Confused about RSA certificates in Canberra? Three steps to help you get it right.

Confused about RSA certificates in Canberra? Three steps to help you get it right. By Mark Field You’ve just employed someone to serve alcohol in your Canberra establishment and they’ve handed you an RSA certificate they received outside of the ACT. Your first thought is probably,  is this certificate valid in the ACT? To help [...]

The principles of Andragogy (Adult learning) and Work Based Training – A Perfect Match By Mark Field It’s hard to ignore the growing movement towards work based training. Employers are more and more considering work based training for their apprentices as a viable alternative to sending them to a TAFE college.  Why is this happening? [...]

Understanding Work-Based Training (WBT) By Mark Field What is WBT? WBT involves the majority of training and assessment occurring in a real workplace. WBT is a combination of Registered Training Organisation (RTO) guided theory-based learning (e-learning) and employer guided practical-based learning (on-the-job or off-the-job). WBT is competency-based training (CBT), which means learners can progress once they have demonstrated competency. [...]

Forget about 457’s for your kitchen brigade, the new number is 402! There’s no doubt, when implemented correctly, 457 Visas have their place in helping address the skill and labour shortage problems. 457 candidates can also bring new skills, techniques and cuisines to spark new life into commercial kitchens in Australia. But, they are expensive [...]

10 ways to lose an apprentice cook in 10 days By Mark Field Have you ever asked yourself the question “what’s wrong with apprentices today?” or “why can’t I keep an apprentice?” It’s easy to lay blame on apprentices but are they entirely at fault? Let’s look at some of the workplace factors that may [...]

By Mark Field – Christmas is a crazy time of the year in hospitality. Long hours, pressure cooker situations, dummy spits and people throwing in the towel are all normal practices this time of the year. They don’t call it the silly season for nothing! Your perception might be that you are being over worked […]

By Mark Field Schools, universities and society in general are all guilty of pushing the bright, talented and gifted students into Tertiary Education (TE). The thought of a Vocational Education and Training (VET) or apprenticeship pathway for these students is generally seen as waste of their talents and potential. This might be the case for […]

By Mark Field I read an article recently in BRW by Genevieve George from OneShift ‘How to manage Gen Y employees’. There was nothing particularly new or ground breaking in the article and it was pretty broad in nature. But, it did get me thinking about how one could go about implementing this stuff in a […]

By Mark Field When us ‘Gen Xers’ think back on our own experiences as apprentices or trainees, we will have some good and bad workplace memories. The mix of the good and the bad was generally dependent on our employer and the culture that existed in the workplace. Times were very different back then, you […]

By Mark Field In my last post 10 ways to lose an apprentice cook in 10 days I promised to explore some of the ways that may help in managing and hopefully retaining apprentices. This post will focus on Number 10 on the list – Let’s train and treat apprentices exactly the same as industry has always […]