ITB December 2024/January 2025 - Magazine - Page 15
One key for Whiddon, in addition to meeting the
needs of residents, is to bring employees along for
the journey, too.
“We focus on two things as an organisation.
First, it’s about having a positive impact on our
residents and clients and improving their lives.
Second, in the past five years, we’ve also ensured
that our people are squarely in the centre of that
equation as well.”
Whiddon created the concept of the Aged Care
Employee Day in 2018. This celebrates the work of
cooks, leisure officers, nurses, cleaners and laundry
employees, plus many more who are instrumental
in providing care for aged-care residents.
Mamarelis says copious research indicates
that employees are driven by the purpose of the
organisation for which they work. Workplace fulfilment
typically sits above factors such as remuneration and
career progression for many people.
“It’s important to stay true to your purpose and to
give your employees line of sight to that purpose and
your business outcomes.
“I don’t come up with all the ideas. I’ve got a great
team of people around me who know they have
licence to innovate and focus on our purpose as an
organisation. That helps us, and it helps them, too,”
he says.
ROI THROUGH A NEW LENS
Whiddon has won a string of industry awards under
Mamarelis’s leadership, and the company’s annual
revenues are over A$200 million.
Headwinds loom, however, in an aged-care
sector that is facing both funding and reputational
issues. Mamarelis has applied some of the lessons
from his time in the commercial sector to the
for-purpose space. He notes that, as a student
accountant, the focus was on elements such as
returns on investment (ROI) and internal rates
of return.
“When you work for a for-purpose organisation,
you have to reimagine your approach. There’s no
ROI on a music and dementia program that might
cost $500,000.
“The ROI is seeing residents with dementia come
to life and smile after they have listened to a playlist
that you’ve co-designed with family based on music
that played a major part of their lives.”
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