WHAT WAS SKILLS LOOKING TO ACHIEVE?
Te Rau o te Huia is a Maori and Pasifika leaders programme for internal staff at Skills. Skills knew that they wanted to provide leadership pathways for their Maori and Pasifika staff to enable them to:
- Define and refine their leadership style
- Be exposed to senior leadership and governance
- Learn to goal set, and plan their career and
professional development - Progress in their career at Skills and beyond.
Theresa explains, “It’s a real focus for us to create pathways
and opportunities for our Maori and Pasifika clients and
apprentices, and If we’re going to do that in a real and
genuine way then we need to be demonstrating it within our
own organisation. We can’t just talk the talk. We wanted to
walk the walk as well.”
WHY DID SKILLS CHOOSE TO PARTNER WITH IMNZ?
When Theresa and her team envisioned Te Rau o te Huia, they knew they’d be building it from scratch. They didn’t have a specific framework in mind, just the idea of what they were hoping to achieve. “We knew IMNZ had experience in creating learning solutions and we wanted to build a programme that would suit our people,” she says.
“IMNZ have helped us to grow this programme and make it what it is. Every conversation I had with IMNZ, even when I didn’t really know what the programme should look like, was open and positive. There was never any hesitation or thought that we couldn’t achieve what we were after.”
Theresa is also quick to applaud the level of expertise IMNZ carry when comes to understanding leadership development: “It was such a supportive environment. Even when I didn’t know what I was doing, they used their experience and insight to help me build what we needed to build.”
HOW HAS TRAINING WITH IMNZ IMPACTED YOUR ORGANISATION?
Ashley says that they’ve already seen big changes since undertaking the Think on Your Feet ® training. Even before the training commenced Pure SEO experienced a shift in morale – people were looking forward to it and were excited for the growth opportunity.
“We had most of the wider team on Think on Your Feet ® and have already seen aspects of it come through in everyday communication. The team are finding their meeting prep time is faster and the meetings run more smoothly because they have such an easy and solid structure to work to now. The feedback from the client facing teams in particular has been extremely positive. They all feel more confident going into a situation they expect to be difficult.”
WOULD YOU RECOMMEND IMNZ AS A TRAINING PROVIDER?
“Absolutely, without hesitation – for the quality of the training and courses, for the variety, for how easy they make everything, and for how honest they are. We’ve never been pitched a course or training session that wasn’t going to work for our business. They take the time to listen and learn about you, your people and your business so they can always suggest the best options.”
