NECA Education & Careers kicking ass with people. Student Management
While a ‘smallish’ business, NECA Education & Careers is by no means a run-of-the-mill Trade School or Group Training Organisation (GTO). They thrive by delivering great customer service to everyone who walks through their doors.
In their capacity as a Registered Training Organisation (RTO), NECA Education & Careers deliver pre-apprenticeships, apprenticeships, industry short courses and qualifications to students. Then, wearing their GTO hat, they supply ‘kick ass’ trainees and apprentices to employers in the electrical industry – while also providing all the ‘boring HR stuff’ behind those placements.
The business was established 26 years ago and now has a team of sixty staff, also currently employing just over 400 apprentices and trainees. NECA Education & Careers interact with hundreds of employers, including electrical businesses, government departments, manufacturers and wholesalers.
The drive for a single solution
NECA Education & Careers currently use two different software solutions to manage their GTO and RTO roles. “Our GTO solution is quite old, and server-based,” says Philip Green, CEO, “while our RTO solution is more modern and cloud-based. However, they don’t talk to one another. As there’s no scope for integration we have all the problems that come from dispersed data and processes.”
The business knows they need a single solution which is basically ‘off-the-shelf’ and readily configurable to their needs. After first engaging with them through a webinar in 2016, NECA Education & Careers subsequently asked Fusion5 to replace their two systems with people., Fusion5’s student and apprentice management solution.
“We went with Fusion5 because we want an application that can operate across the apprentice recruitment and training lifecycle for both the RTO and the GTO. Right now, we have to go to two systems to get data and reports, and we want one system to hold all our data. We won’t have that problem with people. – it will be our one source of the truth and provide us with the capability for automated work flows.”
The importance of people
Green says the relationship with Fusion5 is an important factor in the business decision to go with people.
“We developed a close working relationship with Fusion5 over 18 months. And we had meetings and spoke to a number of people. users in Australia and New Zealand to get their feedback on the product and Fusion5’s business. Given this knowledge, and Fusion5’s experience in our industry, we are confident they understand our business and our needs.”
“Offering NECA a single integrated solution to unify workloads across their recruitment, HR and apprentice training lifecycles is a real strength of people. Student Management,” says Sven Martin, Chief Executive Director at Fusion5. “No other system is providing organisations an out-of-the-box solution that combines Training and Student Management, CRM, Compliance and HR/Recruitment functionality in a single hub – ingredients key to supporting educators to thrive in today’s market. The training sector is very competitive, and having solutions which enable organisations to be agile, automate workflows and focus on the student experience offers a key differentiator.”
Power surge
The GTO functionality of people. goes live in the first half of this year, with the RTO capabilities ready to use by the end of 2019.
Even before the full benefits of people. are realised when the total rollout is completed, Green expects initial impacts to the business from the comprehensive reporting capabilities, fully integrated CRM functionality and automated workflows. “We also expect to reduce the amount of manual data entry points but still increase our compliance performance. Which is fantastic.”
people. will also provide NECA Education & Careers with ready integration to their HR, training and apprentice management workflows, Outlook solutions, website, and accounting and payroll systems.
