The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
How Customised Employment Changes Lives
Engaging in meaningful discussions about employment for individuals with disabilities is essential. The conversation centers around how Koomarri is transforming the landscape through customized employment solutions.
• Introducing guests Nadine Stephen and Shane Johnson from Kumari
• Overview of Kumari’s mission and services for people with disabilities
• Discussion on the NDIS and its impact on service delivery
• The essence of customized employment and its success stories
• Addressing employer concerns and showcasing the benefits of inclusion
• Exploring the challenges and opportunities in the disability employment sector
This episode is supported by CareSuper.
Hello, I'm Greg Hartford from the Canberra Business Chamber and this is the Canberra Business Podcast, where we talk all things business right here in the nation's capital. Today we're talking to Nadine Stephen and Shane Johnson. Nadine is the Chief Executive and Shane is the Employment Services Manager at Kumari, one of Canberra's oldest business. So, nadine and Shane, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having us, Greg. Thanks, Greg.
Speaker 1:Now, it's great having you here and great to learn a little bit more about Kumari. As I say, you're probably one of the oldest businesses in Canberra. You've been going for nearly 73 years and you're a not-for-profit operating in the disability space. But, nadine, what is it that you actually do?
Speaker 2:Well thanks, greg. Yes, 73 years this year. We are the largest specialist intellectual disability service provider in Canberra and the local region and we essentially support people with intellectual disability to have the best life they can, to live their dreams, goals and aspirations, and we do that across various different life domains Community access in their own home, supported accommodation. We encourage people to get more skills, interest, but particularly in employment, and supported employment has been our area of expertise for the entire time. We actually started from two parents in a garage in their home and they were particularly keen for their children to be educated and employed like anybody else in the Canberra community without a disability. So the organisation has grown and evolved over that period of time, but still with that main core mission of people being educated and employed just like any other Canberran.
Speaker 1:So it's a big growth curve from two people and a garage somewhere in the back blocks of Canberra in the 50s. How big are you now? How many team have you got? How many people are you supporting?
Speaker 2:Oh look, we support quite a few well, about a couple of hundred people over different service lines. Service lines we had done a bit of a business review last year and we are now just going to have more of a focus on our employment skills and accommodation in response to the new NDIS environment that we're in.
Speaker 1:So what does that mean for the layperson? The new NDIS environment Sounds a little challenging. It sounds a little challenging.
Speaker 2:It is a little challenging and it's particularly not that new we're a decade in now in the ACT. There are some really good things about the NDIS and there have been some particularly challenging things about the NDIS. The funding is challenging for business to operate within, but I would like to take this opportunity to talk about the good stuff that comes out of it, because it's got a lot of bad press at the moment. One of the benefits of the NDIS is that it takes the balance of power from organisations to individuals. So previously, an organisation would get a bucket of money from government to deliver some programs, and what happens now is that people get their own individual funding package to spend it with whom and how they wish. So what that has enabled Kamari to do is to provide a much more personalised and tailored response for people, and particularly in the employment space.
Speaker 1:And that must put a lot of power back in the hands, essentially, of the consumer.
Speaker 2:It does. It's really wonderful. So they get to dictate to organisations where they would like to go and what they would like to do, and the benefit for us is that we can really tailor that. So we had done a lot of work over the last decade moving from an older employment model to a new, contemporary approach. So we deliver a customised employment model and I'm sure people have heard that term. It can be thrown around but we had done a lot of research into how we could deliver a more contemporary, personalised approach for people. So we had purchased a customised employment model from overseas where it has been quite successful for many decades, and we're about eight years in now into delivering this model and it's very successful. So it's a wonderful opportunity to share this model with local Canberra business today.
Speaker 1:So, shane, let's come to you. Do you want to talk us through a little bit more about what the customised employment model actually?
Speaker 3:means Sure about what the customized employment model actually means, sure?
