Welcoming our New Educators
Induction at GEKA
Bek Ellin, Human Resources Administration Coordinator
Induction is an integral part of the employee life cycle for new staff to feel connected with the wider organisation and to feel confident and prepared to commence work in a new environment.
While our recruitment process at GEKA is always meritocratic in nature, we have now placed even more emphasis on recruiting educators who connect with and exhibit our vision, mission, values and goals. This means that the people we recruit do not only do their jobs well, but they do them with passion.
During the induction process, it is essential that we are able to ignite an enthusiasm for what we do, and enable new staff to connect with us through mutual values and goals.
This year, GEKA has invested even more time and energy into perfecting our induction process to create an opportunity for new employees to connect with other new staff, our existing community, and most importantly, our values. New educators meet together with Melissa MacMaster, our General Manager Operations and Educational Leadership, who provides a presentation around GEKA’s philosophy and values, gives an insight into the office’s role in how our kindergartens operate, and most importantly, provides an overview of the support available as an employee of GEKA. This includes office staff encompassing Enrolments, Service Support, Payroll and Human Resources, as well as Educational and Inclusion Support staff. Additionally, new educators are provided with external bodies that they can contact when they are in need of support, including our employee assistance program and IT support.
The most invaluable part of this process is the connections new educators are able to form with each other, so they can continue to support each other once they are working at their individual services. As we continue to grow as an organisation, more staff work across sites and there is increased cross-service collaboration. It is our aim for all staff to view GEKA as a cohesive organisation that shares knowledge and support, rather than individual silos working towards their own goals.
During induction, our main goal is to introduce new employees to the support available from both the GEKA Office and other services, so they are able to feel connected to our greater community and supported to be their best selves at work.
Welcome New Educators to the GEKA Family
We all know that last year was a significant year for many of us. Constant change brought with it a lot of uncertainty about the way forward. Lockdown provided us with time to reflect on our current situation and what each of us really wanted from life. As a result, some of our people sought to create some changes for 2021, that would see them working at different locations (both within and external to GEKA) and for a different number of hours.
These changes created additional employment opportunities for others, as some reduced their hours, changed positions and/or gave up permanent positions to work casual hours with GEKA. We encourage and support pour people to modify hours and work across multiple GEKA sites as a way of ensuring staff remain current and can share skill across the organisation.
We also opened a BRAND NEW Kindergarten in the City of Monash, ‘GEKA Sacred Heart Kindergarten’, which also generated a range of new employment positions.
Government funding saw us re-establish a group at GKA McKinnon Kindergarten and we have also been fortunate enough to partner with families and seek funding through NDIS to support children needing additional support.
Recruitment for new employees involved educators from services as well as senior management, to ensure we selected people with both he skills, knowledge and cultural fit for our organisation.
Thank you and welcome to all of our new people – we are so excited for you to learn and grow with us in the years ahead!
GEKA BENTLEIGH
Amelie Llorca – Early Childhood Teacher
GEKA BRADY RD
Yan Li – Early Childhood Teacher
GEKA CARNEGIE
Alisha Kums – Early Childhood Teacher
Sudha Karthik – Cert III Educator
GEKA GLOVER ST
Angeline Karvinkop – Cert III Educator
Sandra Ho - Cert III Educator
GEKA MCKINNON
Bridget Di Stefano - Cert III Educator
Dingding Mao – Cert III Educator
Gurkirat Kaur – Cert III Educator
Megan Wiwatowski – Early Childhood Teacher
Wen Shen – Diploma Educator
Zoe Georganakis – Early Childhood Teacher
GEKA MURRUMBEENA
Anju Walia – Cert III Educator
GEKA ORRONG RD
Yuliati Susilo – Cert III Educator
GEKA SACRED HEART
Janine Bird – Early Childhood Teacher
Thank you for joining the GEKA community! We are so excited for you to learn and grow with us over the years ahead!
