Providers of residential and community care will be inspired by a unique new workplace arrangement at Baptist Community Services. Darragh O Keeffe reports.

Sometimes the best ideas are the most obvious, and you wonder why no one had thought to do it before. A leading aged care organisation, providing both residential and community care, will employ its staff to work across both sectors.

Now there’s a clever idea.

Baptist Community Services NSW and ACT (BCS) employs 3070 staff across its residential and community services, providing care to 10,000 clients and over 1900 residents.  

Last year, the organisation developed a new workplace agreement whereby staff – mostly those providing direct care and some registered nurses – could work freely across residential and community.

“The aim is to break down the silos in aged care and have an integrated workforce,” says CEO June Heinrich. “We don’t name the facility that staff work for but instead assign staff to work within a particular geographic region, which might mean working across three residential facilities and community care.”

Heinrich says the organisation is already seeing the benefits.

“We know the clients in community care think it is a very positive environment. They know that they will be able to have the same staff to help them in an aged care setting. It’s good to have that mixture. This working arrangement offers greater continuity of care for clients and residents. Clients will be able to run into carers later on in residential care which creates an important continuum,” Heinrich says.

The background

The BCS bi-annual staff satisfaction survey found many staff wanted greater flexibility in their conditions of employment and an opportunity to work across community and residential. It would give them the opportunity to pick up extra shifts that would fit with their commitments outside of work and help achieve a better work-life balance. It would also benefit BCS, particularly on sites where residential and community care are co-located. The organisation also saw it as an opportunity to further develop its staff.   

“Aged care staff said they wanted more hours than we were giving them. For example, they might have wanted to work 20 hours in residential care but we were only giving them 10,” explains Heinrich.

Implementation

The BCS human resources department developed the basis of the new agreement and an internal working party was set up to discuss the content. This group included staff from all levels of the organisation. Next, the agreement went out to the managers of all sites for feedback. BCS then invited the unions that had coverage of staff under the agreement to negotiate – a process which took several months. Once there was an “agreement in principle” the human resource staff created a presentation and organised a roadshow to all BCS sites in NSW and the ACT. The unions were invited to each of these presentations to co-present – demonstrating transparency in the process and collaboration among the parties. Once the consultation period finished, voting commenced.  

Staff response

The organisation says most staff reacted very positively to the new agreement. BCS had previously developed an agreement in 2006 to cover all residential staff – meaning the major changes would impact community care staff. Most community care staff were enthusiastic about being covered by the agreement as it provided them with additional benefits they did not previously receive. These included the ability to cash out two weeks of annual leave as well as salary sacrifice for a motor vehicle.

Overcoming issues

“The challenge was getting the classifications to align and not to increase the complexity of the payroll system. It was essential that we got the hourly rate to align, but we have managed to this,” says Heinrich.

With regards to community care, BCS says it underwent a fundamental shift in thinking when the agreement became effective.

Under the previous workplace agreement, staff were paid according to the complexity of tasks, but the organisation wanted to move to a model where it would recognise and pay for the skills staff acquired. Once the voting was complete and the agreement was approved by Fair Work Australia, the human resources staff organised another roadshow  and ran agreement interpretation workshops. The training included a three-hour workshop, PowerPoint presentations, developing staff workbooks and a plain English interpretation guide.

Plans for extension

Currently, about 2800 staff are employed under the new agreement, and approximately 25 staff are working across both areas. However, the ability to work across both is open to all current and future staff and it’s expected the numbers will continue to increase.

BCS says it would like to extend the agreement to incorporate other parts of the business, so staff have the flexibility to gain experience and develop their careers in any part of the organisation they chose.

The human resource staff say the agreement is the first where they have been able to achieve one enterprise agreement for all care staff. When this agreement expires, the organisation is hoping for an even closer correlation between residential and community in the next agreement.

The agreement provides consistency, clarity and equity for everyone, Heinrich says.

“We wanted a single agreement that would unite staff, and where everyone could enjoy the same benefits and conditions. Through a common agreement, staff can have more hours of work. It also means that clients in community aged care, if they end up in residential care, can see the same staff member again. It is a win-win for everyone.

“I’d like to see one workplace agreement across the whole aged care division. It wouldn’t matter if you work in community care or aged care. It would be the same,” she says.