Lorraine Salloum of Achieve Australia describes how organisational culture and leadership drive workforce outcomes
Since Achieve Australia was founded in 1952, it has championed social inclusion by assisting people with disabilities so they can have a full life and be able to participate in their communities. Due to its principled approach to service, the organisation received an Excellence Award as Employer of Choice in the public sector and not-for-profit category of the Australian HR Awards 2021.
Achieve Australia’s chief people officer Lorraine Salloum, in an interview with HRD TV’s Kylie Speer, speaks about sustaining employee engagement despite the difficulties faced by frontline workers during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Our workers are generally essential workers, so you can imagine having to deal with all of the challenges that all businesses have had, but also trying to keep our people and our clients safe during this time,” she says.
In response to uncertainty, Achieve Australia has focused on its culture and leadership initiatives, determining goals and how they translate to employees’ daily experiences. Keeping the wellness of staff members as its top priority, the organisation has developed an interactive application that helps maintain each worker’s wellbeing. While undertaking a frontline restructure, the team has also made sure that everyone is motivated to contribute to collective efforts.
According to Salloum, Achieve Australia’s leadership strategy involves actively communicating and engaging with the employees. This method involves asking a number of questions: “How do we ensure our structures are actually right to support and enable the business? [The] reason we doubled down on leadership coaching is to be able to focus on how we deal with our strengths as an organisation. How do we use these strengths to engage our staff? And how do we use these strengths across our leadership teams as well?”
Aligning the personnel and the culture means “working on behaviour and actions” to ensure that individuals and teams receive the support they need. Leadership is integral to workforce outcomes, Salloum says, citing the commitment of Joanne Hewitt, Achieve Australia’s CEO.
“You cannot have effective workforce strategies or culture shifts without an amazing leader who enables and supports them. My colleagues on the executive team who are all collectively wanting to drive workforce outcomes, our senior leadership team. [It’s the collective that really drives outcomes] ... We’ve got leaders across the organisation throughout our frontline, and our frontline has been absolutely amazing during this time. The ability to keep our clients safe, to keep engaged and [uphold] our purpose – that leadership at every level is what drives these outcomes and good performance for an organisation.”
Considering Achieve Australia’s plans as it heads into 2022, Salloum emphasises a critical lesson from the pandemic: the need “to look at workforce strategies in the context of the environment” and consider how they can be modified to accomplish shared goals.
