The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
How to Achieve Better Worker's Compensation Results
With 36 years of experience in personal injury management, Susie Walford, General Manager of Federal Self-Insurance at Employers Mutual Limited (EML), offers a powerful perspective on building purpose-driven workplaces that prioritize both people and performance.
In this compelling conversation, Walford reveals how EML—Australia’s largest personal injury claims provider—has cultivated an award-winning culture while delivering exceptional outcomes for injured workers. As a mutual organization, EML reinvests profits into client support, research, and community programs—channeling an impressive $142 million into initiatives that make a tangible difference. One standout example: the free Injured Workers Support Service in the ACT, which provides critical assistance and drives better recovery outcomes.
Recognized as one of the best workplaces for women, EML exemplifies how a values-led approach can elevate both employee engagement and client impact. Whether you're an employer navigating workers' compensation, a leader seeking to foster inclusion, or someone exploring a career in injury management, Walford’s insights offer a blueprint for aligning purpose with practice. As Walford shows, when organizations put people first, exceptional outcomes naturally follow.
Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast. I'm Greg Harford, your host from the Canberra Business Chamber, and today I'm joined by Susie Walford, who's the General Manager for Federal Self-Insurance at Employers Mutual Limited, or EML. Susie, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Greg.
Speaker 1:Now, it's great to have you here, but let's get started by just talking a little bit about EML. What is it that you do?
Speaker 2:EML is Employers Mutual Limited. We're the largest provider of personal injury claims support in Australia, so we look after workers' comp, life insurance and superannuation claims.
Speaker 1:So you're one of the firms that people are paying their workers' comp premiums to. That's right.
Speaker 2:So in iCare in the New South Wales scheme we look after a large component of claims there. In the ACT we look after the ACT government and also some providers that are self-insured under the Comcare Act.
Speaker 1:Okay, but that's quite limited here in the ACT, so you're not necessarily delivering services to the whole business community, just some of the larger ones.
Speaker 2:is that right, not yet just the Comcare Act or the government workers?
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent. Now I mean that's an interesting point, because many people listening to this probably don't realise that government workers aren't covered by the workers' compensation scheme here in the ACT. What's the implication of that, do you think?
Speaker 2:In terms of the….
Speaker 1:In terms of what it means for scheme deliveries? I mean, is there much of a difference between oh yeah?
Speaker 2:there are different acts and I came from the underwritten scheme which looks after most of the general business, and I still have a firm foot in that area to see what's going on. But the government scheme is very different covers all government employees and some large employers who can apply for it. Different benefit structure, no settlements, a much more of a longer tail. So there's a real incentive to get to work, back to work, as opposed to the ACT scheme which is really dynamic and very much about early intervention getting people back to work. But there is that risk there around common law and a litigious, the litigious environment that really impacts that side.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's certainly a pain point for many people.
Speaker 2:I'm very aware of that. Yes, Now.
Speaker 1:Employers Mutual Limited was recently named the best workplace for women. How is it that you've achieved this, and how do you foster a great work environment in the business?
Speaker 2:I think it's probably because it is just about being a great work environment in the business. I think it's probably because we it is just about being a great work environment, rather than being focused on wanting to do anything specifically about any of the cohorts. But, um, we really do have a strong purpose, which is around get helping people get their lives back, and most people who meet anyone from EML normally recognize that it's a really, really strong culture as as soon as they walk into any of the businesses.
Speaker 1:So how big's your team here in Canberra?
Speaker 2:We've grown significantly. So I run the federal self-insurance business and so we started in 2018 and we've just the business now is at 99, so we just haven't quite hit that big milestone, but yeah, it's been. It's a really big achievement to grow 99 dedicated personal injury experts Like it's been a really big achievement because that resource is really highly sought after.
Speaker 1:And over a relatively short space of time as well.
Speaker 2:so six years, seven years, that's right, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well done, that's right yep, well done, thank you. So one of the I mean you talk about those skills, those workers being hard to come by. How much of a barrier is that to growing the business?
