In order to deliver on its strategic priorities, healthcare company Bupa saw an opportunity to develop its frontline managers to unlock greater performance and care throughout the business.

Frontline workers in health and aged care are deeply committed to delivering quality care and support to older Australians. Although this work is rewarding, it remains challenging – reflected in recent government funding increases aimed at raising wages to retain and attract workers in aged care. 

While these initiatives may have offered some relief, many organisations continue to face significant hurdles in engaging, retaining and attracting talent in this vital sector.

For Bupa, a healthcare company providing health insurance, optical, dental, health services and residential aged care, the post-COVID recovery journey has not been an easy one.

Particularly within its aged care business, voluntary turnover was rising and engagement levels were flat, as employees struggled to navigate the raft of complex health issues and risks arising for their residents during the height of the pandemic years. 

On top of this, migration bans meant that the aged care workforce – which was usually reliant on overseas skilled workers – was squeezed even tighter.

With a workforce of nearly 7500 in the aged care arm of the business and over 50 care homes across Australia, this represented a large portion of Bupa’s 22,000-strong Asia Pacific workforce that was in need of additional support.

“In early 2023, we were hearing feedback that aged care was an area that was really challenged – and this was evident in the engagement and attrition data,” says Anna Locke, Organisational Development Lead at Bupa.

“We realised if our broader workforce is having these challenges, then our frontline leadership is going to be feeling that too, because frontline leaders are that first line of service.”

A collection of other data points, such as exit interview data which showed some frontline leaders felt overwhelmed by their roles and responsibilities, reinforced that this was a necessary space to invest in.

Aligning to the broader strategy

Bupa addressed these challenges by developing the ‘Lead at the Heart’ frontline leadership development program, a three-day initiative that has been nominated for an AHRI Award.

Advocacy of this program by the executive and board wasn’t a challenge, as customer centricity is at the heart of Bupa’s overarching strategy, and the Lead at the Heart program directly aligned to this.

“Having the right people with the right skills and leadership capability leads Bupa towards this transformative customer-centric strategy,” says HuiChin Wu, Bupa’s Head of Organisational Development, Leadership and Talent for the Asia Pacific region.

“In this sense, [our program] isn’t just a people strategy – it’s part of the business strategy.”

This year, Bupa announced that 2024 was all about leadership capability within the business, adds Wu.

“While our pilot program was launched in 2023, this goes to show that our strategy at the time was aligned with the business strategy. Now, we can see the effects coming through the business having a positive impact on our customers and residents, and how we invest in our people and leadership development.”

“I think everybody has been to training sessions where they put up some great slides and share theories or models. We smile, nod and go, ‘Yep, that makes sense,’ and yet it doesn’t translate into behavioural change.” – Anna Locke, Organisational Development Lead at Bupa

Experiential learning

It was important for Bupa’s training program to go beyond traditional leadership development approaches.

“I think everybody has been to training sessions where they put up some great slides and share theories or models. We smile, nod and go, ‘Yep, that makes sense,’ and yet it doesn’t translate into behavioural change,” says Locke.

Instead, Bupa wanted to focus on providing frontline leaders with practical resources and support that helped them make their jobs more sustainable and engaging. For this reason, Bupa partnered with Esprit Consulting to design a program where the key learnings were embedded in an experiential way, to make genuine mindset shifts.

An example of this in action is how they introduce the concept of workload management.

“The facilitator makes a large hypothetical ask of participants and then explores how they feel about executing it. How willing and ready are they? What questions do they have? The facilitator then shares more information, and the group discusses how this changes their understanding and subsequent commitment and engagement in the task. 

“This is how we introduce strategy, and the benefits of connecting back to it when prioritising and delegating. We then unpack how they currently approach their workload by asking questions like, ‘How might that look different if you were to use this model or approach instead?’”

Inevitably, participants generate insights and reflections about how differently their team members might respond to a task if they start to focus on the ‘why’ when they delegate. 

Bupa’s organisational development team also thought outside the box to make the learning as fun and engaging as possible.

“We do a section on situational leadership to talk about the difference between directive versus non-directive leadership styles. To experience this, we pair up participants and have them teach each other to juggle. 

“It’s a novel task for most people, so it’s a good opportunity to practice the different leadership techniques. Are they falling into the habit of telling rather than asking? Are they being curious? Are they using open-ended feedback questions?”

