Education falling short

By TOM CLARKE

The education system has been criticised by businesswoman Christine Rosser for its failure to provide a work force with the skills to meet the needs of the market.

Ms Rosser has just become general manager for New Zealand of the international recruitment consultancy, Westaff.

She says that in the call centre area the situation is so bad that Westaff is planning to run exhibitions for educational institutions later this year, to tell them what skills their students need to work in the industry.

"Auckland operates an enormous number of call centres and last year figures were being bandied about that the industry would need an additional 6000 bodies this year.

"That prediction is being substantiated by orders coming in from companies all the time for 30 to 40 extra staff, for both full-time and part-time positions. The industry has recognised that we need to be running training sessions for call centre skills and we're now doing that.

"There's no point in having the business and people who have got no idea how to operate it."

Call centres are just the tip of the iceberg, she says, and there are many other areas where more resources are needed to train people. She says some of the responsibility for this problem should be shared by the Government.

"The education system should be aware of the requirements," she says. "What is the education system doing in terms of forward planning to enable it to predict, and therefore be proactive rather than reactive to the commercial market in New Zealand?"

Ms Rosser believes, however, that Auckland is heading towards the end of the largest skills drought the city has seen in the last 10 years, with the change apparent in all types of positions - from senior management to receptionists.

"There has been a horrendous shortage in the market recently," she says, "so much so that companies like ourselves are recruiting from overseas and nationally.

"We've just had the greatest shortage that we've seen in a decade, with a lot of people going through retraining and doing further studies, and lots of people going offshore. There's still a shortage, but I think we're right on the brink of it starting to turn ..."

Ms Rosser says business growth is increasing and there is a lot more confidence in the market generally. As a result she sees a good future for New Zealand. There have been some "fantastically positive" things taking place in the last six months, she says, such as Apec and the America's Cup, and "people are just getting on and doing it."

Christine Rosser has a background in business and change management. She worked for the Auckland City Council during its first restructuring, when she established and managed one of its local area offices with about 300 staff.

That was followed by further change management positions in both the private and public sector, including turning around one of the divisions of a personnel consultancy firm. She joined Westaff initially as a branch manager in 1998.