ISSUE 40 OCTOBER 2021
THE VOICE OF THE NEW ZEALAND AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY
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Auto Super Shoppes launches new training academy THE GRAND OPENING HAD TO GIVE WAY TO COVID BUT NEW TRAINEES ARE EXPECTED SOON t’s a common cry in workshops up and down the country: where is the next generation of technicians coming from? Auto Super Shoppes’ national business manager, Kellie Tremayne, confirms it’s a hot topic among workshop owners. However, when she has asked them where their own apprentices were, they often said they couldn’t get the right kind of people: those who would turn up on time, day after day, who were keen to learn, and who even seemed interested in the trade. She lists a number of contributing factors but the result remained that some graduates of other training institutions still lacked basic requirements for employment. “They might have passed the units but they are not necessarily taught how to be a good employee,” she says. Auto Super Shoppes decided to do something
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about it. It set up its own training academy in Auckland, offering 12 students at a time a 12-week course comprising 24 modules based on the skills that workshops wanted in their new entrants. “They said, ‘If you can give me someone who can do this, we’ll hire them,’” Kellie says.
ACADEMY EXPANDS And it worked. So well, in fact, that the Auto Super Shoppes Automotive Academy has shifted to new larger premises but still in Albany, where it can now run courses for 20 students using two classrooms and three hoists. The grand opening was cancelled due to Covid but the first intake of new students will arrive when lockdown permits. Over the academy’s first four years 116 students entered, 93 graduated, and all 93 found jobs in the industry. Kellie says the course doesn’t qualify for
government funding because it doesn’t meet some criteria around pastoral care and learning support. “It doesn’t mollycoddle them; it’s quite oldfashioned like that.” She says students are interviewed to assess their aptitude and have to pass a test to enter. They have to turn up on time, dress appropriately, and in a fit state to learn, treat people with respect, and generally have everything about them an employer would want, which includes having a passion for the industry. Another difference is that the academy course for new entrants is not free. It costs $8600, which helps establish a degree of keenness on the motor trade. Kellie says the fee is reflective of a premiumlevel industry training with proven results. While funding can be arranged, Kellie says if this money is coming from the bank of mum and dad it can still be good value because, after just 12 weeks, the student can be in paid employment. Meanwhile, students on nine-month courses still have half a year of study ahead of them, with much less certain job prospects at the end of it. The short course also works well for people wanting to switch careers into the motor trade. Experienced educator and full-time tutor Rob Humphreys helped develop the 24 modules with
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