He kōrero mai i a Peter Winder | A note from Peter Winder
Tēnā huihui mai tātou,
It has certainly been an incredible couple of weeks and I hope that those of you who are impacted by Cyclone Gabrielle are coming through okay. You have certainly been on my mind as we’ve witnessed the scale of destruction across the motu. We know that some of our kaimahi have lost everything, some have been evacuated more than once, and for everyone affected it will be incredibly stressful. I encourage everyone who has been affected to take the time that is necessary to address your needs and the needs of your whānau first. Please be assured that the rest of our Te Pūkenga team will do whatever we can to support you and your ākonga.
I imagine that like me, Te Pūkenga team will be feeling enormous sympathy, a strong desire to help, but are feeling rather powerless to do anything meaningful. I think in times like these the best way to provide practical help is through one of key charities who are set up to provide effective, on the ground help in times of need. I chose the Red Cross. There are others. I know that anything you can give will be greatly appreciated, and sorely needed.
I’d also like to put the call out to all kaimahi in the network to please come together as one at 12.15pm on Monday, 6 March and share together in karakia, mihi and waiata. This will be our time to focus our collective thoughts towards our colleagues and their whānau who have been affected by the impacts of Cyclone Gabrielle. Keep an eye out for the upcoming invitation and link.
As many of you know, recruitment is underway for a number of key positions, including our regional co-leads and Ako Leads. These are key roles which will be important in shaping how and what we deliver in the future.
With that in mind, you may be interested in the outcomes of these appointments. While recruitment is still ongoing, I wanted to share with you a little about the process so you can feel confident in the appointments that will follow.
As part of our commitment to being a Tiriti honouring organisation, for Regional Co-Leads, we are working closely with iwi who will nominate the senior leaders they see fit to sit on the interview panels for the roles in their rohe (regions). These nominations will sit alongside myself, Gus Gilmore and Megan Gibbons. The panel for Rohe 1 | Region 1 has been confirmed and includes:
- Donna Flavell, CEO Waikato-Tainui
- Mariameno Kapa-Kingi, CEO of Te Aupōuri Iwi and Co-Chair of Te Kahu o Taonui
- Marama Royal, Chair Ngāti Whātua ki Ōrākei.
We’re still working through the details for the other regions, but hopefully this gives you a sense of the mana and expertise involved.
Equally, our Ako Leads will play an important role in working with Workforce Development Councils (WDCs), industry and our own communities of practice to shape and drive quality and consistency in our teaching so that it meets the skills needs of employers and communities. You may recall that most of our Ako Networks have been designed to reflect the industries covered by each of the six WDCs. With that in mind, we’ve asked the WDCs to support the recruitment process by providing senior expertise for our panels. This will also be a key step in cementing the relationships our Ako Leads will need to have with WDCs – it will be important, mai i te tīmatanga, right from the start.
We have also confirmed two further appointments to our executive team: Paora Ammunson as Deputy Chief Executive Tiriti Outcomes and Ziena Jalil as Chief of Staff.
Ziena brings a broad range of expertise and experience in governance, communications and stakeholder engagement, and the tertiary, international and vocational education sectors. Her governance experience includes board roles for public, private and not-for-profit entities, including in the education sector.
Paora’s deep commitment and experience to driving progress will help us realise our pursuit of equity, particularly for Māori. His relationships across Wellington, government, the tertiary sector and his background in working with and for iwi organisations will bring significant and valued expertise to our leadership team.
Paora and Ziena will start in the role on 6 March and we look forward to welcoming them.
Kia tau iho ngā manaakitanga ki runga i a tātou katoa,
Peter Winder
Tumuaki | Chief Executive
Cyclone Gabrielle response
On Monday, I updated you on the situation surrounding Cyclone Gabrielle. That update is available here.
We’ve had trouble getting in touch with some ākonga and kaimahi in the affected regions due to connectivity issues, but this is improving. The devastation is challenging to hear about, especially to know that some have lost their homes and effectively all their possessions. We can be thankful that we have had no reports that any of our people have suffered physical harm.
As we currently understand the situation:
- We have heard from the vast majority of kaimahi in Tairawhiti and Hawkes Bay, and all kaimahi in Northland.
- We are continuing to reach out to those we haven’t heard from. Connectivity is improving so we hope to be able to make contact over the next day or so.
- EIT’s ākonga database is now accessible, so we can progress connection and understanding of their welfare. NorthTec have confirmed contact with all their ākonga and are preparing the marae for emergency accommodation.
- Work has begun to clear silt from the Hawkes Bay Campus in Taradale. This will take some time and care so the campus will remain closed while this work takes place.
And an update on the actions we have taken to date:
- Both incident management teams (national and local) and our Executive Leadership Team are meeting regularly.
- Our national response is supporting the property assessment requirements, so we can develop our plan to remedy the damage and return to operations as soon as feasible, particularly at Hawkes Bay Campus.
- We’re finalising our approach for hardship payments for ākonga and will share this as soon as possible.
- We’re talking with the Ministry for Social Development about how Civil Defence payments can be easily accessed for both kaimahi and ākonga.
- We’re working through how we can enable learning to continue, including interim online learning or learning supported by other business divisions while we deal with the immediate situation at our campuses.
At the moment, we are primarily focused on incident response to Cyclone Gabrielle and what needs to happen immediately to ensure the welfare and safety of our ākonga and kaimahi.
We will shortly move into the recovery phase. This phase will focus on returning to delivery, establishing the project management of the work needed at our sites, and actively contributing to the recovery of the communities we contribute significantly within.