Speaker 2:It definitely means that we need to peddle really, really hard to make sure that we provide an environment, because the type of injuries and illnesses that are affecting people in the government space and we have first responders in that space and we've got medical corrections, we've got schools so, particularly through COVID, a lot of employees in the ACT have been really, really working hard and we're only just seeing some of the effects of that right now. Um, that flows onto the people that are caring for them. So for a case manager, the role is really can be really difficult, because we do deal with people that are in distress and they're affected. So, um, so our challenge is to provide a really supportive environment and to really commit to making sure we get the right people on board who care about helping other people, because it's not we definitely don't see ourselves as an area that just wants to process claims. We're very much about helping people get back to life.
Speaker 1:So how do you go about finding those people? It's a struggle, we do.
Speaker 2:We find different lines, but it's. I mean, part of the reason of kind of connecting with the business chamber is um is letting people know that there are opportunities out there for people who, um, who are committed and like talking to people to um find a course in personal injury, because it's a very rewarding career, uh and um, and it really does have that connection to purpose and we have a fantastic leadership and management team, um, who support you through that.
Speaker 1:So yeah, so how long have you been in the industry and what drove you to get into it in the first place?
Speaker 2:I have. I'm like, I think I'm 36 years in the industry so I started as a baby case manager here in Canberra. So I have what looked after workers comp claims yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:Um and um yeah, so it's, it's something that I connected to and have remained passionate about and um, and in this area I I thought at the last part of my career I would really like to give back to the territory, so I really wanted to jump into this ACT, government space and um, and also, you know, grow the capability for Canberrans, because the act here is different. We have great benefits, but we really do have an opportunity to create a centre of excellence for here, because we sit right next to Comcare, which is a huge opportunity for employment and for innovation around all things injury and all things recovery in the psych space.
Speaker 1:So what do we need to do to get to be that centre of excellence, do you?
Speaker 2:think we do need to invest, so we need to invest in the people we need to. We need to create areas of learning and innovation. We need to test, which is what we're doing at EML. So we've got a lot of pilots that we run through the ACT government scheme that have delivered some fantastic benefits and but it's really just about making the ACT Government Scheme. That have delivered some fantastic benefits, but it's really just about making the right work environment. So we have personal injury experts that are thriving here.
Speaker 1:So how's partnering with the ACT Government been? What have you learned through that experience?
Speaker 2:It's been the most rewarding thing that I've done in my career, to be honest. We set up a program here that exceeds the expectations of legislation, so we just partnered and identified what was best practice in every aspect of in terms of, you know, response times and turnaround times, and how quickly we should make decisions. So we agreed on all of that and then since then, we've delivered like a significant benefit in um, in cost, uh, and outcomes for the territory, um and um. Yeah, we're really proud of it yeah, that's.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Um, now, personally, you, you have a great passion for many causes. Um, how does that help motivate your work?
Speaker 2:well, it does, it does. I'm very lucky to be able to do what I'm passionate about every day, but especially in a place like Canberra, because we're such a we've got such high quality people here. But we are just the right size to be able to innovate, to pop a pilot in, to see something works and to see the benefits really quickly.
Speaker 1:Now, disability is one of the areas I know you're very passionate about and you sit on our disability advisory group here at the Chamber, amongst other things. You know what's your take on that. What are the big things we need to be doing, do you think?
Speaker 2:Just such an opportunity and such an untapped resource. So when we're supporting people back to work or through any kind of injury, I just think that we're underrepresented by the disabled community in the insurance area and it's just something that I think would only enhance us as an industry. So I sit on the advisory committee to try to model to other insurers that it is an untapped area and that there's some great employees out there that we should be tapping into. And in terms of people who are injured or affected, I just think having that lived experience would mean so much to someone if they're getting support from someone who's in the same place.
Speaker 1:Now, you know, there are people perhaps listening to this who have reservations about employing people with disabilities because they're concerned about risk, essentially, and concerned that things aren't going to work out. Have you had sort of practical experience in your business of employing people with disabilities?
Speaker 2:We do so, and that's another reason why I'm sitting on this, so that we can show and help to navigate what we need to do. It's like any other employee, just making sure that the workplace is safe, and you've um, you've considered the requirements, but um, like from from what I know, these are some of the most the highest performing and most loyal employees you can get, and we all need those and we need people with resilience. So, um, some of the people that have been through some of these struggles have got the highest resilience you would know and the as employers, these are just the skills and the modelling that we need for others to see every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I mean, if you were listening to this and you were thinking, oh well, maybe I should be thinking about going out and trying to recruit from that cohort of people with disabilities, what advice would you have for them?
