ITI Articles

New Zealand Management Academies features on the Management Focus website with its recruitment company, Red Fish.

Management Focus is an initiative of the Business Capability Partnership – a group of key private and public sector organisations that works together to improve the management and business capability of New Zealand companies through targeted projects

Red Fish trades as a separate entity from NZMA, and is a work placement and employment service set up primarily for NZMA and sister company FERN English Academy students and graduates. 
 
Staff at New Zealand Management Academies (NZMA) realised their business was missing out on a whole new trend of young people looking to combine travel, study and work.

Jayne Hatak, now the International Business Manager for Red Fish, was at NZMA in 2006 when the need for Red Fish became apparent.  “It was a real eye-opener,” she says.  
“We had not fully appreciated that the young people in Generation Y are so different.  If they were thinking about coming to New Zealand, they wanted a single package which covered all their employment, education and travel options.  NZMA was not able to meet that kind of international demand by itself and that prompted us to develop Red Fish as a brand new company,” says Jayne.

An honest look at what the institute actually offered its students initiated the change. Jayne says that that while NZMA officially said they offered a package which included work and study, the reality was quite different. 

“We were great at teaching skills and English language but job placements were handled by individuals in each Academy – sometimes part-time.  We wanted to complete the package by offering a first class job placement service – people like to get hooked up with work,” she says.

“It was critical that we created the right brand which would be internationally recognisable and then backed it up by providing the services here.  The brand had to work in Asia but we also wanted to attract people from around the world.  It also had to work for markets and overseas partners who did not have much connection to education in New Zealand.”  Research undertaken at the World Youth Student Travel Conference in 2006 provided a good strategic direction.

While the brand was being developed, the final business case and new company infrastructure were also being created.  This involved taking steps to centralise the existing people doing the employment placements in each of the Academies in order to provide a more co-ordinated approach. 
“This was a chance to smarten up and professionalise our employment services.  Doing this had benefits for both domestic and international students.  It also attracted people to the related education services,” says Jayne.

Since launching, Red Fish has vindicated both the business case and the brand.  It is attracting a whole different type of traveller and helping them find the sort of work they want in New Zealand. 

“Red Fish basically completed the package.  People can learn and then go straight into a job at the end while others may prefer to go directly into work.  We are meeting student demand, community need and national education goals.  It is fair to say we are pleased with the success of Red Fish so far,” says Jonathan Cullinane, Director of Red Fish.

That success is based on hard work by a dedicated team for a year before even launching.

Go to Management Focus to find out more about the group and to read the full Red Fish case study.