One of the biggest challenges that comes with high growth is attracting and retaining talented employees. If you’re not on top of it, it can become a barrier and limit growth – the way we assess people for both role and culture fit is key.

As we’ve been growing rapidly, ensuring our team continue to have a strong connection to and understanding of our company vision, purpose and priorities has been another challenge.  Clear communication, making sure the team understands strategic priorities and their role in them and establishing learning and development pathways for employees has been vital.

In the last two years we have implemented client feedback channels which have been critical in enabling us to stay close to clients and understand what’s working and what needs attention as well as identifying other ways we can work with clients to enable them to achieve their goals.

Our focus on strengthening company foundations, adopting best of breed technology solutions, strong internal controls and operational structure combined with innovation has positioned us well to continue to grow and scale sustainably whilst improving the service experience of our clients.

My Plan Manager’s vision is to create an inclusive Australia that embraces the diverse skills and experience of everyone, where people have the right to reach their full potential – so being inclusive is incredibly important to us.

We’re a human-centred business and embracing inclusivity forms an important feature of our competitive advantage. It drives better outcomes through accessing a broader range of opinions and perspectives and maximising everyone’s potential. It also drives the way we design our technology, products and processes, enabling us to deliver better outcomes to everyone.

Our Founder, Claire Wittwer-Smith and I complement each other well, we both respect the fact that we have different skills, life experience and bring contrasting perspectives to situations and combined with a collaborative approach this enables us to work better together to solve problems.

We bring a collaborative and supportive leadership style to the company, a genuine commitment to making our clients’ lives better and it’s really the combination of our talents and connection to clients, providers and our employees that enable us to successfully lead the business to continue to grow and be successful.

For me, growing as a person and a leader involves being curious and engaging with people who are different to me so I can better understand different points of view. I’ve also built a strong and talented team around me who challenge me and our company to be better every day.  An important part has involved gathering feedback, taking time to reflect, both individually and with my team and considering what I and we need to do differently for us to continue to be successful as individuals and as a company.

Knowing what we are doing has a higher purpose, helps me to be bold and willing to take a risk to drive a better outcome, to be curious and to want to learn and do more. 

The Tech Fast 50 female leadership award enabled us to showcase My Plan Manager operating as a ‘for purpose’ organisation in the disability sector that is making a positive difference with the services we provide.  As a fast growing, successful company it has helped us attract talented people who are seeking opportunities to make a difference in others’ lives. 

Winning the award has also highlighted that a disability service provider can be at the leading edge of technology and innovation.  This is important in a sector with a growing need to rely on the latest technology to deliver the best outcomes for clients.

The Tech Fast 50 Awards was a great opportunity to highlight the technological innovation My Plan Manager is driving in the disability sector to create a better Australia by enabling people with disability to more easily access the supports and services they need to live a great life.