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Hall & Prior in the news

Hall & Prior

CEO and member of the National Aged Care Advisory Council Graeme Prior was interviewed for a feature in Business News this week, sharing his thoughts on the future of aged care reform. “We now have a new government that campaigned explicitly on aged care and has a mandate for implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission,” he said. “It’s all there.”

Written by Amber Crosthwaite, Partner at Lavan Legal, the hope is that the government continues to recognise and prioritise the importance of aged care system reform and that ‘the sector leadership can help keep the faith and push through this next phase.’

LEADERSHIP IN AGED CARE Hall & Prior’s CEO Graeme Prior in Business News.

The next six months to a year will be crucial in terms of how the industry as a whole responds and adapts to the findings of the Royal Commission - and Hall & Prior is at the vanguard of those developments. Industry leaders - including Graeme - will look on with interest as the new government begins its work of governing and restoring trust between the Australian people, politicians and the aged care sector.

New peak body launches

LASA and ACSA have merged, to advocate for the aged care industry in a post-Royal Commission landscape.

The Aged & Community Care Providers Association (ACCPA) has replaced current industry associations LASA and ACSA from 1 July 2022, according to reports. Voted overwhelmingly by the organisations’ membership, the move follows the Royal Commission’s recommendations for greater collaboration and a unified leadership representing providers of aged care and retirement living services. “This vote is an historic result for LASA and ACSA and for the aged care sector more broadly,” LASA CEO Sean Rooney told Australian Ageing Agenda (AAA). “It marks the start of a new era for Australian aged care representation with the creation of a united, single industry association.” The commitment to form a new, single entity dates back to 2021 when ACSA - which represents not-for-profit and mission-based providers - and LASA agreed to unite. In February, LASA, ACSA and other industry bodies established a steering committee to develop a new sector representation model that is inclusive of all providers. Described as a landmark move for the industry, the decision to consolidate will give the new body greater clout as it advocates on behalf of hundreds of members across Australia, said Mr Rooney. “It’s an exciting step which paves the way for stronger and more influential aged care sector representation as we undertake challenging sector reform with the aim of achieving the care that older Australians need and deserve,” he said. The vote to merge was held in late April and the new board held its inaugural meeting on 9 May. Chair of the steering committee to oversee the new unified aged care industry association Claerwen Little told AAA the decision to merge was “a very important moment” for the industry.

“It presents us with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to build on our combined strengths so that we can continue to work toward significant reform and create a worldclass system of care for older Australians and the people that support them,” said Ms Little.

“It is an exciting time, we have much work ahead of us to shape the new organisation, and I encourage the whole sector to get behind this change,” she added Hall & Prior fully endorses the new association and looks forward to working with the new board and executive.

ARE YOU READY TO be somebody?

The Hall & Prior Group are on a recruitment drive and with their new ‘Be Somebody’ campaign, those aged care professionals who are keen to use their special skills and have the contribution their daily work makes to the lives of residents recognised are urged to apply.

It’s no secret the task of recruiting aged care staff has been extremely challenging over the past few years. When COVID restrictions hit and potential employees were no longer able to travel freely around Australia or from overseas, the pool of skilled professionals reduced exponentially. Now, as borders are opening and freedom of movement between states and from international countries is improving, the time has come to bolster Hall & Prior’s dedicated aged care roster of staff with new recruits. To make the Hall & Prior Group’s offering stand out from the crowd, the HR and Marketing teams have created a new campaign to reflect the special, intangible contribution aged care staff make to the wellbeing of residents, every day of the year. Called the ‘Be Somebody’ campaign, it takes the idea of staff being a resident’s best friend, good listener, dance partner or bingo pal as an additional reason to look forward to going to work every day. When creating the campaign, the team drew on the fact that feedback from existing staff members highlighted the fact that what they loved most about their jobs wasn’t just the chance to make practical, skills-based differences to an individual’s life. It was more the fact that a resident’s eyes would light up when they were on shift, or that they looked forward to spending time with their ‘favourite’ staff member. To give the campaign some additional impact, Hall & Prior have partnered with CareBridge, a technology-based workforce platform which provides smart solutions to the workforce challenges faced by the health and aged care sector. “We do this by using Sophisticated Software and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to replace the labour-intensive processes of recruitment and roster filling,” says Chairman of CareBridge, Ray Glickman. “Our platform connects workers with the most suitable jobs and attracts new entrants to work in the sector, and simplifies the process of finding, hiring, onboarding and rostering staff in order to save everyone time and money.” The innovative start-up will assist Hall & Prior’s existing recruitment strategies and identify suitable candidates more swiftly, as its AI processor learns the preferences and needs of both the workers and care providers to pinpoint the right worker for the right job at the right time. “CareBridge’s smart people solutions enable the health and aged care sector to access and deploy better staff more cost-effectively and sustainably,” said Mr Glickman. There are some additional recruitment enticements on offer too, says Cameron Marshall, Director of Human Resources, Hall & Prior Group. “There are generous signing-on incentives for Registered Nurses and carers, as well as a ‘finder’s fee’ for those who refer a successful candidate to the HR team.”

If you would like to find out more about your chance to Be Somebody with Hall & Prior, get in touch with us at careers@hallprior.com.au.

BE SOMEBODY’S

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Are you ready to be somebody with Hall & Prior?