Unlocking the perfect fit for Mia
Customised Employment is Scope’s program designed to support people with disability to achieve employment in the community. The transformative journey of Customised Employment empowers people like Mia, 25, to live their dreams and thrive in their chosen career paths.
“Customised Employment was a game-changer,” Mia said.
After losing her job during the COVID-19 pandemic, Mia sought out Customised Employment to fulfill her desire for meaningful employment.
“When we came out of lockdown, I was spending a lot of my down time at home, and I needed something to fill my days.”
The first step, Mia reflects, was to have a Customised Employment Specialist get to know the people around her; friends, family, and sports coaches. Then, the specialist spent time getting to know her interests which were broken down into three vocational themes.
“My three themes were sport, animals and entertainment and then we came up with a list of about 60 businesses and we selected a few to do informational interviews.”
“But through the process my mind changed a lot. At the start, I was like, ‘No, I don’t want to work in an office or on a computer all day’,” Mia said.
“I tried all the other jobs – I did work experience in sport, I did work experience with animals, I tried dance.”
However, through the informational interviews and work experience facilitated by the program, her perspective evolved.
“I realised when I got another admin job that I actually enjoy doing admin,” Mia revealed, discovering a genuine passion for administrative tasks.
Today, Mia thrives as an administration assistant in Scope’s Learning and Engagement team. She diligently handles compliance tasks for disability support workers. The flexibility offered by the role allows Mia to adjust her working hours and days according to her needs.
Customised Employment not only provided practical skills but also enhanced Mia’s understanding of the job market. She developed the ability to update and maintain an impressive resume while discovering a wide range of roles.
Looking towards the future, Mia envisions continued growth within Scope. “I’m planning to stay in this role for a couple of years and then maybe move up to a coordinator role.”
About our people
7135 Employees
Years of Service
> 10 years = 1562
Years
Developing a learning culture
Scope continues to proudly present itself as a learning organisation across the sector with over 55,000 hours of learning undertaken by employees over the past 12 months.
We have boarded more than 2100 support workers through our Single Block program reducing the onboarding timeline from 93 days per new starters to currently 15 days on average. This is further supported by our net promoter score during onboarding lifting from +54 to +59.
As we bring three entities together as Scope, a key focus for the Learning and Engagement team has been to streamline learning practices and deliver an improved learning service to our employees and leaders so they can be the best they can be.
Activity has included:
• The implementation of Single Block onboarding program for support workers
• Centralising the learning function across New South Wales and Victoria
• Development of a training scheduled for support workers to access high intensity support learning events.
• The development of in-house built eLearning programs addressing key organisational risks and opportunities.
Our team continues to focus on system connectivity, user experience and a One Scope end state for our learning platform. Our dedicated team will continues to work with our experienced subject matter experts to further strengthen our high intensity support delivery plan.
We have also commenced partnering with other disability service providers to address the cost of learning interventions across the sector.
This sector partnership is seeking to understand the opportunity that may exist to standardise learning interventions accepted between providers mitigating the cost of training and onboarding employees who work for multiple employers.
ScopeSAFE expands into New South Wales
ScopeSAFE, our Health, Safety and Wellbeing program ensures Scope meets its Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) obligations with a focus on supports in Supported Independent Living and Day and Lifestyle Options. ScopeSAFE includes tailored Manual Handling, Occupational Violence Prevention and Wellbeing resources.
Our team also worked with our Packaging Solutions workforce to develop a tailored ScopeSAFEapproach. Working together, and guided by the principles of ScopeSAFE, the team have identified four key areas of opportunity:
• Equipment Safety, Maintenance and Training
• Traffic Management
• Process improvement
• Increase manager and employee Workplace Health and Safety awareness
Progress to date has included:
• Traffic management improvements to reduce racking and forklift risks
• Improved line marking in production and warehouse areas to increase pedestrian safety
• Increased machine guards to reduce pinch point risks
• Increased servicing, maintenance of equipment and training for everyone.
The team have also started to develop new Safety Tool Kits, with visual aids and checklists, combined with highly interactive training that encourages everyone to take responsibility for safety at work.
A new approach to disability support worker recruitment
To give our clients greater choice and control in the people who are supporting them, we redesigned our interview processes for selecting our support workers.
Our Talent Acquisition team sought to address missing elements that hiring managers and clients identified as necessary for assessing candidates.
The team redesigned the interview process to showcase Scope’s different service offerings, while assessing skills and values in a relaxed atmosphere with clients involved in the selection decisions.
Over multiple sessions, the team worked with clients and hiring managers to unpack opportunities for the recruitment process and design- a guide that gave more choice and control to our clients. Furthermore, the review identified opportunities for for more individualised assessment questions with scenarios that align to different scenarios employees may face.
In January and February 2023, group interviews were held to evaluate the new process. Feedback gathered from both clients and hiring managers was gathered to ensure our clients were able to select the staff they wanted to support them.
By May 2023 these guidelines had been tested and released for both group and individual interviews, with a continual feedback loop to ensure the team and process evolve with an everchanging workforce.
The Talent Acquisition team is now working with the Scope Client Participation Team in support of the development of the Client Participation Framework. This ensures clients that participate in the process are trained and inducted correctly, and are appropriately compensated for their time.
Building leadership capability with Leadership Essentials
As we continue to grow and evolve as a thriving national organisation, we recognise the critical importance of strong leadership and its impact on our overall success.
Our newly created Leadership Essentials is a comprehensive program designed to equip our current and future leaders with the essential skills and knowledge to lead effectively in today’s dynamic and changing landscape.
Through this program, leaders can engage in a series of interactive sessions that cover a range of topics, including effective communication, crucial conversations, team building and more.
Leaders also can learn from experienced facilitators within our organisation, and network with peers from across our various functions and locations.
This program of work is designed to provide development support to equip our leaders to lead and communicate change. This will be critical to supporting the various initiatives within our priority projects at an enterprise level.
