Page 34 - CAO 25th Ann Coffee Table Book

provided the CAO with greater network and bandwidth capacity at reduced cost that placed the CAO on a par with developed countries and resulted in an enhanced service to its members. A new telephone system and in-house IVR was also introduced.
Training institutional users on the new CAO system started in October 2008. This was an exciting time for CAO staff as the entire office was repainted. Besides experiencing teething problems with the new IT and telephone systems, resistance to change by the staff also placed additional strain on management.
Staff travelled by hired bakkie with CAO material to career fairs from Port Shepstone on the South Coast to Pongola in the North and inland to Newcastle. Staff also attended career fairs in Bisho in the Eastern Cape. Advertisements were placed in 22 newspapers.
With the annual increase in the number of applications received, the services of two recruitment agencies were engaged to bring in additional data capturers. During 2009, the need to divide the CAO became critical (up to that point, it was functioning as one large call centre). Five departments, namely a call centre, ecommunications, documents management, finance and data capture, were created. Each department would focus on a set of specific tasks with a supervisor as line manager. The new management and supervisory posts were all filled by the end of 2009.
In 2010, UNISA introduced a dual application system, under which applicants could choose whether to apply directly to the institution or via the CAO. This was not without its complications, as neither the UNISA Contact Centre nor the CAO Call Centre was in possession of the full facts about an application. It was not surprising that at the end of November, UNISA informed us that they were withdrawing completely from the CAO once the second semester applications for 2011 had been completed.
SCHOOLS MAILING 2008
Prior to finding a company to send application material to schools nationally, casual staff were recruited for a period of three days to assist permanent staff with the preparation and packing of application material. Once the application material was packaged and placed in trays provided by Durmail, an outsourced transport company would collect the trays and deliver them to Durmail. A discounted rate on postage would be given to CAO based on the total number of trays, once each tray was weighed.
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Staff team building to Kamberg, Drakensberg in October 2009
Soccer fever during the 2010 World Cup when all staff actively enjoyed the ‘Football Friday’ festivities