A revamped regional training initiative is now bearing fruit in North Eastern Victoria. The North East Regional Development Scheme (NERDS) is made up of 11 North East Councils – Alpine, Benalla, Indigo, Mansfield, Mitchell, Moira, Shepparton, Strathbogie, Towong, Wangaratta, Wodonga – and North East Region Water Authority.
After lapsing a few years earlier, it was relaunched in late 2010 with Indigo Shire Council as the coordinator.
Indigo Manager Organisational Development Fiona Shanks said the key issues facing NERDS were incomplete regional human resource projects, low levels of enthusiasm and collaboration, and high levels of frustration across the membership base.
“This impacted on the financial sustainability of the scheme with successive losses in 2009 and 2010,” she said. “So, the first step was to go back to basics and find a new identity. This meant developing the new name, logo and mission, Learning together, Growing together, and developing new relationships with members.”
Three members – Alpine Shire, Benalla Rural City and Moira Shire – were already using the Learning Seat platform.
NERDS approached Learning Seat to see if a regional contract was possible and thus the NERDS Learning Centre was established – www.learningseat.com.au/nerds. Learning Seat, a division of News Limited, provides individual web based learning centres giving access to one of Australia’s largest collections of online courses and training tools.
It specialises in compliance, professional development and accredited training, and can develop customised online induction courses for corporations, government groups, industry associations and commercial training providers.
Fiona Shanks said 11 of our 12 NERDS members are now part of the regional training platform.
“Each member has a five year contract, administered by Indigo Shire, which provides regional support to the local administrators through a help desk,” she said. “This is the liaison between NERDS and Learning Seat on broader issues, updates to the learning platform and course feedback.”
NERDS also continues to coordinate regional face to face training and arranges onsite training for members. It works with a range of training providers including LGPro, Lifeworks, Workplace HR Solutions and more recently VECCI.
The regional human resources network is funded by NERDS members and this group meets every six weeks.
Fiona Shanks said the group has developed a workforce plan model and three members are working on a Multi Enterprise Agreement
“Other projects include a regional suite of policies and procedures and enhancing our health and wellbeing programs,” she said.
For further information contact Manager Organisational Development Fiona Shanks on (03) 5728 8000 or email on fshanks@indigoshire.vic.gov.au