Speaker 2:I've been through that process myself, greg, just trying to tap into the right areas, so through the advisory committee. That's one of the issues that we're trying to tackle. So how do we do connect these people to the current opportunities and how it works both ways, that those of us who are looking for people are finding the right people and that they're being marketed the same way as any high performer would be. It is something we all need to navigate, and I think that that's something we're working on at the moment, and we'd like to be able to come out of this cycle of the advisory committee with something that makes that much easier for employers.
Speaker 1:And there's a range. I mean, when we talk about people with disabilities, there's obviously a big range of conditions, or issues that we're talking about there. Do you think there are roles for everyone?
Speaker 2:I do. Definitely you need to make sure that there's a fit, so it's always fit the right person to the role. So it's not like you can easily cohort it, it's just, I think, just generally, now we've got so many tools and to be able to identify right people for the role, it's just like any other person making sure that they're the right fit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and by fit you mean cultural and skills.
Speaker 2:Cultural, yeah, and also the passion. If that's something that they're passionate about. You find a way to make it work, because it's much easier. It's much easier to work with someone who really wants to make that happen than, rather, to try to fit someone into a box.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and it doesn't really matter whether you're talking about disabilities or anything else in that space. Yeah, passion is obviously critical to making things happen.
Speaker 2:Connection to purpose, because we all have it.
Speaker 1:So just identifying how that works for you, yeah, and you've obviously built a sizable team here in Canberra over the last seven years or so. Ninety-nine people, I think you said so, nearly a hundred. Hopefully you'll crack that threshold soon. What's been the key to driving that passion in your business?
Speaker 2:It has been a purpose it has been. I do think once you start working through those bumps in culture, people start to your culture, starts to draw the right people to you. So you do need to create an environment and to me, it's all about leadership. So I've got an incredible management team and leadership team and we put a lot of effort into leadership and then the job's hard. So we need to make sure that we've got an environment that's supportive and fun and flexible and rewards well. So that's what we do is just like there's a lot of effort going into making sure that we're creating the right environment and we've got um, we've got personal and professional development. So we support people personally and professionally at eml fantastic.
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's just unpack fun a little bit, because I know uh people often say they want to have a a fun. What do you think makes a fun workplace?
Speaker 2:I think it's the connection with people and the stuff that we do is hard, so you need to make sure that there's time for some lightness. So we have great team huddles. It all comes from the team that we have. It all comes from the team. So, just, I mean, they really do find the smallest things that they connect on and will make into a fun event, and I do think it just takes it's just time to actually connect to each other and be there for the person next. So we've been struggling with people in and out of the office, like everyone else, but we've really tried to make sure that we are deliberately trying to create an environment where it is a bit light, so that then people have a reason to come in.
Speaker 1:And is that working for you? Are you finding people want to come back to the?
Speaker 2:office and, look, I really want to be able to provide that flexibility because I know that when I was a young working mum, for example, I would have loved to have had that flexibility. So it's something I really want to maintain. It's just, we try to empower our people to say that you have to make this work, so don't. It's not about us providing everything.
Speaker 2:We do ask a lot of you and we ask you to also give back to the culture so that we can keep this flexibility, because it's something we want to hang on to.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Now, EML, coming back to the company, you've invested over $142 million in the Mutual Benefits Programme over recent times. What's that all about?
Speaker 2:This is probably the differentiator with EML. So we are not just an insurance company or an insurance provider. We are a mutual, which means that we have a huge amount of our income that goes back out as investment into our clients' return to work, anything to do with improving a claims outcome, which means we have had dozens of initiatives, models. We invest into research and it really does mean that we can give money back to the community. So our employers will apply for some of the mutual benefit and then we can invest that into pilots programs all of the things I've mentioned and some of the invest that into pilots programs. All of the things I've mentioned and some of the examples that I could share.
Speaker 2:In the ACT, for example, we've set up an advisory area as part of the union's ACT as an injured worker in distress, so it's the Injured Workers Support Service.
