Bus station a hub of employment
The Southern Initiative’s aim is to champion, stimulate and enable social and community innovation in South Auckland and equip local people with skills and access to meaningful and high-value employment opportunities. Our vision is that South Aucklanders will be sought after in an increasingly globalised and technological world because they are ahead of the curve.
Thanks to a collaboration with Auckland Transport, tradies in training are benefiting from valuable work experience on the Manukau Bus Station build.
Inoke Kava and Joe Coffey (pictured) first heard about TSI when they had just finished a preemployment carpentry course and were looking to start their careers. The project has opened their eyes to the working world, especially the differences between commercial and residential builds. For them to have early exposure and experience on a big site has been invaluable to their progression and future work opportunities.
Auckland Transport is committed to ensuring the construction of the bus station creates positive and enduring socio-economic outcomes for South Auckland residents. In a first for Auckland Transport, they partnered with TSI to introduce weighted social and economic outcome requirements in the Request for Tender for the contract. Tenderers had to submit a Targeted Recruitment and Development Plan demonstrating how they would provide quality, paid employment opportunities for South Auckland candidates. It was crucial to The Southern Initiative that any people taken on went into jobs with real career prospects, so each person placed needed to have a plan for professional development.
This could have been daunting in an already complex project but Auckland Transport says it was stress-free and a win-win for everyone involved. TSI met with tenderers when they were developing their plans and then evaluated them, so there was no extra pressure on Auckland Transport. This was something new for a lot of the companies tendering but there was strong enthusiasm to engage and find out more NZ Strong, who won the contract, were one of those who took a positive approach and made an effort to find out more to see how the best outcomes could be achieved.
Eight graduates from TSI’s Ma¯ori and Pasifika Trades Training are now employed by contractors working on the site, with hopefully more to be placed in the near future.
But TSI’s job doesn’t just stop at placing people into employment; the critical help offered is the ongoing support to both the employers and the graduates.
For further information about The Southern Initiative’s Ma¯ori and Pasifika Trades Training programme contact Dale Williams on dale.williams@aucklandcouncil.govt.nz.