The Psychologically Healthy Workplace 

PREL’s 12th year of operation benefits the entire Pacific educational community. Strengthening culture, respecting values and honoring indigenous ways of knowing are the cornerstones for PREL.Increasing literacy is a top priority and so is improving the quality of life locally, nationally, regionally and globally. PREL models the best of employee and career development.

PREL expects all 150 employees (120 in Hawaii and 20 in ten Pacific offices) to integrate innovation into their work, developing effective technical and people skills in order to assume new responsibilities, keep pace with the environment and anticipate the changing nature of the workplace. Even more interesting, PREL also has an internal organizational program to create value and its called Achieve. Achieve is a program that lays out PREL’s partnership between managers and employees and commitment to support self-development and performance quality. Achieve provides an opportunity for the employee and the supervisor, as partners, to discuss development goals and develop a plan to achieve those goals. They weave the professional goals and the employee development together and this places importance on education and training.

Achieve starts with a job description, adds performance values like coaching, collaboration and quality, and includes guidance for giving and receiving feedback constructively. The supervisor initiates partnership talks with the employee and they discuss an assessment of employee key competencies, strengths and needs. They jointly prepare a development plan and meet quarterly for updates.

There are numerous professional development opportunities like conferences, seminars and workshops and PREL has tuition reimbursement and a solid "Brown Bag" lunch series. Achieve is a working solution where employees must take personal and proactive responsibility for their careers to ensure future employability and advancement. The intent of Achieve is to orient organizational thinking to individual development, and PREL embodies it with their focus and creativity.