Opportunity Training aims to attract young people into work
which contributes to building projects such as these above.

How do you attract young people into careers in crane operation, scaffolding, rigging and industrial rope access? Opportunity Training, the industry training organisation (ITO) responsible for these industries, was struggling but CBD was able to lend a hand.

With a mandate from the crane, scaffolding, rigging and industrial rope access industries to attract and train new recruits Opportunity Training had established a 36 week pre-apprenticeship training course. The course comprised five weeks of block courses at Tai Poutini Polytech in Mt Wellington around three 10 week stints as employees at different companies, with a week off at the end of it all.

The course looked great. Trainees would actually be paid by Opportunity Training – so there was no need to take out a student loan – and, as a bonus for the non-academically minded, classroom time would be minimal. Trouble was, when the pre-apprenticeship course was tentatively launched in 2005 there were almost no takers – and the industries Opportunity Training looks after have a rapidly greying workforce and are getting increasingly desperate for new blood.

On a recommendation from CBD client NZ Crane Hire, Opportunity Training chief executive Ian Grooby called in Tim Marshall in December 2005 to see what could be done. Rather than following Opportunity Training’s initial thought of advertising for recruits in metro dailies, CBD recommended that Opportunity Training engage with and leverage the networks of organisations (often Government-funded) that help young people transition from school to the workforce.

Initial meetings between Tim and Auckland-based Opportunity Training chair Dick Parsons and Waitakere Secondary Schools Gateway broker Jacquie Brayshaw and Waitakere Youth Transition Services adviser Midge Perez and team plus Manukau Career Services adviser Dereck Paora and team in January suggested a way forward.

Young people needed a taste of the crane, scaffolding, rigging and industrial rope access industries. How about an information briefing to tell prospective trainees what it is all about followed by an open day for those who were interested? Waitakere Youth Transition Services, Career Services would scour their databases for candidates and CBD would prepare an ad for the local papers promoting the information briefing.

At the same time Opportunity Training needed to re-engage with industry to get the commitment of individual companies to be part of the scheme and take on trainees. Opportunity Training also needed to hire a field officer whose job it would be to ensure the trainees were progressing well through the course.

CBD's Tim Marshall and Rob Warner worked with all the various parties to organise firstly an industry meeting at Tai Poutini followed by the information briefings in Manukau and Waitakere, and the open day at Tai Poutini, which attracted 25 potential trainees. We also helped out with the field officer recruitment process by writing and placing ads. Career Services Dereck Paora said the information briefing was "the best he had ever been to" because we had presenters from each of the industries but more importantly because we asked young people already working in the industry to speak at a peer level to potential candidates.

Despite major barriers – including a lack of motivation, self esteem and commitment among many young people who have not succeeded academically at school and the real problem of even getting to a job in Auckland if you have no private transport – Opportunity Training now has eight trainees on its inaugural course.

In an e-mail to Tim Marshall, Opportunity Training chief executive Ian Grooby thanked CBD for our assistance.

"With the first "intake" now out in the workforce I would like to express on behalf of the crane, scaffolding, rigging and industrial rope industries our sincere thanks for the fabulous job that you did on the exercise.

It would be fair to say that without your help and enthusiasm I don't think we would have achieved it. You managed to identify the appropriate people and to develop a strategy that worked. I feel we have all learnt from it and there will obviously be changes the next time.

Thanks again for all your help, advice and we will no doubt be using you in the future."