Blue Mountains City Council is undertaking a professional development program that is skilling up its employees, and at the same time assisting Council to achieve greater productivity improvements. Twenty three employees from Council’s City Services Group, Civil Operations Branch, were given the opportunity to develop themselves personally and professionally by undertaking a Civil Construction Certificate IV course.
Funding for the program was acquired through Council, together with Workplace English Language and Literacy (WELL), a Commonwealth funded strategy through the Department of Education, and training provided by the Registered Training Organisation, Western Sydney Institute of TAFE.The studies that program participants undertook included analysing work procedures in waste management and performing feasibility studies on purchasing a screening plant.
“Operation staff now sort and screen road waste, minimise depositing waste at the time, and recycle it into our road maintenance program in the form of soil and rock,” said Council’s Civil Operations Manager, Dominic O’Brien.“The program has led to innovation in work practices including waste management, staff retention, workplace morale, cost savings to ratepayers and a positive impact on environmental services.”
It is believed that Council and ratepayers saved $200,000 in the first year that the program was initiated, from the waste management recycling ideas developed by participants involved in the course and applied to their jobs.The next phase Council is looking into, is for the program to offer on the job traineeship pathway opportunities, in a whole of organisation approach.
For further information, contact Dominic O’Brien on (02) 4780 5586.
