Insights from our first admin development day
They are the first people most hospital visitors encounter, and our frontline administration staff have been reflecting on that responsibility and the positive impact they can have.
The inaugural Administrative Professional Development Days were held at Auburn Hospital on Wednesday and Thursday last week, bringing together dozens of staff from all Western Sydney Local Health District (WLSHD) facilities.
WSLHD Executive Director Operations, Robynne Cooke, said the feedback from this week would help inform how the training is rolled out to all front-line staff in the near future.
“This group of staff are so important in how they communicate and provide support to our vulnerable patients,” she said.
“The aim of the day was to reconnect with this very important group of staff and highlight how critical their role is, and to connect that role with patient care. This can only improve our patients’ experience of our hospitals.”
Robynne said it was the first time the district had invested in administrative staff in this way.
“We wanted to provide a professional development opportunity exclusively for our administrative staff, and to listen to their stories and ideas as well,” she said.
“This is all part of the work we need to do to improve our culture and truly make WSLHD a great place to work.”
Auburn Hospital administration officer Andrew Day said he hoped the eye-opening day would lead to cultural improvements.
“These days are extremely valuable. Coming from a nursing background, we do this all the time,” he said.
“To get a group of your peers together and discuss what we’re doing right, what we’re doing wrong; it helps prevent other accidents or issues from continuing.”
Workforce training and development manager Noel Posus led the proceedings, and challenged staff to identify one area where they could improve by 10 per cent next week or next month.
“One of the benefits of events like this is actually getting together and sharing stories, communicating with each other about what works and what doesn’t work, and how we can improve things,” he said.
Robynne thanked the managers, People & Culture, health information teams and all the participants for making the days possible.
