A new education programme has been established in Otago and Southland schools with the aim of helping pupils make the transition from school to workplace by giving them experience at The Warehouse stores.
The Red Shirts in Schools programme offers training in customer service, identified by the retail industry as essential for the retail workplace, including communication skills, personal presentation, product knowledge and teamwork.
Red Shirts in Schools Otago/Southland co-ordinator Tui Hill said until recently, the programme was only available to pupils at schools in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.
However, it had just been introduced in The Warehouse stores in South Dunedin, Gore and Invercargill and there were six schools participating, including Queen's High School, Kaikorai Valley College and East Otago High School.
Ms Hill said the programmes further north had seen pupils blossom into ''fabulous retail experts'' and one pupil had even been invited to join the Future Leaders programme, a Warehouse Training Initiative offered to promising young team members.
She said there were only six pupils from Dunedin participating in the programme at present but it was hoped the programme could be expanded to include up to 60 pupils per week for each store.
Ms Hill said the programme was based on the Retail Institute's Customer Service Award and pupils could earn credits towards a National Certificate in Retail (Level 2) while they worked.
''So far, the pupils have been really positive - it's much better than what they expected.
''Because they're not used to working around customers, it's growing their confidence a lot. It's teaching them basic life skills.''
The present cohort of pupils would finish their training at the end of the school year and a new group would begin on February 24 next year, she said.
