Levelling the playing field

Viengnaly Sivoravong spends two hours a week in Alto's classroom.

Laos-born Viengnaly Sivoravong, a machine operator, is learning English thanks to her employer of five years, West Auckland-based Alto Plastics. And she's very grateful.

Traditionally, non English-speaking immigrants entering New Zealand under the "general skills" category or as refugees have not been the type to set their employment sights high. Many find work in entry-level positions in industry sectors including manufacturing, transport or agriculture or launch into self employment with varying results.

Working long hours to build new lives, these migrants tend to view a better command of the English language as desirable, but probably unobtainable. How will they find the time? Who will they pay for tuition? Yet proficiency in English for workers of all ethnicities has become progressively more important over the past few decades.

Siva Mudaly, general manager for Alto Plastics, says, "A few years ago we began gearing up this business for significant growth and at the same time introduced procedural changes. It was soon evident that some of our people had literacy issues and could not understand the [new] procedures. These were people without evidence of a formal education in English."

Alto's experience is not uncommon. As New Zealand organisations grow, innovate, compete internationally and are forced to meet new health-and-safety requirements, new standards and procedures are implemented accordingly. Instead of requiring "floor workers" to simply check boxes, pack widgets or monitor machinery, employers like Alto Plastics need them to complete log entries, enter information into computers, and conduct quality-control checks.

Mudaly says around 50 employees from Alto's staff of several hundred initially struggled with new English instructions and workplace signs related to health-and-safety regulations. And even as Alto compensated by providing photographs of procedures and potential workplace dangers, it realised the literacy problem had further implications.

"[Our employees] still needed English to get a better insight into why they were doing things and to be able to retrain in the event of future changes," says Mudaly.

Alto now has a policy of hiring only people who are English-literate, but when that policy was implemented Mudaly says Alto wasn't about to rob legacy staff of the opportunity to attain plastics-industry certification.

In 2002, the plastics manufacturer initiated a numeracy and literacy programme designed to run in conjunction with formal plastics-industry training. Floor workers and tradespeople were first tested to assess their English competence then sorted into groups of varying ability. Concurrent group training then began on company time.

More than two years later, both programmes continue to run side-by-side and will do so, says Mudaly, for however long it takes to upskill Alto's workforce.

"When we started, we said we would like to get our [English illiterate] operating staff through the first level of industry training; but we will now sponsor those who are committed right through to level five - that's a first line management qualification."

It's also quite a commitment. Mudaly estimates that Sivoravong, who struggles with writing English, has progressed at about half the rate of native English speakers during more than two years of training. She estimates her English is "50 per cent" better than when she started.

"I am finding it quite difficult.

"I go to the library to hire the books and have classroom learning at Alto for two hours a week," Sivoravong says.

Mudaly says because career advancement is now as much about formal certification as it is about experience, employees with years of experience but without a command of English can be passed over for lesser-experienced but certified co-workers. Alto Plastics, he says, wants to prevent that happening.

Prevention is expensive. The firm spends around $250,000 each year on training through the industry-training organisation ITAT which delivers both plastics-industry training and ESOL teaching. That figure includes the cost of rescheduling labour so employees can take time off the factory floor to train, and a government training subsidy of between 40 and 60 per cent, depending on course type.

So is providing an employee-literacy programme altruistic or just good business sense? It's probably a bit of both. Though New Zealand immigration services now test immigrants for competence in English (see side box), the language requirements of a workplace can be far more demanding than those tests. And these literacy requirements do not apply to refugees.

But though language problems can cause challenges for employers, new immigrants often make committed, loyal employees - and are prepared to do jobs New Zealanders may avoid.

"We find there are not enough good people [in New Zealand] for the growth this company is going through. We have to advertise offshore for tradespeople and at this point it is easier to find the employees we need from the immigrant pool," says Mudaly.

Not all English-illiterate Alto employees have embraced the company's offer of literacy tuition. Mudaly says one man resigned because he had a high standing within his ethnic community and felt learning English alongside his own people would demean him. Others dropped out because they felt they didn't need the stress, or simply couldn't cope.

"But because English literacy is a safety issue, we ask employees who are struggling to drop numeracy tuition and just take literacy. We then tailor make the industry-training courses for them so the focus is on the safety module only. If they're still reluctant to train, we can access a psychologist through ITAT to talk with them. And we might try to offer them individual tuition."

Despite such glitches, most Alto employees on literacy and numeracy programmes are excited about improving their English and some say the experience has been life-changing.

Sivoravong says the programme has helped her form a vision and goals for the future. "I want to get the National Certificate in Plastics Processing; I can understand work-safety rules - and I can talk to people at the bank."

Immigration and English 

* The New Zealand Government allows in 750 people each year recognised as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. They receive an introduction to New Zealand lifestyle, are given (basic) English language instruction, undertake health checks and are linked to support agencies.

* In the year to June last year the largest numbers of refugees came from Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea and Somalia.

* For the financial year ending last March more than 39,000 immigrants were granted New Zealand residency by the Immigration Service. The top five immigrating nationalities were Great Britain, China, India, South Africa and Fiji.

* More than half (53 per cent) were approved through the New Zealand Immigration Service Skilled/Business Stream, 35 per cent through the Family Sponsored Stream and 13 per cent through the International/Humanitarian Stream.

* The International English Language Testing System (IELTS) is used to assess ability in English. Band scores representing scores for listening, oral, reading and writing range from 1 (non user) to 9 (expert user) of English.

* Since November 20, 2002, "general skills" applicants have had to score an average of 6.5 across all bands.

Source: NZ Immigration Service