Aoraki Polytechnic has been covered by the Timaru Daily Herald over the last two days over allegations of low staff morale and associated ructions, so I’d like to explore how real it all is.

1. Yesterday’s story noted that four outdoor education tutors had gone on sick leave for work-related stress, with one resigning since then, and two managers (campus managers in Dunedin and Christchurch) had also resigned in the past fortnight. The TEU rep, Kris Smith, argued that there had been morale problems for a while, stemming from a major review in March last year. 40 students are affected but CE Kay Nelson said that they had people to fill the gap. She also said that the TEU hadn’t raised the concerns with her in a recent meeting, and that other staff were excited about the increases in student numbers and the new emphasis.
2. Today’s story talked up TEC interest in the situation, but it looks to me like they are just following the news. Going back to the main issue, it seems that two of the sick tutors have now resigned. Kay Nelson said that they hadn’t had any resignations and that dozens of staff had emailed or visited to offer support. It also turns out that the programme leader for outdoor education resigned last August.
3. I have been contacted by an anonymous person who seems to know a lot about the situation of the outdoor education staff. I don’t know who they are, but the info they have provided has enough context that they know what they’re talking about. Anyway, that person argues that the outdoor education group hasn’t been well supported or respected by management, and that they kept quiet about this during the recent ITPQ EER report due to a fear of retribution. There is a concern about a one size fits all approach, and a lack of quick decisions from managers, with too much having to be decided by the CE. One example given of the one size fits all approach was requiring outdoor education to start at the same time as other courses, when they used to start 2 weeks earlier, to make the most of summer weather.
4. I should note that outdoor education was rated excellent for performance and good for self-assessment in their recent EER report (p.15). The reviewers noted that outdoor education “tends to have its own culture of self-review, and going forward, integrating review practices with the broader educational approach of Aoraki will be advantageous”.
5. I sought feedback from Kay Nelson on how many people have resigned, why there seems to have been a breakdown in relations with these outdoor education tutors and whether there was a larger morale problem at Aoraki Polytechnic. I’ve provided her response below, abridged slightly.

Aoraki polytechnic had the most change in the shortest space of time to complete in order to conform to the new funding rules and the new Tertiary Education Strategy. All of the changes have had the full support of Aoraki Polytechnic Council. The greatest majority of my staff have stepped up wonderfully and are embracing the opportunity to deliver excellent education to mainstream students. There is an unprecedented amount of 1000 mainstream students beginning their study at Aoraki this year, which is helping to fulfil our vision of training people in our region, for our region.

The Christchurch campus manager and the Dunedin campus manager both resigned in January and early February respectively, for two very different reasons, and not in any way connected to the Outdoor Recreation issues. With 250 staff people will  leave!! As is their right, to pursue better or different opportunities.

…One outdoor recreation tutor resigned back in January a full two weeks before she decided to take sick leave. We have no other confirmed resignations. The team leader for Outdoor Rec did resign last August for personal reasons. He worked his notice and left Aoraki on the 3^rd December 2010. …

More than 100 emails and messages have come through from staff supporting the direction the Polytechnic is going in. I have also had many calls from the business community of Timaru, expressing support and showing absolute delight at what we have achieved here at Aoraki.

The Outdoor Rec team had a team building day with the HR Director the week before the sick leave issue and a planning day with the Head of School and the Executive Director at the same time. Feedback from those sessions was very positive and all staff had the opportunity to have issues raised with actions agreed…

So, what do I make of all this?

1. Aoraki Polytechnic has had to have major changes over the last few years as it has shifted from a funding conduit for subcontracted providers to an organisation that is focused on the South Canterbury region (plus Oamaru, Dunedin and Christchurch campuses). I imagine a few people are feeling bruised, but Kay Nelson has also had a very large supportive response from staff. Given that, I think we should treat it largely as an outdoor education issue, rather than a wider issue (for which there is no evidence).
2. It seems pretty clear that there has been a breakdown of understanding between management and the outdoor education tutors. Kay Nelson points to successful meetings, but we’ve got the TEU’s Kris Smith and the anonymous source pointing to problems, and of course there are a bunch of  tutors on sick leave at the same time. I have no idea who’s right or wrong.
3. Interestingly, we also have the EER report pointing to differences in culture and approach between the outdoor education staff and the rest of the polytechnic, so the gulf must have been pretty obvious.
4. Anonymous sources aren’t always reliable but I feel this one has laid out the concerns of some staff quite well – thanks for the info.
5. TEC has, appropriately, stayed on the sidelines. This is a local employment issue that is being managed and it doesn’t begin to touch on relevant risk criteria for TEI monitoring.
6. My overall view is that this is as much industrial action by the tutors as it is work-related stress leave, and I’d be surprised if many other readers felt that it wasn’t an organised effort that they all took leave at the same time. I’m sure there will be legal action out of all this and some more of the details will be dealt with then. In the meantime, I don’t think it has any wider relevance for the rest of us – two groups of people seem to be having a quite specific dispute about how things should be run. I can see why The Timaru Herald covered it the first day, but less sure why they did the second story, without following up a few more details. I think this is a bit of a beat-up for the paper but quite real for the small group of people directly involved.
7. The people not really involved in, but affected by, this dispute are the students. I hope they still have a successful year.
8. Lastly, writing this post reminded me how time-consuming employment disputes can be for all concerned.