Being a World Cup tragic (I was there for '66 - the last time England spent more than 45 minutes facing the right way) this week I have watched both the Socceroos and England throw 4 years of preparation and hope to the winds. Australia, where's the team of 2006? A team that actually played exciting adventurous football with pace, élan and style - unlucky not to find themselves competing in finals football. England? Same as always, some foolish belief that the foreigner should, in some sort of natural order, simply stand aside while the masters roll past - go Algeria!
AArrgh! 2014 - see you there!
What has this to do with disability employment? you ask (probably a reasonable question).
Everything (he replied, somewhat stretching things) - games are there to be won and you have to play to win. Life, and getting work, isn't always about how you play, sometimes it's about winning - it's about getting the job you want and truthfully, when it comes to getting the job that you want that means preventing someone else taking it from you.
The World Cup teams represent the very best players each nation can put forward.
What about NOVA's team?
We presently have dozens of applicants for work with us and we also only ever pick the best. I have yet to meet any business owner that will willingly take a person he or she doesn't think is the best applicant and employing a person who has a disability is no different. So for my team to win NOVA has to offer candidates that are the best person for their desired role and offered opportunity. That means my staff have to use all of the qualities of any winning team - initiative, determination, skill and energy - they have to attack until the final whistle blows (take note, teams above).
How to achieve this?
Well, this week we are undergoing our annual Quality Assurance audit and, as part of this process, it has been very interesting to review the processes my team uses to support and assist our job seekers to succeed. I have read reams of our material that has been created and is used to measure the quality of the service we offer and I have been delighted to read some of our successes and occasionally saddened to see where we might and should have been expected to deliver a better result.
There's an underlying theme through everything I have read: when we take our job seekers needs first, when we carefully look for employment offers that align the opportunities provided by employers with the abilities and aspirations of job seekers then NOVA Employment is a winning team. When we mess either side up, we don't play as well.
During the past 12 months we have spent a significant amount of time exploring exactly what employers are looking for in the delivery of a winning recruitment service and we have tried to engage our job seekers to ensure their wishes, aspirations and ideas are also part of the programs we deliver.
Here's the point of this post: To be a winning team we need to listen to all the interested parties in the process of helping people who have a disability find work: job seekers, employers, business and consumer organisations, families and supporters of the people we are trying to assist.
If you have an idea, a viewpoint about our program(s), you want to praise or you feel you haven't been heard - call me, email me, smoke signals, semaphore - just don't sit back. There are a number of contact points on this page and, as an old bloke, the very best one is 1800656537 or 0298332500. If I can't take your call I promise I will get back to you and, while I can't always change government policy, weather or fate, I can help you get the very best from NOVA Employment, a team I want to be world champions.
Addition Sunday 20th (early am): Anyone says that was 'the hand of God' dies - we were robbed.!
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