Our people are the key to our success!
ACSO recognises the right to a safe and inclusive service without bias and we are committed to the fair treatment of our participants, employees, and partners. We value diversity at ACSO and believe diversity contributes to our strength as an organisation. Through leadership, collaboration, practice and policy design, we celebrate the diverse voices of our community and embrace the traditions, cultures, and experiences of those we support and work alongside.
ACSO strives to ensure the continued health and wellbeing of our people and we adapt to feedback on what would make ACSO a better place to work. With the help of our workplace health and safety team and representatives throughout all areas of the organisation, we provide a happy, healthy, and safe work environment.
What do our people think about working at ACSO? We conduct an annual engagement survey to hear from our employees. In 2021, 89% of our employees participated in the survey and we received an organisation wide engagement score of 76%! We listen to our employees through a variety of channels throughout the year and are continuously aiming to improve our engagement score through new initiatives that positively impact our employees’ experience at ACSO.
Employee Testimonials
Here is what some of our employees have to say about working with us!
“I’ve worked at ACSO for coming up on three years, across different mental health teams – the best thing by far about working with ACSO is the amazing Team Leaders. The TL’s I’ve worked with have been incredibly supportive, encouraging and genuinely interested in making sure the team is well looked after and reaching our goals. I’ve also really appreciated the emphasis they place on maintaining a work/life balance. ,Doing mental health/AOD work can be a lot sometimes, but I feel very comfortable putting those self-care boundaries in place with such understanding TL’s. The second-best thing is working with the clients – no two days are the same. I’ve met some incredibly inspiring and resilient characters who all have unique stories to tell. Working alongside the clients to achieve great outcomes in a supportive environment is extremely rewarding.”
Hannah-Mae, Mental Health Program
“I’m very proud to be working at ACSO as it’s such a great organisation that has the right values. Working in the residential houses allows me to work with the residents directly and consistently in supporting them to achieve their goals and make positive changes in their lives. ACSO also provides many opportunities in further skills-building and is also very flexible, which allows me to be able to study as well as work.”
Mary, Residential Services Program
Employee Benefits
ACSO provides a range of employment benefits, over and above industry and legislative standards to not only recognise the hard work of our employees but because we understand that an attractive employment package is a competitive base salary and so much more.
Salary Packaging
As a not-for-profit (NFP) organisation, we are recognised as a charity by the Australian Tax Office (ATO), which means we can provide some pretty amazing salary packaging options. Salary packaging means more money in your pocket every pay!
Our employees are able to salary package up to $15,900 of their pre-tax income each year for general living expenses (things like rent, mortgages, school fees etc.) and a further $2,650 on entertainment benefits (meals, venue hire, holiday accommodation etc.). This initiative can reap beneficial tax savings for many people, saving our employees an average of $5,500 each per year.
Our employees also have access to novated leasing of cars and mortgage reviews through our providers AccessPay and Credo, to help them save even more.
Leave
We’re pleased to offer paid parental leave comparable to public service organisations and greater than anything available in the Community Sector! ACSO is also proud to be a leader in the space of Access and Equity Leave, rarely offered in any organisation!
Paid Parental Leave
ACSO support our employees and their growing families by providing the following paid leave:
Primary carer: 14 weeks
Secondary carer: 2 weeks
Cultural and Ceremonial Leave
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander employees are entitled to five paid and five unpaid cultural and ceremonial leave days. Employees who are legitimately required by Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander tradition to be absent from work for cultural or ceremonial purposes will be entitled to access up to five days of paid and five days of unpaid leave per year (total of ten days leave).
Gender Affirmation Leave
Transgender and Gender Diverse employees are entitled to paid gender affirmation leave of up to five days of paid leave and five days of unpaid leave (total of ten days leave) for the purpose of gender affirmation.
This leave could be used for appointments that supports the gender affirmation of non-cisgender employees such as counselling or doctor appointments as well as any other social, medical, legal or surgical related appointments.
Annual Leave
ACSO understands how important it is to rest and recharge.
Employees receive 20 days of annual leave (for full-time employees and pro-rata for part-time employees), and our shift workers receive five weeks of annual leave. In addition, employees receive 17.5% annual leave loading to spend on their holidays.
Our employees can also apply to purchase an additional 2-4 weeks of annual leave each year.
Professional Development
We want you to grow with us at ACSO!
