skills, cultural skills and they need to know a lot about specific disabilities too.

That’s why we decided to embed workplace literacy training into a new in-house industry-based programme called the National Certificate in Core Competencies, Level 3.

The national certificate teaches kaimahi about topics relevant to the workplace such as risk management, taking prescribed medicines, cultural safety, consumers’ rights and responsibilities, self-advocacy and personal care.

Yet it also features a lot of reading, writing, communication and critical-thinking exercises.

I’ve been really impressed with how Workbase and Ardent Training Consultancy designed training with all these things in mind.

Next we’re keen to introduce more financial literacy exercises to the training model, to help kaimahi manage their personal finances. We’re thinking of lessons on preparing budgets and running a small business.

Measuring the outcome

Reflecting on the data

The hard data shows a range of interesting trends.

For example, we compared ourselves with other organisations in our industry and found we spend about 20% more on training.

We’ve also found our retention and promotion rates have improved. Our audit data shows the quality of our service has improved with training – that’s an extremely important measure for us.

Our workplace accident figures are also improving. We’ve seen a huge reduction in the number of accidents occurring from lifting and manoeuvring clients.

Our kaimahi are more confident and understand their roles better. They express their opinions and ideas. They know how to access the right information and have improved their writing. They are hungry for more.

Our investment in literacy training and setting it up within the core competency certificate has, without a doubt, been worth it.

Listening to our people

Since implementing training, we’ve seen promising improvements in the workplace and positive results in our employees’ personal lives too.

Communication among family members has improved. We regularly hear from parents who feel more capable helping their children with homework. It’s creating fantastic family time.

We hear some truly inspiring stories, but one particularly stands out. Fred (not his real name), who is in his mid 40s, has worked for us for about 9 years.

Being male he is already unique within this industry - our clients adore him. Fred had no formal qualifications.

He would avoid training and would get a colleague to complete his worksheet. We suspected that he had an issue with literacy and asked him to give training a go.

He was hooked from day one and has gone on to do very well. His confidence has grown with his qualifications. He now has several training levels under his belt and can do tasks he couldn’t before.

Fred’s skills now complement his wonderful caring qualities. As soon as he is ready, we think he will make a fantastic kai arahi (house leader).

Improving for the future

Embedding change

At Te Roopu Taurima O Manukau Trust we want to retain our competent kaimahi.

We are committed to developing their skills, providing long-term career paths and personal support wherever possible.

This strategy is working - our retention rates are now 50% higher than the industry average.

Making it sustainable

Our culture is changing to one of education and learning thanks to the enthusiasm our kaimahi are showing for training.

We have some exciting plans in the pipeline. We are in the early stages of developing an intern exchange with an organisation in the United States of America.

Next year we intend to temporarily swap two of our kaimahi for two American employees. They will trade information, attend a university course and help us look at benchmarking opportunities.

In the long term we would like to move towards better self-managing teams to help us achieve better outcomes.

Taking stock

We need a happy, healthy, qualified, confident workforce with the wide range of skills and knowledge required to provide high quality, culturally-appropriate services.

It’s up to the Trust to do what we can to support our people to improve themselves and reach our organisational goals.

That’s why we’ve set our expectations high and have set ourselves a goal of 60% of our workforce achieving an NZQA qualification by 2013 – well above the industry average of 27%.

With hundreds of kaimahi living in residential services or the homes of our clients, we know we have a tough challenge ahead. But with the success of the past few years, we know we’re doing well, we’re definitely on track.

Top tips

1. See workplace literacy training as a good way to improve the quality of social and disability sector services.
2. Combine it with industry-based training to encourage employees to learn the basics and gain qualifications.
3. Choose your provider well and go for an organisation who can tailor a programme to suit your needs. Think about working with more than one provider.
4. Make workplace literacy training part of other initiatives designed to retain staff and show employees you value them.
5. Be patient and take the time you need to get your approach to workplace literacy training just right.

Any questions?

If you have a question about this case study, please send us an email.