On the Job - First Line Management
Every day Roina Graham uses the skills she learnt studying for a First Line Management Certificate at WITT.
“It’s not corporate stuff, but I do refer back to what I have learnt and try to put into practice,” says Roina, who is operations manager of a primary healthcare nursing services team under Tui Ora. Her team provides services to clients in the community and in the home.
For the past 10 years she has had that role for Piki Te Ora, but in the past six months that has merged with Tui Ora, so she has faced many changes.
“During 2010, these changes were being discussed with the organisation so I felt, at the time, I needed to upskill in a course I thought was relative to the changes that were coming up.”
She says those changes were also happening in the real world too.
Doing the online course helped Roina. “It’s improved my understanding of changes within the management sector as well as the health sector areas,” she says.
The subjects covered included dealing with conflict resolution, staff management conflicts, change management, strategic planning, environment changes, IT, ergonomics, economics and time management.
She did the course over 18 months during 2010 and finished in November last year. On average, she spent about 15 hours a week on her studies.
“It brings you back to reality,” she says of the programme, which she found extremely valuable.
“I found I grew in learning and gained an understanding of the language and the lingo everyone speaks today. I’m a lot more confident.”
Roina says she had done a lot of workshops on law, human resources and IT to keep up to date, but this was her first certification for a long time.
“It’s a great achievement because I have not studied for some years, but now I’m thinking seriously about going further and doing a management diploma at WITT.”
The Te Atiawa woman believes other managers would benefit from doing the certificate.
“I would like to highlight that it does not matter what level you are at – give it a go.”
Fact file:
Name: Roina Graham
Position: Operations manager, nursing services team
Where: Tui Ora
WITT qualification: National Certificate in Business (First Line Management) (Level 4)