NATIONAL – Celebrating the many stars across our organisation who go above and beyond to get people well and working.
After months of anticipation, Wednesday 24 May 2023, saw WorkFocus host its second Impact Awards. Where our team acknowledge our reason for being – getting people well and working – and to recognise the many individuals across our teams who go above and beyond to achieve this vision and champion our values.
This year our Impact Awards were hosted by the Canberra team at the Hotel Kurrajong, following Hollie Price’s Impact Award win last year. Finalists from across the country joined our leaders in Canberra for an afternoon of celebrating our positive impact on people and communities, whilst our teams in their branches joined the event livestream to cheer on their teammates and play ‘Impact Awards Bingo’!
Having supported 10,000 people to get well and working this last year, it was no surprise the judging panel received almost 100 nominations across six award categories. 54 nominations were for our peer-nominated Culture Champion Award, highlighting the huge number of individuals contributing to make WorkFocus a fantastic place to work!
The awards hosted by Marc D’Amico, General Manager, and Sashka Crollini, ACT Business Manager, recognised six categories of achievement, Best New Starter, Emerging Leader, Outstanding RTW Achievement, Customer Representative Award, Culture Champion and the pinnacle award, the ‘Impact Award’.
Celebrating the winners
As the winners were announced, cheers, big cheques and trophies followed! Many of the winners were shocked and humbled, and praised their teams for providing the support and learnings that had enabled them to achieve such impactful results.
Culture Champion
Winner – Jessica Donehue, Team Leader (Hunter NSW)
Jess goes the extra mile to welcome anyone new or from out of town into the team environment. She is always happy to lend a hand, provide support or mentoring, or an ear to listen. She has been a driver in building a positive team environment in the Newcastle/regional NSW team with ideas such as a virtual ladies lunch and campaigned for an inaugural Indy 500 WFA race in the Hunter office.
As if this weren’t notable enough, Jess has had amazing success with RTW outcomes for both RTW New and RTW same (Psych) cases.
Best New Starter
Winner – Hayden Say, Injury Management Specialist – DVA (QLD)
Hayden is solely assigned to our DVA clients in Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
He has 12 months experience as a Rehab Consultant and in this time has become a go to consultant for some of DVA’s more complex clients, including being specifically requested in 2022 to case manage a high-profile veteran.
Hayden continuously receives glowing feedback from DVA Delegates.
He manages all his clients with the highest of integrity and demonstrates WorkFocus’ values to achieve the best outcomes; be that employment, psychosocial or ensuring his clients are supported in their medical treatment.
Winner – Zara Begley, Rehabilitation Consultant (WA)
Zara commenced in our Perth team as an ORA in September 2022 whilst completing her Masters in Exercise Physiology. Despite being an ORA, she was achieving full case activity within 3 months, so when she graduated in December, she hit the ground running as a Rehab Consultant.
Zara fit seamlessly into the Perth team, adding to the WorkFocus culture in supporting her colleagues and peers to pick up appointments and case work whenever needed, and even helping one of them recently change a tyre!
Emerging Leader
Winner – Stephen Callinan, Senior Rehabilitation Consultant (VIC)
Stephen consistently meets his KPI’s each month and he is known for his customer engagement and positive outcomes which has assisted him in achieving 50 repeat referrals in the past 12 months. Stephen shares his high-level strategy and case activity knowledge with the wider team and is a NES guru, always willing to provide his time and mentoring to new team members and students. Stephen has been a supervisor for student placements over the past 12 months. Stephen assists with new starter inductions, supporting their growth and development, providing opportunity for observation and assisting with peer review support.
In addition to his support for the Vic team, Stephen is also providing monthly supervision meetings to one WA and one NT consultant to assist them to achieve full membership with ASORC. Stephen has also taken on additional responsibility and is performing the following tasks in addition to his high caseload to develop his leadership skills including EOM customer reporting and where new NES services are introduced from WorkSafe Vic, Stephen provides training and feedback to the team on service delivery. Stephen is an active and engaged colleague and forms the social club for Victoria, organising engaging and fun experiences for the team. Stephen continues to demonstrate his eagerness to learn and take on continued leadership responsibilities.
Outstanding RTW Achievement
Winner – Bec Kidd, Injury Management Specialist (Regional WA)
Bec relocated to Kununurra from our Bunbury office two years ago and has enhanced her already brilliant personal brand, by building an exceptional reputation within the Kimberley community.
Bec manages extremely complex cases in remote communities and utilises her ATSI knowledge and skills as an ATSI champion to achieve exceptional results for her clients and customers.
Winner – Rohan Lai, Rehabilitation Consultant (Sydney NSW)
Rohan has achieved tremendous return to work outcomes for clients over the last 12 months.
Rohan has taken the lead to complete ADLs and has become a reference when assistance is needed for ADL completion. Rohan has also shown a strong ability to manage complex claims and shows a positive and supportive attitude to his team members.
Customer Representative Award
Winner – Lee McSweeny, Gallagher Bassett (NT)
Lee McSweeny always displays high levels of collaboration with our team. Lee lives and works in Alice Springs and is always a beacon of support for WorkFocus team members when in the region. Lee has consistently offered WorkFocus to utilise the GB meeting room for client work and has provided support and advice for visiting consultants in the region, especially noting the media releases of the region regarding visitor safety.
Lee lives collaboration by always being a part of the RTW strategy process. Lee is a joy to work with and believes in the power of rehabilitation to achieve great, collaborative RTW outcomes.
Impact Award presented to Lisa Viney, Rehabilitation Consultant (ACT)
The Impact Award is the pinnacle award of the event and is presented to an outstanding individual who champions all of WorkFocus’ values, from a highly competitive field, Lisa Viney was presented the Impact Award 2023!
‘Lisa commenced with WorkFocus as a Rehab Consultant in May 2022 with no prior experience in the sector. Lisa excelled in her probation, hitting her KPIs every single month since May 2022. Lisa is the preferred consultant for multiple employers including Icon and ACTEW, Canberra Building Supplies and Universal Trusses.
Based in Canberra, Lisa has recently travelled to Sydney twice to help the Sydney team with Comcare assessments. Lisa has also been happy to travel to the south coast and to Wagga to support her clients face-to-face. Lisa is exceptional in mentoring new staff even though this is not part of her role. She goes above and beyond to make new staff feel included and is always happy to take the new starter with her for the day to shadow appointments and provide training. Lisa always develops a great rapport with her clients, she is a phenomenal asset to our team and champions WorkFocus’ values of making an IMPACT!’
We’d like to take this opportunity to thank again the amazing individuals that make our organisation, making a difference to people’s lives, and congratulate all of the nominees, finalists and winners!!
Full list of finalists
Culture Champion
Liam Wiggins, Injury Management Specialist (VIC)
Lisa Viney, Rehabilitation Consultant (ACT)
Best New Starter
Hoi Sang Keung, Rehabilitation Consultant (NT)
Alexander Van Vliet, Rehabilitation Consultant (VIC)
Emerging Leader
Tenielle Woodward, Team Leader (Regional WA)
Laura McAuslan, Team Leader (ACT)
Outstanding RTW Achievement
Trisha Nand, Senior Rehabilitation Consultant (TAS)
Takae Kitabatake, Senior Rehabilitation Consultant (Illawarra NSW)
Customer Representative Award
Arthur Reilly, CGU
Kerrie Shepherd, DXC Claims Management
Impact Award
Doug Greenwood, Team Leader (Sydney NSW)
Suzanne Reid, Professional Support Assistant (VIC)