Te Pūkenga, through our legacy operations, has been an important part of these communities for many years, and we intend to be again for many more to come.
I want to acknowledge our kaimahi, who have been able to make an added contribution through the following:
- Fire and Emergency New Zealand volunteers
- New Zealand Defence Force reservists
- Volunteers for hapū and marae
- Local Councils response and recovery
- Our incident management, property and facilities, people, culture and wellbeing, learner support and services, communications, teaching and animal welfare staff, and to you all, for your community spirit in reaching out to colleagues and ākonga to connect, chat and express care.
Thank you for all you have done, both for us and for the communities that we are a part of.
Finally, for those who have been impacted by the cyclone, please remember that support is available to you, including:
- Paid special leave. This will be available until we can reasonably facilitate a return to work.
- Wellbeing support through EAP (0800 327 669) for you and your immediate whānau
- Civil Defence payments from the Ministry for Social Development.
This is certainly a really challenging time for many of you, your whānau and your community, hapori. If you take one thing away from this message, let it be this, your Te Pūkenga whānau are here for you – together, we are with you!
Kia manawa nui, kia manawa roa, kia manawa ora
Peter Winder
Tumuaki | Chief Executive
Te Whare resource and information base getting bigger and better all the time
As you’ll have read in the last issue of this pānui, Te Whare is now available to all Te Pūkenga kaimahi as a central hub of news and information.
On the main page, you’ll find links to various business divisions, resources and tools that will help you in your day-to-day, as well as a central location for all things related to our Organisational Design programme.
As the programme progresses, there’s a heap of work to do to ensure that all kaimahi are aware of what’s happening in their area and that leaders and their people get all the support they need. Te Whare will be a crucial cog in this machine and a thorough list of information will be hosted there, accessible by all.
You can find Organisational Design content here. For now, there’s the one main page, and we are working to add individual pages about each workstream in the very near future, including more information about the schedule and timeframes for each. Check back regularly for updates, and keep an eye on Ngā Taipitopito – any major changes to Te Whare will get flagged here too.
Workstream updates
Ako Delivery, Learner and Employer Experience and Attraction, Academic Centre and Learning Systems and Tiriti Outcomes workstreams are now all moving into designing what their proposed new organisational structures will look like.
Some subject matter experts in these areas may be asked to support this work at design workshops, which will also help inform the timing of when consultation with our wider kaimahi can be expected.
Over the next few weeks, representatives from Marketing and Communications functions and other work areas will be involved in design workshops. Workshop participants will be contacted directly. There will be opportunities for those not directly involved in the workshops to give their views at other points in the design and consultation process.
We recognise the challenges that some people have been experiencing as a result of Cyclone Gabrielle, and that there are some people who have not been able to apply for roles that are currently advertised or may be impacted in upcoming weeks.
The current Finance and Property consultation closes on Wednesday 8 March. There is no change to this closing date at the current time, but we will keep a watching brief and will take a decision to potentially extend the consultation period in the week commencing 27 February.
The closing date for applications for the 12 new Digital roles (Ipukarea - Administration - Career - Browse Jobs (elmotalent.co.nz)) have been extended to provide people in areas affected by the cyclone additional time to submit their applications. The new closing date for applications is Thursday 23 February.
The new Digital leadership structure will be in place by 1 April 2023, depending on appointments. From here, existing Digital teams will report through to the new interim Digital Operations Leads in their allocated region. Kaimahi in roles that currently sit outside of Digital but are aligned with functions in the new structure will remain where they are now and will report to the same manager. We will continue to kōrero with these kaimahi as the remainder of the Digital structure is designed.
The new Digital leaders will work with the Chief Digital Officer to design their team structures together as one cohesive Digital Leadership team.
International Academics to present on vocational and apprenticeship research
In early March, Ara Institute of Canterbury will host a presentation from an international academic on their research into apprenticeships and vocational education.
Kaimahi across Te Pūkenga will have the opportunity to attend the presentation online via Teams. Each session will include the opportunity to ask questions.
Professor Dr Thomas Deissinger is from the University of Konstanz in Germany. His research explores comparative studies across international apprenticeship and vocational education and training (VET) systems. During his time in Aotearoa New Zealand, Thomas will be collating information on the New Zealand VET structure. He will present on the German ‘dual’ system and the importance of vocational teachers’ expertise in contributing to a robust and thriving quality education.
If you are interested in attending these presentations, please go through this link to register your interest.
Ara expects to share details of another session shortly – keep an eye on Te Whare for more details.
Your career journey webinars
Following Mōku te Anamata | My Future webinar on Wednesday 22 February two further webinars in the My Career Journey series are planned over the next two weeks.
The next webinar is Taku Tono | My Application, is running Wednesday 1 March, 12pm - 1pm. This webinar focuses on the practical parts of preparing job applications and steps needed to take when applying.
The final webinar is Taku Uiuinga | My Interview, running Wednesday 8 March, 12pm - 1pm. This webinar will help you prepare for Te Pūkenga interviews.
You do not need to have attended the first webinar to attend the second or third. However, you can watch the 2022 Mōku te Anamata | My Future webinar is up on Te Whare.
Each session runs for an hour and build on the learning provided in Kete kimi kaimahi | Recruitment kete online module. There is also an opportunity to ask any questions you may have.
- Register for Your career journey webinars
- Watch the 2022 webinars
- Complete Kete kimi kaimahi | Recruitment kete online module