Speaker 3:so I guess the difference between us and some other programs is that we are focusing on the long term, so a lot of a lot of programs will have a vacancy and then aim to fill it with participants or job seekers and our approach is the opposite of that. So we, our program, goes over a 12-month period and we break that up into three parts. And the first part is career discovery, where we spend the first 10 weeks and 40 hours getting to know the participant. We get to know the family, we get to talk to their peers, their mentors and those sorts of things we then obviously get in. This isn't aligned with the NDIS plan, so in there in that plan, because it's all about choice and control and you know when they want to have a successful life. So what we do is we sort of work out obviously they're going to have employment as their first goal in their, in their plan, and then the secondary goal might be working in whatever field or endeavor they would like to do. So after those first 10 weeks we are always thinking about where we can place them into work experience for the next 10-week block. And then we find a suitable business and or government entity that you know if it's admin or if they want to work in a flower shop or those sorts of things. We approach those employers based on the skills that they have and and where they want go. While we're also doing the first part and the second part, we are still working on the skills gaps that they may have, whether that's on presentation, whether that's on hygiene, literacy, numeracy. So we sort of do it in two sort of separate ways and we do it's so person-cent-centered, so we we drill down, we go super granular, we find exactly what it is they want to do, how they'd like to do it, and then, as I like to say, sometimes you know you may not be able to fly the space shuttle, but we can. You know we can get you to a place where you're working at NASA. Do you know what I mean? So it's just like what's that journey look like? What are the steps once we've done the work experience phase? While we're doing that, we always, in communication with the employer, make sure they're going okay.
Speaker 3:We also deliver disability awareness training. So Nadine and I went out the other day to the Pharmacy Guild and we delivered the training for, I think, about 70 of their people, because we're about to put someone in there. So they're about to interview three of our participants. They would like and that gives our participants the experience of coming in practicing what an interview looks like, how to be presentable, and then, and then they choose and then, as part of that, once that person's employed, it's, it's super easy, super simple. It's only going to be for three hour shift once a week.
Speaker 3:And we find, when we explain that to businesses and or government, they're like oh we, we can find three hours for one person to do.
Speaker 3:If it's admin, if it's gardening, we've, we've got so many different people which we can go into later on where we've got it, what out, where we've got our teams. And then once, once they've done, done that for 10 weeks. We can either do it two ways. They can employ that person as open employment, where they pay them directly themselves and do all those things, or if they don't want to have the burden of doing that, or they're worried about the risk and those sorts of things, because you know, like we said before, like it doesn't always work out and we'll talk about that as well. But we can do it as supported employment, where it's like a labor hire type model. We become the employer, they become the host, we take on all those responsibilities with sick leave and annual leave and those sorts of things and we we do a range of different things with contracts and people, you know, open hire and all that sort of thing. So we can go into more depth later if you like.
Speaker 1:So I guess you've got 10 weeks where you're working really closely with the person and with their families and other stakeholders. To map things out Ten weeks of work experience. Is that work experience typically paid or unpaid?
Speaker 3:No, so work experience is unpaid, then obviously our we that's the thing with us so we look at a 12-month plan.
Speaker 3:So our goal by the end of the 12 months is getting that participant into employment.
Speaker 3:And so the difference between us and other programs where they generally do a three month and a six month interim, what I found with my 20 years of experience working with people with disabilities is that and it's like even just anyone that starts a new job understands that you're all super excited at a start.
Speaker 3:At about the seven month mark and this is my thing with people that are doing a six month is that when you do 12 months it's just that extra bit longer because at about the seven month mark, whether you have a disability, whether you're, you know, neurotypical, just you know, just a regular job off the street, at about seven months you have this sudden realization oh, I'm working, and the excitement of all that has dulled down and it's you're in the grind every day and it's the nitty-gritty. And that's when we find, with my experience, at that seven month mark, where people start to have a few little problems and us being there for that 12 month period, um, we can almost we're aware of what's, what's coming and we have strategies ready to go, based on um, where their skills are, where their um deficits may be, and we can almost plan for that and that's what makes it successful. And we have that relationship with the host or the employer and we do it all together as a community, almost to set them up for success.
Speaker 1:So what sort of response do you get from employers? Because there'll be businesses out there who are kind of looking at it and they'll be a bit worried about the administrative burden of taking on someone with disabilities in the short term and what that might mean for them. Do they need to put a lot of effort into it?
Speaker 3:No, because what happens is when we I like to use beyond bank is a really great example. So David from beyond bank over in Mawson is about to take one of our participants and it's basically what we'd like to say is it's a two-for-one, so they are always supported because we're not for profit, so we get our funding from, you know, the NDIS plan, so they can have they'll always have a support person with them on the job and work experience for as little or as long as they need. We'd like to think, nadine and I and the team like to think that we want to do ourselves out of a job. Sometimes that's not going to happen in, you know, in real terms. So we give that person, the participant, as little or as much support as they need on their journey. So if it's five years, ten years, that's fine, and if not, because they've got that NDIS plan, and if it gets to a point where they can do it all by themselves, then off they go and they do that. So you know they they can do travel training so they can get there. They have we put every sort of support that they need or accommodation that they may need, whether it's noise cancelling, headphones or working in a quieter space.
