Bay's employment roadmap rolled out

HBT18106905: Napier Mayor Bill Dalton (L) and Service IQ chief executive Dean Michington with the newly released service sector employment "roadmap". PHOTO/Duncan Brown

The official release of a "regional road map" targeting remedies to a skills shortage in Hawke's Bay service sectors was effectively a call to action, Service IQ chief executive Dean Michington told a breakfast gathering at the Napier Conference Centre on Tuesday.

Hawke's Bay is one of 15 regions across the country where Service IQ is unveiling its road maps which focus on six career sectors in New Zealand's service industry — retail, aviation, travel, tourism, museums and hospitality.

The regional road maps are follow-ups to a service sector development plan which was produced by Service IQ, which is the Industry Training Organisation for the six sectors, two years ago and which was updated last year.

Michington said the plan had been devised by Service IQ's "owners" — the industries and had been put together as a shared vision for the sector to respond to the challenges and changes taking places.

It was a framework for workface development and was a "look through the lens" of the workforce to determine the priorities for each region.

Workshops would be taking place and action plans devised.

The ultimate aim was to bring 15,000 sector jobs to Hawke's Bay over the next seven years.

Service IQ had identified that there were already shortages in the service sector and by 2021 believes there would be the potential for the 15,000 job openings.

The Bay's road map, like other regions, was put together with consultation and input from local groups of employers, councils and educators.

Across the Bay that included a wide range of sectors from government agencies like the Ministry of Education, Corrections, and Workforce Development, to the Napier City Council, Scenic Hotels, Red Cross, William Colenso College and hospitality businesses.

Service IQ, which sets national qualification standards and designs on-job training programmes had also forged strong links with the education industry and had created dedicated school teams which could work in with teachers to help students gain specific skills.

Michington said they would be in contact with all schools in the region, as they would with the business sectors.

He said collaboration with key organisations like tourism, education, businesses, council an iwi was pivotal for the success of the programme.

Service IQ would be seeking the increase the number of Gateway opportunities in schools and support youth development schemes.

There would also be focus on raising awareness of on-job training delivery, cultivating recognising employability skills and sharing information across the service sectors.

"This is a call to action and we need industry and local community support — there have been incremental changes in occupations and we need your help," Mr Michington told the industry and council representatives at the release.

Napier Mayor Bill Dalton said everyone had seen the ongoing changes in the workplace through the years.

"And that change will continue and will accelerate," he said, adding the sectors targeted had the employment potential factor.

"I look forward to seeing the success of the programme."