Speaker 2:It's on the union's ACT website service. It's on the union's ACT website and if you've had a claim in the SRC Act or any act and and are struggling with it, it's a free advisory service that we can, that you can connect to without any legal fees, just to get some advice to make sure that you're on the right track and that you're in ensure it is providing the right service and it's just things like that where we can give back and and also get the insights from like that, where we can give back and also get the insights from that around how we can do better. What are the kind of themes that are coming through? Fortunately, there's not many matters that are going through to the advisory service that are from EML, thank goodness. But yeah, we're still committed to it because we do think that there's a space for that, for people who may not have access to go and get a legal advice immediately yeah, and everyone needs to know um how it works and and what they can, how they can be supported, right yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:So there's been lots of initiatives like that for ACT government that we've funded in the last, uh, eight years, six years, yeah what?
Speaker 1:what's your? What's your take on um claims generally here in the ACT and how they compare around the rest of the country? Are claims going up down? What are you seeing so?
Speaker 2:what we're seeing in the government space is, like everyone, we've just seen this really strong and ongoing surge of serious claims and there is a lot more psych. But I do think those psych claims were there all the time that they were just people usually presented with an injury first, and then we would work out that there was a psych. We'd call it a psych overlay, but there was a psych issue behind it. Nowadays, thankfully, we have normalised a lot of that, so the claims are being reported more frequently and earlier, which is good. So now we need in the industry to model what recovery looks like after that, and so that's probably there has been a spike, but personally I think that will settle. And now we need to model what recovery after mental injury looks like, and we're starting to see some examples of that, and then I do think it will settle.
Speaker 2:All insurers are getting better at managing. There's been legislative change for early intervention and presumptive and that sort of thing for PTSD, which is really good. Now we just need to show what after that looks like. So what does post-claim look like?
Speaker 1:And I guess with insurance you're very much sometimes the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff perhaps, rather than the fence at the top I mean, what do you think employers need to be doing to help manage some of those psycho risks?
Speaker 2:Well, we're all in it together right, because we're an employer as well, so we see it too, and there is I think we're all part of the same journey around the awareness and then people starting to talk about it. Then it's becoming more normalised, so people are much more likely to claim. So I think what we need to do is use all the tools that we have access to to make sure that we identify early and then we have the conversations. We also need to not be too scared about it. So there's a lot of good stuff out there now and how we can lead through this and how we don't have to um like step away.
Speaker 2:My advice is normally to step in, take the step towards somebody who's in, who you see signs of getting into um, into that state and um, rather than step away because I think that's probably what we see from the claims side is normally it's when people shy away from a mental health episode that the immediate impact after that and recovery can take a longer time. A supportive employer makes all the difference in the world. So we still have the same obligations around return to work as we do with any injury. So it's modelling return to work and getting help in what that looks like and asking your insurer, if you need to, how you do that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, excellent Good advice. And on the subject of advice, you know you've had a long career in the industry 36 years, I think you said. You know, if you were talking to a young person perhaps, or even an older person who was thinking, oh I'm considering sort of jumping into the sector, what advice would you give them? How do you make a career in the insurance sector?
Speaker 2:It's such a great time to jump in. If you're a person who wants to help people through this kind of process, this is the job. All of the technology and the efficiencies and the artificial intelligence that's coming to help with all of that interpreting legislation and compliance all of that is going to get easier for us. So it really is around that human touch, around how you help someone get from a to b. So I would say the the kind, the right kind of backgrounds can come from anything, from any kind of allied health, anything where, like we have some great ex-retail people who just dealing with customers and know how to deal with with all different kinds of walks of life. They do really well.
Speaker 2:But one of the great examples that we found has come from the property management area. So those people deal with all manners. They've got multiple stakeholders. They're often dealing with people like trying to rally people and get them on board, and some people who've come from that area have been great case managers for us. So case managers come from all over the place. It's more just about people who connect to purpose.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, fantastic. And is there a particular kind of qualification or anything that you look for?
Speaker 2:Anything allied health or anything any kind of, because there's so many elements of personal injury management now. So anyone who's got any kind of legal or understanding legislation type of background and that doesn't even need a qualification, that's just an interest as well, right through to the medical side. But really it's stakeholder management, it's relationship building that we find are the best case managers.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, Susie Walford, who is the General Manager for Federal Self-Insurance at Employers Mutual Limited, thank you so much for joining me here on the Canberra Business Podcast today. It's been great having a chat and learning a bit more about the personal injury management industry.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Thanks for being here and thanks for listening to the podcast. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast platform for future episodes of the Canberra Business Podcast, and I'll catch you next time.