Speaker 3:If you know you've got someone who's um, neurodiverse or you know, on that autistic spectrum, we really dial in and see how we can set the person up for success over the long term. And you know, like you said, what we there are hiccups along the way and we wait because we're doing the paperwork and if we're doing it like up in the labor high model with support and employment, we we take on that risk, we take on that burden. So literally you get almost like two people for one. So if you're doing gardening and the support person rocks up and they and they're with the participant, you know they they can do, you know, whatever it is that's, we generally will give a skills list to the employer at first and go what is it that you require? What would you like the outcome to be after a three month period?
Speaker 3:Then we work with the support and the participant to so that they can tick off all those tasks by the end of the three months and then, when that happens, if they're happy with it, then they can, you know, put them on as a supported employee or they can put them on open if if, for some reason, they can do 60 or 70 percent of those duties. What we'll do then is something which is called job carving, and then we can do it. Do it that way where, if a full-time person could do a certain amount of activities on on a day, then we we have our own person that comes in, assessor, that will come in and assess what level they are capable of doing, and then we, and then we adjust it to that, and so we look like we call it customized obviously, and that's because we just we, you know it's the perfect word for it, we, just we and so we call it customised obviously, and that's because we just, you know it's the perfect word for it. We just tailor it to suit.
Speaker 1:So now, dean, there'll be people listening to this podcast who kind of roll their eyes a little bit at this and say well, it's all very well that I've got to customise the jobs in my business to take account of people with disabilities, but actually isn't that just a bit of an administrative burden, and aren't I better off just getting a full-time person in to do the job? I mean, what's your response to that?
Speaker 2:Look. Might I just start by saying, quite sadly, the unemployment rate for people with disability and intellectual disability is still double that of the general population and we've been sitting at that rate for about 30 years now, which is disappointing for us as a country. I understand the difficulties of running a business, I understand cost pressures and I understand workforce issues getting the right person for the right job. What a person with a disability brings to a workplace is good skills and tasks. It is not difficult for employers. That is our job and that's what we do and that's what we do well. So once we match a person and we find a business that has the willingness to give it a go, then that work around having the job, finding the skills that's what we do with the employer. And do you find?
Speaker 1:that Canberra businesses are open to the idea of this.
Speaker 2:Yes, there are some business that are open to it, but we definitely need more. We need more business to get on board. There's social and economic benefit for employing a person with a disability. I think the statistics sit around one in five people have a disability or know someone with a disability, so it would be likely that lots of business owners and workers in the Canberra community would also benefit from either a family member or someone that they know being meaningfully employed. There's economic benefit to the business.
Speaker 2:As Shane was saying, it's a two-for-one model. There's a person with a disability who has skills and abilities matched to the organization and they come with a support worker. There's no cost to the business for the support worker. That's what ndis does, and the other benefit too is it's not so much hard work for business because of the labour hire arrangement that we have. So we do the administration and the liabilities and the corporate work in the background as well. So I'd say it's actually easier to support someone in this model than to actually go through a general recruitment process for someone without a disability.
Speaker 1:So let's talk a little bit about, I guess, the labour hire model but, more importantly, what happens when things don't work out. Because there must be situations where you have some people into a business for whatever reason it's not working. I guess easier in a labour hire model because you can, Of course you can remove the person through that model. But what's your advice generally to businesses in those?
Speaker 2:situations. That's the same as anybody in any job. I myself has been in jobs where I haven't been the right match. I'm sure everyone has been in a job that wasn't the right job for them or for the employer. And look, that does happen. We've designed the model so that there's a large lead-up phase where there's no commitment either side, and that's why we do the work experience 10 weeks to start with. So there's no obligation for business and there's no obligation for the person with a disability or their family to commit either side. And that's one of the mitigating strategies that we've put in place that helps the placements work longer term. So, rather than a place and train historical model, we do it in the opposite way. And yes, of course it's the same with any other employment situation. Sometimes it's not the right match and we say, ok, it's not the right match, let's try somebody else, but for those 10 weeks, three months, four months, whatever it has been there's still the benefit of having had that on both sides, for business and for individuals.
Speaker 1:So labour hire companies sometimes get a bit of a bad rap around town and the federal government last year made some changes to try and rein in sort of supposed mistreatment of workers by labour hire companies. How do you feel about those situations? Presumably you're there doing, trying to do the right thing for your customers, your people with disabilities, do you feel a little bit tarred by the broader brush of labour hire?
