Staff Matters 231

Staff Matters November 15, 2019 Issue 231 Week 20

CARING ABOUT OUR STAFF BRIGHTNESS OF FUTURE AT AFFORD Afford provides a brightness of future for staff to grow and develop their careers. Some of these career opportunities include Step Up and interstate relocation. Staff are offered the chance to take on new work challenges and a positive lifestyle change.

Meagan Bartczak and Bo Gartside are two long term staff members who were recently offered a fantastic opportunity to relocate with Afford, and last week made the move to Queensland to take on their new work challenges.

Meagan has progressed throughout Afford for the past 3 years, as a SLES Vocational Trainer, NDIS Support Officer in the ADEs and more recently as a Support Coordinator in NSW Head Office. Bo has been with Afford for 7 years working as a Warehouse Supervisor at both our Ingleburn & Minchinbury factories.

Both Meagan and Bo love working for Afford, but were looking to make a change. So when the Team Leader position for Redlands in Queensland became available, this seemed like the perfect career progression and change of lifestyle. Bo being originally from QLD, saw this as the perfect opportunity to move back home, but he too needed to find a role.

After meeting two years ago as work colleagues at Afford, they have become inseparable and wanted to make the move together. To give Bo the opportunity to make the move with Meagan, HR offered him a Lifestyle Assistant role at the Beenleigh site and this week started the exciting new transition into his role.

In This Issue 1

Brightness Of Future At Afford Joke Afford Trivia

2

Brightness Of Future At Afford Cont.

Reminder

3

Solar Sustainability Across Our Sites Handyman Timetable

4

Driving Brand Awareness In QLD Upcoming Events Afford Trivia Answer Selfies of the Week

Last week they made the move into their new home in Manly, a harbour town close to the water. They have settled in already and started to explore the area checking out the local markets with their fur baby Charlie.

“I am looking forward to learning new skills and the challenges ahead. I’ve started my training and I’m grateful for the opportunity and brightness of future that Afford have given us” – Meagan.

Meagan is also eager to join our growing site at Redlands Day Program in Wellington Point, where she is looking forward to the opportunity to be challenged and grow. She is also excited to share the Afford culture with the Redlands Team.

Continued page 2

AFFORD TRIVIA

How many new employees did we welcome to the tribe last year?

www.afford.com.au

Staff Matters

STAFF PROFILE NAME: Lauren Lee POSITION: Lifestyle Assistant LOCATION: Redlands, QLD FAVOURITE MUSIC/SONG? Here I Go Alone FAVOURITE MOVIE? Lion King & Fight Club FAVOURITE HOBBIES? Dogs FAVOURITE FOODS? Pasta IF YOU COULD BE AN ANIMAL, WHAT WOULD YOU BE? A lion WHAT IS YOUR DREAM HOLIDAY DESTINATION? Scotland IF YOU HAD THE POWER, WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE ABOUT THE WORLD? World hunger IF YOU HAD TO TEACH SOMETHING, WHAT WOULD YOU TEACH? English or history SOMETHING NO ONE KNOWS ABOUT ME? I'm an open book

November 15, 2019 Issue 231

BRIGHTNESS OF FUTURE AT AFFORD CONT. Meagan has taken over the Team Leader role from the existing Team Leader, Angela Parsons.

Angela has been working at the Redlands site for the last 4 years, before our merger with the Day Program back in April 2019. Since the merger, Angela noticed the biggest change was an increase to her workload and responsibilities, which she has taken on with gusto. Afford provide top of the line services and supports and along with that comes policies and procedures that must be followed to ensure our services are the best in the industry.

Staff also noticed changes in the systems they now use at Afford versus what they were using before the merger.

Angela is excited to take on her new role from the 19th of November as Team Leader at the Logan Village, Waterford and Carrara Group Homes.

“The new role means a new adventure for me because I’ve never done supported accommodation. I’m still working in disability but learning a new way, and hopefully being able to be more hands on with clients because I miss that. My favourite thing about my job is seeing families get a break they well deserve. I love working for Afford because we are very client focused in regards to making sure clients get the best support required” - Angela Parsons.

The Afford Way is to promote our positive culture and support staff to achieve their personal and career goals. Goals are important because they give you drive and something to work towards. They help with our development and successes and give us a great sense of achievement when we meet them!

Afford is always encouraging our staff to strive to be better and expand your knowledge. We offer opportunities for staff to Step Up into new and challenging roles as they become available and relocate interstate. Brightness of future is one of the key factors driving our fantastic culture and Afford are proud to have established a workplace culture that drives success.