This approach helps break down barriers and create memorable learning moments for participants to take back into their day-to-day work life.

While the program was initially piloted for workers in their aged care business, Locke and Wu quickly realised there was a need for this training program to be rolled out more broadly across the business for frontline workers.

During the pilot stage in 2023, over 240 participants went through the in-person training, which encompasses around 80 per cent of Bupa’s Australian aged care homes. Now, almost double that amount has gone through the program including the other arms of the business, and the program now has an online delivery option.

Design for your end user

A key consideration throughout the iterative development of this program was the importance of designing and tailoring it for the end user.

The aged care workers in the pilot program were busy, exhausted professionals who needed to see the immediate impact of the training in order to remain engaged.

“We run the program from Tuesday to Thursday because we know Mondays and Fridays are the busiest days of the week, so it’s harder for our people to get time away,” says Locke. “We know there are specific times of the day when people need to take calls or check in with their workforce, so we make sure these align with the break times. 

“These are really small things you can do that show participants that you’ve heard them, you understand them and that you’re working with them.”

To demonstrate immediate relevancy and value to participants, Wu and Locke worked closely with the Bupa Aged Care and Villages Australia teams to strategically design the structure of the training. For example, they decided to start day one of the training program with a time management session.

“Putting that up front helped to draw out the obvious objections and roll with that resistance,” says Locke. 

“Having it up front meant that as participants faced interruptions and demands on their time during the training, other people in the group would challenge them and say, ‘How are you prioritising that?’ or ‘This is a good opportunity to practise delegation.’ It’s become a nice way to see the learning embraced and reinforced through these peer nudges.”

Wu adds that it was important not to use “HR jargon” when getting employee buy-in for the program.

“I can think of the example of using a quote from the Harvard Business Review publication [in the training materials], but that wasn’t right for a frontline audience. They may not have ever read anything from HBR. So it’s about designing for our audience and being very practical.”

Locke agrees, noting that during the pilot they received feedback from some participants saying it felt intimidating to receive all the source information and references for the models and theories they were presenting in the training.

“So we just cut that right out. If we’re talking about growth mindset, we didn’t talk about Carol Dweck with this audience. That helped us to embed the learning into a practical and applied learning environment that reflected the frontline learning experience.”

“Employees talk about how fun and interactive the training is and how it makes them feel engaged, safe and supported.” – Anna Locke, Organisational Development Lead at Bupa

Work to be proud of

Employee sentiment around the training has been overwhelmingly positive, says Locke. 

“Employees talk about how fun and interactive the training is and how it makes them feel engaged, safe and supported,” says Locke.

Wu says that program participants often became quite emotional at the completion of the program, either because they hadn’t previously seen themselves as a leader or hadn’t felt that their capabilities had been invested into in a meaningful way before.

“That’s when we knew we had to keep going with this program,” says Wu.

“Then the other thing is their relationships with each other. They build friendships, support and really understand that they’re not alone in this. They might all work at Bupa, but prior to this program they might not have known the other care worker just 20 kilometres down the road.”

A month after the completion of the program, participants are asked to share feedback about any behavioural changes that have shifted.

“We get really strong reinforcement, particularly around some of the practical changes around including delegation and prioritisation,” says Locke. “People are better at planning, communicating, giving feedback and having both positive conversations as well as constructive ones.”

Organisationally, voluntary turnover rates have decreased by 6.6 per cent and engagement scores (which compare results from program participants with other Bupa employees) have increased.

“This year was the first time over 90 per cent of all of our employees participated in our engagement score survey, and we were above the benchmark for those engagement scores,” says Wu.

For any organisation looking to run a similar program, Wu and Locke encourage you to get in touch with them to talk about Bupa’s approach.

“Also, find that strategy link. What is the purpose behind why you’re doing this? The thing that was driving us to do this at Bupa was care. Yes, there’s capability development, there’s leadership development, there is the bottom line. But care is at the core of this. This is a population that we can really make an impact on.”

Wu is “absolutely humbled” for Bupa’s work to be nominated for an AHRI award.

“We pinched ourselves because there are so many brilliant organisations doing great work out there, so just to be nominated is amazing.”

Find out who took home an award or scholarship at AHRI’s 2024 ceremony and check out some photos from the event.