OpenHydro & Bush Post Primary

Monday, May 30th, 2016

Nicola Patten, HR Partner, OpenHydro Technology

Tell us about your contribution to the Schools’ Business Partnership

I was part of a team from the HR department who organised and ran sessions with a group of 5th year LCA students. We focused on developing career awareness and job skills, hopefully giving the students an insight into how the skills they have developed in school can be transferred into a professional environment.

What does this mean for your company?

OpenHydro is a multinational engineering company with staff from many different cultures and backgrounds, interestingly based in a very small, rural area on the Cooley peninsula. It is very important for us as a company to be part of the local community both from the perspective of bringing our skills to the local area and with the intention of making our employees feel at home.

What does it mean to you as an individual?

As a HR professional it is always valuable to have a knowledge of the school curriculum as it allows an overview of the skills that future employees will arrive with. We use many of the training techniques during our school sessions that we would bring to training sessions in work, working in this way with the students challenges our own perceptions of the tools we use and helps us develop.

If you could have one hope/wish for your company and school in the future what would it be?

In 2016/2017 we will be making participation in the programme a pillar of our Graduate programme, I hope that this proves to be a rewarding engagement for the school.