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G8 Education

24x7 Injury Management Service

G8 Education is the largest private early education provider in Australia, with some 470 centres across the country employing nearly 11,000 people across 21 early learning brands. It aims to provide amazing educational experiences for children aged zero to five, as well as outside of school care across Australia.

 

Case Study Key Findings

  • Exceptional ROI: G8 Education saved over a million dollars on its insurance premium within 18 months.
  • Happy staff: Staff are delighted they have a nurse available to answer their questions and concerns.
  • Injuries significantly reduced: In the first year, G8 Education reduced lost time injury frequency rate by 56%, and hours lost due to injury by 70%.

Background

G8 has a diverse, geographically dispersed workforce exposed to dynamic behavioural risks, the organisation found a proportion of employees would leave work without reporting their injuries, attend their own GP, and not be in a position to return to work for weeks, if ever.

This resulted in hundreds of hours of lost time and wages, and millions in workers’ compensation claims and insurance premiums.

Challenge

Natalie Boehm, WHSE Leader at G8 Education, says G8 didn’t have a streamlined system for managing its workers compensation claims.

Upon undertaking a time in motion study, the company found the injury management team were spending two months out of every year simply doing data entry into an excel spreadsheet, and this was before claims were even handled.

“The Injury Management Team were spending about two months a year just doing data entry in a spreadsheet, which is just the first step of the process. We lost months of time just doing that activity, which took time away from helping our team recover at work, which is their core function,” Natalie says.

“We would have up to 40 lost time injuries a month, which is very high. After doing some review of the injuries that were coming in, a lot of it was due to team members being sent home to rest after a minor injury and seeking their own medical treatment. This was compounded by the doctors not having all the information and certifying them unfit to work for weeks at a time. This in turn led to high-cost workers compensation claims for minor injuries. We recognise the health benefits of good work and the importance of being at work to improve recovery, which in turn helps our team feel better sooner.”

G8 Education would lose about 150 hours per claim, or roughly a month lost per claim.

“We needed to better support our teams and provide them with access to really high-quality medical information and care, as well as with access to doctors quickly and easily without having to wait and provide doctors with the right information. Within a small team it just wasn’t possible while they were wasting so much time on data entry.”

The Solution

G8 Education was using another provider for early intervention services in Victoria only - its largest, most expensive portfolio.

G8 Education went to tender with three other providers, including the existing provider and Direct Health Solutions (DHS). It ended up selecting DHS mainly because of its reputation in the industry, and the fact it has registered nurses available on the phone for staff - a key point of difference no other provider matched.

DHS started working with G8 in 2019 and addressed various workplace issues by providing a 24/7 injury triage hotline supplemented by coordinated medical and allied health referrals through a network of preferred providers and follow up, to ensure sustainable health and productivity outcomes.

“DHS has doctors overseeing their clinical pathways, and it’s an evidence-based practice that offers good solid clinical reasoning. No other provider could offer this level of expertise,” Natalie explains.  

Once the contract was signed, G8 had three weeks to implement and get all the systems set up for 11,000 staff and nearly 500 centres.

“Within the first month, we had 90% uptake, which means people weren't following the old processes - a fantastic result. DHS did things like providing us with easy to remember phone numbers, which were personal to G8 and made a big difference,” Natalie says.

“We’ve also got the DHS ‘on the ground return to work specialist’, who is now a part of our team. DHS also attends our conferences and provides us with ideas and initiatives to make our processes better. DHS recently suggested involving them in our induction process so that someone from DHS will call our new managers and give them personal information and what information they need to do their jobs well, which was fantastic.”

The Results

The results for G8 Education have been nothing short of stunning. It reduced its time lost from injuries by 70% in a year, and saved over a million dollars on its insurance premium within 18 months.

More than 55% of team members have demonstrated sustainable recovery at work with self-management advice only, and 85% of team members did not require any time lost from work, compared to 55% prior to the implementation of DHS InjuryAssist.

“In the first year we reduced our lost time injury frequency rate by 56%. As a result of this program we were nominated for an award from our insurer. Our hours lost due to injury also reduced by 70% in the first year,” Natalie says.

“While we were still having some claims, they were opening and closing much faster. We are saving money on our insurance premium and most importantly looking after our team. The return on investment has been huge for us.”

“With one simple solution of a net cost of essentially zero compared to others, we reduced our hours lost, reduced our loss of wages, and reduced workers’ compensation premiums, which is outstanding.”

“But it is not just money saved. The impact that this has had culturally on our organisation is huge, it really shows that we care so much about our staff because they can call and speak to a nurse after an incident and seek expert advice, and they love it.” 

Want to find out how DHS can help save your business time and money, while empowering your teams to grow? Contact us today.