05
Profile
WANT A LOYAL AND EFFECTIVE WORKPLACE?
Compassion
is
the
Key
Paula Holden has one of the most challenging HR gigs around.
Last year, she accepted a role heading up the HR function
of the largest Australian owned private emergency services
company, which delivers critical workforce support to high-
risk industries.
Workforce Life (WL): Tell us about your role at
CPA Group?
PH: My role is the People and Performance Manager
at Corporate Protection Australia Group (CPA Group).
We are a fast-growing, privately owned group of
companies with about 380 staff.
The group provides professionally qualified emergency
workers, from doctors and nurses to fire-fighters,
paramedics, security personnel and rescue experts. It
also offers consultancy and training to organisations
across Australia, predominantly in the mining, oil, gas
and maritime sectors.
WL: How highly does CPA Group value
compliance?
PH: Compliance is a core value at CPA Group, we live
and breathe this stuff! Our executive values its staff
above anything else and beyond our people – which
are our core service and our number-one priority –
compliance is our business.
We are highly regulated by Queensland Health, we
have drug licenses, our security is heavily regulated –
so for us, it’s critical to get compliance right, we just
cannot do business without it being spot-on.
WL: What measures to you take to ensure the
team value compliance?
PH: Compassion is a key value for the company. From
an HR perspective, compassion is critical. Putting
people first is how you earn their trust.
That then allows us to drive compliance home. I think
it’s important for us to get compassion right, to get
buy-in on compliance.
WL: What ways do you manage your resources
to ensure compliance is a priority?
PH: One way is to ensure that nearly all staff are
employees, with a range of employment tenures from
full-time to permanent part-time and casual. It’s a
common assumption that
contractors form the basis of “The key to compliance
the company’s workforce, but management, are the
technical experts who
that’s not the case.
hold senior positions
in the company.
Governance is a big
thing and it’s driven
right down from board
level.”
Our services are so critical to
some of our sites that if our
people don’t show up, the
whole site closes. If a coalmine
does not have a paramedic and an emergency service
officer on site, the place can’t operate, so it’s essential
that staff with the right qualifications are in place.
That’s why we bring our own workforce with us from
contract to contract. Having permanent employees
also reinforces a culture in which compliance is front
of mind and it is reinforced with ongoing professional
development.
As innovators in service delivery, we were first to offer
a ‘bundled model’ of staff, such as a nurse who is also
trained in mine rescue, so that their roster and service
delivery is more flexible and can meet stringent
industrial requirements.
WL: What are some challenges you have faced
with the diversity of your business?
PH: On-boarding new employees, has been particularly
challenging as we have people in Papua New Guinea,
in WA, in the Timor Sea – in every corner of Australia
and beyond, so one of my first tasks when I started
here was to streamline those processes.
Bringing in a new software system that will integrate
HR, admin, rostering, and time and attendance
processes will help with managing the complexity.
What’s compliant on one site regarding fatigue rules
or qualifications or mandated policy, is very often
different on the next site, and at present we’re relying
on manual processes.
Automating these workflows will give us far more
efficiency and build in some fail-proofing.
WL: What advice would you offer others in
similar positions?
PH: The key to compliance management, are the
technical experts who hold senior positions in the
company.
Governance is a big thing and it’s driven right down
from board level.
Our full-time medical director is a doctor who looks
after our clinical governance, and who spends a fair
bit of time out in the field supporting our operational
managers. We’ve got senior management who are
highly qualified fire and rescue professionals, or have
strong security and military backgrounds.
Getting field-experienced experts to ensure that
policies and procedures are compliant, best practice
and up-to-date is critical.
WL: In what way does CPA Group continue to
improve their standards?
PH: CPA Group hold ISO:9001 Accreditation and are
also preparing for updating to the most recent ISO
standards which sees a more stringent approach to
Environmental Management. Work is well advanced
for delivery later this year.
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THE WEARABLE LIVES OF EMPLOYEES
Workforce Life | ISSUE 03