Reminder!

A general reminder for ALL Staff: • Remember to nominate your fellow staff members that have gone above and beyond for a customer service award!

www.afford.com.au

November 15, 2019 Issue 231

Staff Matters SOLAR SUSTAINABILITY ACROSS OUR SITES At Afford, we have installed solar panels across 20 of our sites as part of our commitment to implementing practices that support sustainability and positively impact the environment. As a large service provider, we also recognise the valuable role we play in not only doing our bit for the environment but also in educating our staff about the importance of sustainable decision making. This is why we are continually introducing sustainable initiatives throughout our business.

Afford operates over a hundred sites across the Eastern Seaboard and we are continually expanding and regularly purchasing new properties. With such rapid expansion waste in any form, is a concern for our organisation. One of our priorities as an organisation was to reduce waste across our business and we have taken steps to implement strategies for reducing waste, including incorporating renewable energy, solar panels, into the buildings that we own.

This will not only provide substantial savings for our organisation, but more importantly, it will also reduce our carbon footprint.

Sustainability is an important part of our corporate identity and with careful planning, we have incorporated many initiatives to help reduce our carbon footprint across the business. The fact that there's enough solar energy hitting the earth every hour to meet all of humanity's power needs for an entire year, was enough of a motivation for us to utilise this great resource!

Recently our Property Team made the move to start installing these renewable sources of energy across our sites. The Property Team headed by Kim Nguyen have been working hard to ensure each property, one by one, are fitted with the solar panels and so far have installed the services to 20 properties since February this year.

There are still many properties scheduled to receive the solar upgrades and we look forward to all properties having solar panels in the near future.

Having these renewable energy sources is just another way in which Afford stands out from our competitors, we care about our clients, but we also care about the environment.

Go Afford!

Handyman Timetable Our Handy Man, Tahier, will be at the following sites this week: - 18th November: Oran Park and Eagle Vale - 19th November: Lakemba and Guildford - 20th November: Woodbine and Ingleburn

Meet Our Handyman Tahier

- 21st November: Windsor and True Blue

www.afford.com.au

November 15, 2019 Issue 231

Staff Matters DRIVING BRAND AWARENESS IN QLD

Showcasing Afford’s bright colours, inspirational logo and the tag lines 'The Gold Coast’s NDIS Experts' and 'Supporting Caboolture through the NDIS', we have recently launched two new bus campaigns in Queensland with Go Transit. These campaigns will help drive awareness of our brand in the Queensland market, helping with our successful interstate expansion.

The campaigns will run for a total of 52 weeks with Gold Coast’s bus on the road from September 2nd and Caboolture’s bus onto the streets from September 22nd. This is significant exposure for our brand that will support the team on the ground to attract new clients, families and carers to our services.

It is important to continue to market our services as they continue to grow interstate. We are hoping to make a huge impact on the Caboolture community with the bus stopping at both Caboolture and Morayfield stations, giving us great exposure. It also attends Morayfield Shopping Centre, a centre which many of our clients and client’s families shop. This will be a great driver for new potential leads to generate business as we expand in the area.

Last year Gold Coast’s bus donned the smiling face of a client from NSW. This year we have decided to take more of a localised approach, using clients specifically from our Gold Coast and Caboolture programs. In doing this, we are hoping to attract more of a localised market, such as family members or friends who may recognise the client on the bus and feel like they are already part of the Afford community.

Zac is our proud face displayed on our Gold Coast bus, a friendly 15 year old Afford client who attends our programs in Southport.

Caboolture’s bus has the beautiful singing face of Stephanie, who attends our Caboolture Day Program and was recently interviewed by the NDIA for their marketing purposes as well.

We are so excited for Affordians to spot the bus out and about in their communities, if you see our buses take a photo and tag us! @Afford on Facebook @Affordgram on Instagram

SELFIES OF THE WEEK

UPCOMING EVENTS DATE:

EVENT:

15 & 16 November QLD Christmas Parties

stomer Care Selfie Above: Cu ane Expo! isb Team at the Br

Pawsome Se lfie Above: - NSW Acc ommodatio Donna Haviland n Team Lead and her fu r baby er

15 November

DES Fostering Integration Cruise

22 November

White Ribbon Day

1-30 November

Movember

Afford Trivia Answer: 786

www.afford.com.au