We support you to develop your skills and achieve your career goals through learning, secondment opportunities and program exposure, which include:
- Study assistance – employees who undertake formal study in line with their current role can apply for up to four hours’ study leave per week.
- Employees have individual development plans that are reviewed and updated on a six-monthly basis.
- Learning and Development – we have a dedicated learning and development team aimed at supporting employees to learn, develop and grow whilst working at ACSO. The philosophy of learning and development is to provide accessible, engaging learning opportunities that increase our people’s confidence and knowledge in core areas of practice.
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Cross-program exposure
Most of our team members pursue career paths in frontline positions, including Forensic Case Workers, Forensic Residential Workers, Alcohol and Other Drugs (AOD) or Mental Health Intake Workers, and Forensic AOD Assessors. We also have a team of Business Services employees, spanning functions including Finance, IT, Strategy, Facilities and People and Culture. We know that supporting an organisation like ACSO to deliver on its purpose means providing excellence in Business Services functions too.
- Leadership Development Program - we have an individualised and comprehensive leadership development program for all emerging and current leaders. An element of this program includes regularly working with an external coach on individual development goals. Many of our current Team Leaders and Program Managers have worked their way up from our frontline roles!
- In February 2021, ACSO launched its first Internal Mentoring Program. The program focuses on mentoring relationships which support professional growth and development for all participants. In the current program cycle, there are frontline employees matched with executive team members – a sure win-win for all! The Internal Mentoring Program will have a program cycle each year.
- Career opportunities – we encourage employees to gain exposure across different ACSO services and participate in a range of professional development activities.
- Regular supervision with direct leaders and clinical supervision is available as needed.
APPLAUSE - Reward and Recognition Program
Our employees do a great job supporting our clients and each other so it’s important we recognise their hard work.
A number of initiatives have been introduced such as appreciation walls, thank you cards, monetary gift cards, employee referral bonus, values nominations, and service recognition.
Employee Awards
Each year, ACSO plans an Employee Awards ceremony to recognise employees who go over and beyond to demonstrate excellence in relation to our organisation’s values. Employees throughout ACSO nominate each other for the awards, including for two scholarships up to the value of $$$$.
Work-life balance
At ACSO, we know that people have different personal commitments and that everyone’s situation is unique.
In providing a work-life balance, we do our best to accommodate each person’s specific needs and provide a flexible work environment. This includes part-time and casual employment and flexible working hours.
We have flexible working environments across three states (VIC, NSW and QLD), which makes it possible for you to work closer to home, meaning more time doing the things you love. Since 2020 and COVID-19, many of our roles are working from home with the ability to work from ACSO Hubs, when safe to do so aligned to government directions.
We are also continually creating exciting new wellbeing, and rewards and recognition initiatives that will support you to reach both your professional and personal goals.
COVID-19 Support Package
The huge impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees is not underestimated by ACSO so we are doing all we can to support our employees through this challenging time. The COVID-19 employee support package is available to all employees, and comprises five areas of focus:
- Additional paid leave support.
- Enhanced Employee Assistance Program (EAP) resources.
- Additional leadership support through dedicated coaching resources.
- Career development education support payments.
- Wellbeing support payments.
Employee Assistance Program (EAP)
ACSO partner with Converge International to provide free and confidential support to our employees 24/7.
These services span confidential counselling, coaching and support services for workplace and personal issues. In addition to personal counselling, employees can access seven topic streams including, family, career, money, lifestyle, conflict and manager assist.
EAP is a free and confidential service to our employees, their immediate family members and our volunteers. Each employee receives up to three free sessions per topic. The number of EAP sessions have been increased for each employee during the COVID-19 pandemic!
Find out more about Converge International here.
Free Flu Vaccinations
We all get unwell from time to time, but it’s important to us that we support our employees where we can, and we’re proud to offer all our employees free flu vaccinations each year.
Diversity and Inclusion
We value diversity and inclusion in the workforce.
We are proud members of the Diversity Council of Australia.
In our June 2021 ACSO employee engagement survey, 88% of our employees agreed that people from all backgrounds have equal opportunities and 82% of our employees feel they can be their authentic self at work.
We provide essential diversity and inclusion learning and development to all our people.
Facilitated by external organisations who apply their lived experience, these sessions are aimed at building our capacity around equity and inclusion in the workplace and service provision
ACSO value the importance of Diversity and Inclusion and have a strategy with goals we are working toward implementing.
