Award accolade for FIRST Security’s Yvonne Bruce

FIRST Security’s Training Manager Yvonne Bruce has just been named by the New Zealand Security Sector Network as the winner of the 2021 Women in Security Awards Aotearoa ‘Educator’ category.

The Women in Security Awards Aotearoa (WiSAA) initiative was established in 2020 to recognise women who have advanced the New Zealand security and resilience sectors.

This year, the awards attracted high quality nominations from across the security sector from physical to cyber to national security. According to the award organisers, only the slimmest of margins separating the eventual winner from the next placed finalist and in many of the awards’ nine categories.

Yvonne’s award follows the announcement last week of FIRST’s Tauranga-based Client Services Manager Jill Priest as the winner of the WiSAA ‘Leader’ category.

It’s been a year of accolades for Yvonne, who was named ‘Security Trainer or Workplace Assessor of the Year’ in the 2021 New Zealand Security Awards. Yvonne’s Security Skills Plus Training Programme also took out the ‘Michael Pepper Award for Outstanding Security Training Initiative of the Year’ at those awards.

“This is further well-deserved recognition of Yvonne’s professionalism and commitment,” said FIRST’s CEO Tim Covic, who had nominated Yvonne for the award. “Yvonne’s strengths really came to the fore in her rapid development of training programmes in response to Covid-19 and the deployment of several hundred FIRST Security employees to provide security to New Zealand’s Managed Isolation and Quarantine facilities.”

As FIRST Security’s Training Manager, Yvonne has responsibility for the training and professional development of FIRST Security’s 2,500 staff in 28 locations nationally. It’s a big role.

The award organisers published the following profile of Yvonne, which summarised key aspects of the nomination:

“Yvonne is an experienced and highly qualified HR, professional development and training professional who believes in using her skills to improve the performance of an organisation and its people by offering practical solutions to operational challenges.

Yvonne’s ongoing focus on developing life skills beyond security knowledge for a diverse workforce has seen her develop and deliver a literacy and numeracy training programme that has delivered literally life-changing results for many of her colleagues.

Staff who have completed Yvonne’s courses have gained new life skills, more confidence in their roles, and the pathway to advancement in their careers. The impact of this goes well beyond their work life and into their lives outside of work.

Yvonne has also been instrumental in the training and preparedness of security officers deployed to Managed Isolation and Quarantine (MIQ) sites around the country as part of the government response to Covid-19.

COVID-19 and MIQ-focused training initiatives led by Yvonne were instrumental in FIRST Security’s provision of security guarding services to MIQ facilities. The resources developed by Yvonne directly supported the Covid-19 response and the prevention of community transmission of the virus in New Zealand from the border.

The challenge was urgent, the situation was dynamic, and trained guards were required in timeframes that were unprecedented. Yvonne initiated training documents based on best practice and continually adapted these to comply with changing Government requirements. Yvonne’s training modules, which were favourably by independent reviewers, have been crucial to the training of the nation’s several hundred MIQ security guards.”

Congratulations Yvonne from all of us at FIRST Security. We are super proud of your achievements!