Speaker 2:Not necessarily. I mean Kamari itself is also regulated under ACT government under the labour hire certification process that they put in the last few years. So we go through all of those rules and regulations and are audited to make sure that we are undertaking the right practices. I wouldn't say that we are necessarily tarnished with that. I think what we supply to business and departments is a range of different employment models, so we're quite flexible. It doesn't just have to be that labour hire you can ultimately hire directly yourself as you will, but being an ethical quality, better practice organisation, then of course all of those arrangements with labour hire we do with the utmost to highest level of ethical standards.
Speaker 1:Is it a big compliance burden for you?
Speaker 2:Compliance is yes. Compliance is a large amount of our work at Kamari, not just necessarily in that space, but more broadly as a disability service provider and a registered service provider. Disability service provider and a registered service provider. Compliance is becoming more and more of an administrative burden for Kamari, and it is for lots of other business and organisations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, All right, Shane, let's jump back to you, and I guess my question for you at this point is well, you're out there talking to businesses working to get people with disabilities into work experience and into work. Do you think attitudes are changing? Is there more willingness to embrace that untapped pool of talent?
Speaker 3:I think definitely over the last two years there's been a lot more interest. You know like we've got some great relationships and a lot of ours referrals. So we, you know we have participants in services Australia, treasury, university of Canberra, doma, hotel, realm, shampoo ch' so we've got government, we've got private enterprise and quite often we all deliver training to, to someone who's going to be a host, and then they tell other people about it and that's what we found is that? Because one of the things that sets up us up for success, I think, is the collaboration between Kumari, the employer, the family, the participant themselves, and then they see how well the program is working somewhere and they'll either see it and go oh that's amazing, and tell us about that, and we get referrals all the time.
Speaker 3:Outside of that, obviously, I'm on LinkedIn and Nadine and I go out weekly to target different employers where our participants have sort of said you know, everyone wants to work in the public service. So we obviously do that and you know I've worked with Services Australia, social Services, defence, so I've got lots of contacts in Canberra. Nadine has been around for 30-odd years and, look, everyone that I talk to knows Kamari in some aspect or has had someone work for Kamari or be supported by Kamari. So as much as when I moved to Canberra from Cooma, I thought, oh, it's going to be this big thing. It's a small town, everybody knows everybody. It's going to be this big thing, it's a small town, everybody knows everybody.
Speaker 3:We're renowned for delivering a quality service and I think that's what sets us apart from other sort of models, and we love what we do. We come in daily. Nadine and I are regularly in from 7 o'clock in the morning till 5 o'clock in the morning till, you know, five o'clock in the afternoon, and we are on the go all the time and um that filters down through every other department. I've never worked at a place where I've felt so much um as it's like. It's like a family. We love what we do. The participants are like part of our family, and then we get just as much enjoyment out of placing someone with an employer as the, as the families and the participant themselves, and that's, that's just a genuine response from everyone that works in that space for us so now, dean, it sounds like you've built an amazing team culture and your time at the top of Kumari.
Speaker 1:How have you done that?
Speaker 2:What's the secret? It's a simple passion for people with a disability to have the best life they can. It's that simple. It's not a complicated, it's just simply not complicated. It's just having the passion to ensure that everybody can be the best that they can. Everybody has skills, everybody has something to offer and we are actually all just the same at the end of the day. Greg, we've had a particularly rough couple of years at Kamari in our transitioning into the NDIS. It has been difficult to maintain all of our business lines and last year we had to make the difficult decision to close a couple of those and to focus on our employment and accommodation and our skills development. So whilst it has been a difficult regrettably sad period last year, this year we would like to focus on growing back our employment branch in this area. In terms of the culture of Kamari, as Shane said, we're a big family and everybody cares deeply for one another.
Speaker 1:And that's an awesome way to be in your business really. I mean, I think there's many businesses that will listen to that and think that's exactly the aspiration that I have, so it's a great work.
Speaker 2:Sure, it's just take each day and just be kind to each other.
Speaker 1:Very, very wise advice there. Look. Thank you very much for joining us today. This has been the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Halford from the Canberra Business Chamber and I've been joined by Nadine Stephen and Shane Johnson from Kumari. Thanks for being here. Really great to hear a little bit more about the business and everything that you do.
Speaker 3:Thank you very much. Thanks, Greg.
Speaker 1:Now, don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform to stay up to date with the latest editions of the Canberra Business Podcast. And I do want to thank Care Super. This podcast has been brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber with the support of Care Super, an industry super fund with competitive fees and returns, exceptional service and a focus on real care, and you can find out more at caresupercomau. Thanks very much for joining us.