At Interchange we strive to achieve the best outcomes for people we support as well as our staff. And we know the best way to find out what we are doing right, where we need to improve and what people need and want is by simply asking them. That’s why we recently conducted a customer and staff survey.

We are happy to see you are generally very satisfied with the way we operate and the services we offer. But you also gave us some great pointers on where we could do better. And we listened! Our leadership team came together, took the feedback on board and came up with solutions and actions to improve the things that have been asked for.

But let’s have a look at what you told us. We are proud to hear that people we support tell us you are getting quality services and support that meets your needs from us. You also appreciate our professional, reliable and caring staff, the great communication between you and your support team, and you feel confident that we protect your rights and keep you safe.

You told us that you enjoy our individualised approach but would like to see a larger variety of activities offered. We set to work and will continue to develop our range of activities by finding and trialling more experiences and opportunities according to the interest of each individual. We will also incorporate more social events where people can come together and connect.

As people accessing our supports you have also asked for more communication with people in administration roles in order to plan supports better and get what you need and when you need it. We have put in place a new scheduling team to support our Team Leaders and this means they will now have regular check ins with you to see how things are going and talk about your individual goals and outcomes. Team Leaders will have more time to catch up personally with you to understand your needs and wants and be proactive about improving your experience and identifying new opportunities. We will build up a personalised Mini Team around each individual customer so they can rely on key support workers, feel comfortable and know who will be supporting them.

You also suggested that we offer more training opportunities for our staff. We agree! That’s why we are launching iLearn – our new internal training and development program to make sure the people we support, and our staff are provided with learning opportunities relevant to them, their goals and support needs. We are also involving people we support in this learning opportunity by having a Team Leader occasionally drop in on their supports, sharing their knowledge with them and their Support Worker. And so far, we have had nothing but great feedback from customers and staff alike.

Now to the heart of our organisation, our staff! We couldn’t do the things we do without your passion, dedication and commitment. In return we want to make sure we offer a happy, safe and engaging workplace, so you can deliver high quality services and enjoy helping the people we support to live a good life.

We were happy to see that most of our staff felt fully engaged with their work at Interchange, are committed to providing quality services and see great career opportunities. They also feel like we are standing up for our values of individuality, respect, empowerment and feel like they belong.

The staff didn’t hold back though and told us where we could improve. They asked for more opportunities to come together as a team and build relationships amongst each other. We responded and set up a budget for each neighbourhood to spend on social activities for their team. We will also start regular neighbourhood and staff meetings to bring people together, share information and build a great team culture.

We are also planning more opportunities for all staff to come together like our annual iBelong event, end of year celebrations and other activities to value our staff and encourage communication and foster relationships and belonging. The staff would also appreciate more training opportunities – YES, iLearn is coming your way.

We appreciate the people we support and staff who responded to our surveys and being so open to us.  We heard you and have put actions in motion. We are also looking into having regular opportunities to collect valued feedback, find out what is going well and what needs to be worked on. Your feedback is important to us and helps us to continue to build an organisation that does outstanding work in supporting people with disabilities to live a great life and be a rewarding place to work.

As always, we welcome your feedback at any time. Help us to recognise our staff for the great work they do and share with us the things you think we could do better.  You can let us know what you think on our Feedback page or by getting in contact with your Team Leader. If you would like to see all survey results, please read Interchange ALL Survey Results 2019.