Public health organisations; workforce development
To advance national public health workforce development, the Ministry of Health is keen to support organisations to cultivate an ethos of learning and development in their workplace cultures.
This is consistent with Objective 8 of Te Uru Kahikatea which is about building supportive workplace cultures.
As a first step, the Ministry of Health has requested that its contracted public health providers develop and report on their organisation workforce development plans.
Implementing an agreed and resourced organisational workforce development plan is a positive move towards growing a culture of learning and development, where staff feel valued and supported in their careers.
The development and implementation processes can however be onerous. Particularly as some organisations may need to review their systems, structures and policies to ensure workforce development is an in-built component of their core business.
Public health workforce development tools: they can help your organisation
Tools to support organisations with these processes are available and new tools are or soon will be, in development:
The Ministry of Health recently completed a Tools Consultation in the public health sector to determine what support organisations need for their workforce development. The Ministry of Health is now working to incorporate the development of the prioritised tools into the Te Uru Kahikatea workplan for 2010.
Tools Summary Report - November 2009
Te Uru Kahikatea as a framework for organisational workforce development
It is essential that the work arising from Te Uru Kahikatea: The Public Health Workforce Development Plan is strategically and practically linked with the many facets of workforce development occurring in public health organisations in Aotearoa, New Zealand.
The goals, objectives and actions of Te Uru Kahikatea provide a practical and useful framework for organisations to use as a structure for their own workforce development. The workforce development plan framework and reporting template is a useful tool to help organisation structure their workforce development plan to Te Uru Kahikatea. Population Health Hamilton successfully use the Te Uru Kahikatea framework.
Further information: