Meet the New Zealand winners of the Excellence in Candidate Care at RCSA’s Industry Awards
ep.education took home the RCSA Award for Excellence in Candidate Care at this year’s RCSA Industry Awards. Stu Birch, Director at ep.education, provides us with an insight into what sets ep.education apart as an industry leader and what receiving the award means to him and the company.
Right educator, right place, right time. That's our mission at ep.education. We are all about creating excellence in education and we know that looking after our candidates is critical to this goal.
What does creating excellence in education look like to us?
It means having a dedicated Candidate Care team who communicate with everyone who reaches out to us, not just those we can work with.
It means launching an app that gives relief teachers full control of their schedule.
It means offering online services to account for lockdowns and travel restrictions brought on by COVID-19.
It means automating busywork so our consultants have more time to spend building relationships with candidates.
It means constantly adapting to the changing world and always putting our candidates first.
Like many industries, teachers can find work without the help of a recruiter. With this in mind, we make sure that we're offering a value-added bespoke service that includes going above and beyond for our kaiako.
Building relationships is one of our key values at ep.education, and we have seen the importance of this time and time again. Throughout lockdowns and uncertainty, we make sure that we are keeping our candidates and relief teachers informed and feeling supported.
The services offered by ep.education are not limited to recruitment.
Alongside finding daily relief, short-term or permanent roles, we offer a myriad of ways to help teachers develop and advance their careers.
For example, although professional development is critical for teachers, courses can often be long and cost-prohibitive. We started to organise PD ourselves and removed time and cost barriers by offering affordable workshops that are a maximum of two hours.
Hosting some of our PD workshops online ensured that teachers all over Aotearoa could benefit, without the impact of lockdowns and distancing restrictions.
Alongside countless industries, COVID-19 had a significant impact on the teaching sector in New Zealand.
ep.education quickly adapted to the rapidly shifting environment to ensure we were still offering teachers the best possible service, despite the restrictions introduced by the pandemic.
A notable adjustment we implemented in response to the unprecedented challenges came in the form of online webinars. The webinars provided insights into the current market and teaching opportunities in NZ.
We've been in business since 1995, so we have years of experience as industry leaders.
Throughout our 26-year history, we have continually adapted and improved our processes and systems so that we are always providing the best possible service to our candidates.
We won the RCSA Award for Excellence in Candidate Care in both 2018 (as Education Personnel) and 2020, so we could not be prouder to win for the third time this year.
We are delighted to have received this recognition detailing the dedication of our team and their constant hard work with supporting teachers and our ongoing mahi to create excellence in education.
