Single-minded success - Settlement Support

Longveld Engineering
Managing Director Les Roa
longveld staff flourish with literacy training
A Kiwi executive is throwing his weight behind workplace literacy training – saying it’s a
great tool for helping migrants settle into New Zealand society and the workplace.
Hamilton-based Longveld Engineering introduced
literacy training in 2009 for migrant employees who
speak English as a second language.
Managing Director Les Roa explains: “At the time, we were
recruiting talent from overseas as a way to beat the skills
shortage. But we soon realised a lack of fluency in English was
hampering their performance.”
Today migrants from India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Fiji
make up a third of Longveld’s workforce. Literacy training
helps them learn new skills, as well as settle into New Zealand
society and the Longveld workplace.
The company’s literacy training focuses on workplace health
and safety and included exercises on form filling, safety signage
and simple numeracy.
28 LINKZ | ISSUE 48 | 2011
Trainees are able to improve their literacy and numeracy skills,
as well as achieve a level one Occupational Safety and Health
(OSH) qualification recognised by Longveld’s customers.
Longveld has since developed an internal communications
course for staff who need to improve their communications
skills to move into leadership roles.
The course features a range of literacy exercises and is geared
towards both the company’s migrant and New Zealand-born
employees.
“When we started to look at our literacy issues, we found it
wasn’t just our international people who struggled. Many of
our Kiwi staff needed help too.
“We found simple things were being miscommunicated. Some
of our very best tradespeople were too embarrassed to write
on a whiteboard because of literacy problems,” says Mr Roa.