BCITO and FloorNZ/ATI - Partnering to make industry training even better

BCITO and FloorNZ/ATI share the common goal of building and maintaining strong relationships with the industry to enhance vocational training and career pathways for the industry. There will be a range of collaborative activities and initiatives to ensure that together we are optimising training opportunities and developing a valued workforce for the flooring industry.

In the FloorNZ December newsletter, chair Robert Brouwer shared that there is a Collaboration Agreement with BCITO being developed “where we will work together to improve training participation, promotion, and quality.” We have the 2024 contract in place between BCITO and FloorNZ/ATI for the delivery of apprentice block courses and for the Flooring Planning and Design (FPD) programme.

Typically, apprentices attend one block course at the flooring school (ATI) in Christchurch for each year of their training programme, and folks engaged in the FPD programme attend a series of workshops at various locations around New Zealand. BCITO Training Advisors will be working closely with apprentices and employers to support training and assessment in the workplace.

The BCITO Growth team (sales) were recently hosted by Jeff Henry (CEO for FloorNZ/ATI) and the team at the flooring school in Christchurch. For the BCITO team, it was an opportunity to get a deeper understanding of the Block Course content for each stage of training, discover the theory behind some industry-specific techniques, and acquire a better appreciation of what is provided to apprentices while on the course.

The BCITO team had a great morning and confirmed they left with a better understanding of flooring practices and construction methods aligned with flooring installation. Confidence has grown within the team for promoting the flooring qualification delivered by BCITO in partnership with FloorNZ, which will, no doubt, lead to more industry apprentice sign-ups for the flooring industry. As part of our collaboration going forward, the staff at ATI will also provide online and face-to-face training for BCITO Training Advisors working with flooring apprentices.