TAFE NSW is the largest vocational education and training provider in Australian and one of the best in the world. It employs over 500 staff in the region.

The human resource department needed to conduct annual reviews of staff professional development and general performance objectives. This was conducted using a series of advanced Excel spreadsheets and a range of other documents including paper-based forms. As a result managers needed to manually schedule the reviews and contact staff via phone or email to schedule meetings; thus the reviews were not being completed in a timely manner. Also, tracking and maintaining the performance records of 500 staff members across 10 divisions and 13 campuses was getting cumbersome.

The application

Empower IT Solutions was engaged to develop a solution that allowed for the following business process enhancements:

• Centralise data and improve transparency across all centres
• Track staff development, set goals and training / development deadlines
• Log all the review details and store any associated documents and/or certifications
• Justify staff pay-rise or staff transition
• Effectively manage probationary employees

Empower IT Solutions developed a customised solution using Microsoft SharePoint as the platform that was simple to use; in addition to being pre-loaded with all of TAFE’s current learning and development processes.

The ‘Staff Professional Development Application’ allowed TAFE NSW HR managers to track annual employee development goals, set review dates, log review results, store associated documents (e.g. certificates) and justify any employee transition decisions.

The most attractive feature of this solution is its close integration with Microsoft Exchange that enables it to access staff calendars; as well as book them for training (with the option for staff to accept or reject the schedule) without having the need to call or email individual staff for training schedules. The integration also ensured that periodic reminders were sent out.

The application with its close integration with Microsoft Exchange also made it capable of providing KPI reports for executive decision makers.

The benefits

Although there were many off-the-shelf learning and development solutions; TAFE wanted a solution that could be customised to suit their existing professional development processes and one that could allow for further development. Owing to the Staff Professional Development Application TAFE now has:

• An automated and centralized learning and development system
• Increased transparency across all TAFE divisions
• Accessibility to all the appropriate documentations
• The ability to track individual staff and team KPIs
• The capability of grading staff according to the training and justify staff transition
• The data required to make quick decisions on promoting and firing employee

Overall, with the help of the Staff Professional Development Application, TAFE NSW has been able to cut down on the manual data entry tasks; as well as improve the HR department’s efficiency in managing and handling staff performance reviews.

To know more about the Staff Professional Development Application, or schedule a demo, call the Empower IT Solutions team on 1300 797 888.