When an early learning service in Queenstown, Tasmania, closed its doors in January 2025 because it couldn’t find enough staff, 15 children were left on a waiting list with nowhere to go. Within months, thanks to an innovative partnership between Thrive Group and Asuria, those rooms were back open and fully staffed.
This is what the Innovative Recruitment Solutions Award is about: real problems, creative solutions, and outcomes that ripple out into communities. At the Third Annual Employer Awards, Thrive Group was recognised for an approach to early childhood workforce development that is as inventive as it is impactful.
Thrive Group has provided quality early childhood education and care to Tasmanian children since 1975, with a particular focus on rural, regional, and remote communities – the communities that face persistent workforce shortages, where geographic isolation and limited access to training compound sector-wide challenges. When Thrive partnered with Asuria in February 2025, the brief was to find ways to attract, train, and retain educators in places that standard recruitment simply couldn’t reach.
What followed was a recruitment model unlike anything the sector had seen. At the Fearless Festival in August 2025, Thrive hosted a baby nappy-changing competition featuring simulation babies – an eye-catching, stigma-free way to introduce high school students to early childhood education as a genuine career pathway. Outreach extended to Bothwell, Strahan, and Queenstown. A collaboration with the Migrant Resource Centre opened training pathways for participants from marginalised communities, with a further program planned for 2026.
The approach to participant support was equally considered. Thrive partnered with the Tasmanian Department for Education, Children and Young People (DECYP) to transfer four students who were under-supported by another RTO, bringing them into Asuria’s training environment. DECYP’s Kylie Britten publicly praised the move, commending Asuria’s training, support, and mentorship.
Every participant enrolled through the program is required to work toward their Certificate III in Early Childhood Education and Care, with support at every stage: face-to-face workshops, webinars, complementary training in safe sleep and food handling, welcome packs, fortnightly check-ins, mentor visits, and ongoing phone and email support. Progress is tracked collaboratively through Thrive Group’s portal, with service leaders, a Training and Project Advisor, and Asuria trainers working together to monitor student development closely.
The results in Queenstown speak for themselves. Two Certificate III trainees and three Diploma trainees were employed as educators, the waiting list was substantially reduced, and the early learning service reopened to full capacity.
The judges were impressed by “the diversity and creativity of Thrive’s recruitment solutions,” noting that creative community events, collaboration with the Migrant Resource Centre, targeted outreach in remote areas, and a formal partnership with DECYP all helped Thrive stand out. The model had “resulted in increased numbers of early childhood educators becoming available” – a tangible answer to a workforce crisis.
Asuria CEO Nicole Grainger-Marsh said the award recognised a willingness to think differently. “Thrive Group looked at a workforce shortage in some of Tasmania’s most remote communities and refused to accept that geography or circumstance made it unsolvable. They reimagined recruitment from the ground up, met people where they were, and built pathways that actually work. The children back in those Queenstown classrooms are the proof.”
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