Staff Training & Development

RSL LifeCare has a comprehensive Quality, Educational and Talent Development framework for employees.

Strategic Workforce Planning

VITAL is a proposed organisational framework to meet the increasing needs and expectations of an ageing population with limited resources. There is broad agreement across the sector that traditional Aged Care organisational structures, operations and resourcing will not deliver the essential facilities for the future and organisations will need to develop new service delivery models and operational practices to sustain commercial viability. The purpose of the VITAL Framework is to propose an effective change management process designed to lead a desirable positive impact to all current and future stakeholders of RSL LifeCare. The primary intention is to empower the workforce to meet service demands by creating genuine opportunities for innovation and shared leadership practices.

VITAL Objectives

• Aligned Vision
• Encouraging Innovation
• Establishing Talent Management Pathways
• Reinforcing Shared Accountability
• Growing Leadership Capability

Talent Management

Talent Management or the “art of having the right people in the right jobs at the right time” epitomises the Talent Management philosophy of RSL LifeCare. Talent can be defined as people with the potential to make a difference to performance either in the short or long term and RSL LifeCare are investing in their employees to strengthen workforce capability for sustained future commercial and social success. An example:

Growing Our Own – ACORN Mentoring Program

RSL LifeCare is partnering with Acorn Network to pilot a mentoring program that is focusing on growing our emerging leadership talent. Based on individual learning needs via a Training Needs Analysis and Talent Selection Matrix the 5-month program encompasses a blended education approach of face to face, Skype and on-line delivery to support staff in all regional areas, which resulted in 23 of the 26 program participants being situated in regional NSW.

Nominated by their respective managers across the organisation the 26 employees commenced the program and undertook monthly mentoring sessions focusing on leadership development and key management competencies. Participant evaluations were conducted to assess the program’s impact regarding professional development and performance.

Education

RSL LifeCare adopt a blended learning approach by providing a broad mix of training methods to maximise an employee’s learning potential for future professional and personal growth. Key strategies include:

e-learning

To ensure compliance, improve employee engagement, accelerate employee performance and support organisational goals RSL LifeCare has implemented an LMS to manage organisational learning and professional development growth from a central platform. The LMS has been designed to enable blended and mobile learning and self-directed growth pathways and possesses the capability to manage and track continuing professional development (CPD), support mandatory compliance training and be an interactive platform to establish a career and talent development based system.

Flexible Mandatory Education

To increase staff engagement and accessibility, mandatory education has been professionally filmed and distributed organisation wide via a USB. The benefits include:

• Decrease potential risk of compliance breaches
• Improved education consistency in delivering standardised learning outcomes
• Increase staff training engagement levels
• Minimise administration inefficiencies for chasing up staff to attend training sessions
• Enhance employee accessibility to mandatory education
• Enhanced flexibility for staff who work night and weekend shifts.

Coaching

Growing coaching capability throughout all levels of the organisation is a strategic developmental workforce initiative to enhance individual skills, knowledge, work performance and career transitions.

Mentoring

Intergenerational technique to close skills gaps throughout all workforce levels of the organisation. An internal or external relationship based on common interests, knowledge, experience and understanding of the workplace to support the development of a more junior or inexperienced staff member.

Leadership Development

To support growing consumer service expectations and industry demands RSL LifeCare facilitate a variety of Leadership development programs that aim to transform current managers into becoming visionary leaders who can inspire, challenge, motivate and support our workforce to achieve higher levels of performance and greater job satisfaction. Highlights include:

Leadership Development Program

This initiative has been designed to reflect the belief, that first and foremost, leadership is personal and varied based upon individual strengths, preferences and organisational context and therefore a robust blended learning approach has been applied encompassing a 360° assessment tool, face to face workshops and on the job coaching. The primary objectives of this Leadership Development Program are to provide a sustainable, measurable, flexible and effective way of revolutionising leadership development across RSL LifeCare. Growing the organisations leadership capability and capacity will enable RSL LifeCare to develop the foundation for providing our leaders with the knowledge and skills to challenge the status quo and empower the workforce to innovate, shape and support the organisations future commercial and social goals.

Emerging Leaders Program – GLAM

Another initiative of RSL LifeCare’s evolving Leadership Development Framework is providing opportunities for our high performing female leaders. Targeting the two categories of development potential under the age of 30 years old and leadership in Aged Care, two staff were successful in enrolling in the emerging young leadership development program for Quality, Education & Talent Development Webpage Proposal – Great Leaders Are Made (GLAM). Identifying high potential employees for accelerated development is imperative for an organisation wanting to achieve and sustain future commercial and social growth. Given that success of a leader is an ever-moving target in today’s highly dynamic business climate, understanding our employee’s full repertoire of talents is now more of an organisational imperative than it has ever been. The objective of this leadership development initiative is to empower participants by supporting the development of their management and leadership skills in preparation for future leadership roles within our organisation.

Future employee engagement initiatives will encompass Career Management strategies as listed below:

Career Management

Existing Leadership – Secondments

The temporary loan of an identified high potential leader to another department or role is widely recognised throughout RSL LifeCare as a valuable process for succession planning and developing the workforce for future changing conditions and increasing demands. Of course you may also be seeking to move to another location or experience what another location would be like. RSL LifeCare is happy to help you with that.

Emerging Leadership – Shadowing / Job Rotations

Targeting emerging leaders, a supportive developmental process to grow the skills and competencies of up and coming employees to prepare them for new or higher-roles of responsibility.