2.135 Building a Great Place to Work: How OnePointHealth Attracts and Grows Talent

In this episode of Find Grow Keep, Karen Kirton chats with Michael Todd, CEO of OnePointHealth Group, about how his team built a thriving culture that recently earned them recognition as one of Australia’s Best Places to Work. 

Michael shares the story behind OnePointHealth’s growth to over 100 employees, their innovative cadet program that’s become the backbone of their recruitment strategy, and why a strong employee value proposition (EVP) has been central to their success. 

From creating meaningful career pathways to fostering community impact, Michael explains how purpose, people, and long-term thinking drive both business performance and employee satisfaction. 

You’ll also hear practical advice on: 

• How to design an EVP that attracts the right people 
• The long-term benefits of investing in early-career talent 
• Balancing compliance with culture to build solid business foundations 
• Why every business should take a “people-first” approach to growth 

If you’re a leader or business owner wanting to build a workplace that people love being part of, this conversation is packed with insight and inspiration. 

More: https://onepointhealth.com.au/  

Connect with Michael: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltodd77/ 

Visit https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/ for more insights and resources.  

Get our free eBook packed with practical strategies to attract, engage, and retain top talent. Perfect for business owners and leaders focused on building a thriving team. Download it at amplifyhr.com.au/downloadable/find-grow-keep

Transcript

Karen Kirton    
welcome to episode 135. And today I am joined by Michael Todd, who is the CEO of one point, health Group and we're gonna talk about how they go about attracting and growing talent because they recently won an award that Michael will also tell us about. So welcome to the podcast, Michael. 
Michael Todd   0:46
Thanks for having me, Karen. 
Karen Kirton   0:48
You're welcome. So I mentioned that you're the CEO of one point health, and you've now grown to over 100 people across multiple sites, which is a huge achievement. So I wonder if you could start with telling us about what the growth journey has been like and how your team has contributed to that. 
Michael Todd   1:06 
Yeah. Look, I think it's been great. In summary, there's been, there's been so many hurdles and obstacles as any business would go through. But we're no different. But I think that's why it's been great. You, you obviously want the UPS all the time, but you also want the downs. I I feel like they build resilience. We truly believe that. Look, you had Karen, you know you had COVID through crisis management. 
Right. We had that coming. We have had cash flow issues before that. We created a huge location out in Penrith. It's 1300 square metres and it must be the biggest in sort of Sydney, NSW, but you can imagine the funds that were spent that that came with that for fit out and things and building a clinic that we can be proud of and and grow into. So we've we've got  

That now that came with its own challenges. We've also, you know, had a lot of acquisitions. We've spent some money on acquisitions, which have been things that we've had to turn around and they don't always go to plan. So now that growing the team has been such an enlightening experience, it's it. But it's just all great learning. It makes us better as a group. I don't think we grow without strong team members. It's critical to our success. We've learned that.
Day by day, over the time we've been involved. But you know, we weren't always in this strong position about six years ago, we overhauled our even our own recruitment process and how we view A-Team member and it changed our total cultural direction. It's it's just LED our culture to continually strengthen and now we've got so many amazing people which will grow together. You know for many years to come.
We've got so many of our team getting management exposure and experience well ahead of their usual progression. So no, it's something we can be proud of today.

 
Karen Kirton   2:33
Absolutely. And you know, despite what has been talked about the economy over the last few years, you know, there are still major skill shortages in particular areas. You know, you are in the allied health space, which certainly would feel this. So you kind of mentioned recruitment just then. So maybe you could talk to us about that. Like, how do you go about hiring people in your industry? How do you do that differently? 
Michael Todd   3:00
Yeah, the 1st, it's it look, our whole focus is just on our own people constantly. Look we we definitely know happy people equals a good business. It definitely equals better results. So happy patients in our healthcare language for us first is retention, we we focus on ourselves. We don't really do much analysis of competitors or look too much. 
Michael Todd   3:19
Side over time, I feel like we've been able to create a really, really strong employee value proposition. It's actually summarised in our website focuses on what we consider key pillars of work satisfaction, so that you know things like remuneration and reward well being overall.
Career development, whichever one wants ways of working so different ways of working workplace experience that you can get by being a part of us. The brand you're working for, financial health. And that's not even financial health inside the business that's your own personal financial health in terms of.
Connecting people with, you know, bank contacts and getting, you know, favourable loans for our staff and things like that that go well outside of a, you know, sort of like a usual employment arrangement. So yeah, first has been retention, the next has been recruitment as you as you just mentioned. So I mentioned that recruitment process earlier but.
Look, firstly, our cadet programme is our main source of recruitment. It's centred around students working with us while studying a healthcare degree. It's vitally important. I don't think I am understating that I think 8 out of every 10 hires we have in our business is through our cadet programme. It's vitally important, I think. 
Industry any business could do something similar. It's as simple as what I just said, centred around students working with us while studying a healthcare degree. So we have, you know, some 27 to 30 people in our cadet programme right now, really valued members of our business across all our services, you know, Podiatry, physiotherapy, dietetics, exercise Physiology.
We also even just sort of we were chatting, chatting offline, but psychology we've just integrated as a service and we already have two Cadets, 2 site cadets that are coming through. So huge attraction magnet for us that has that has been so so important. 
Karen Kirton   4:55
 
Can I ask you more about that? Because yeah, we have clients in other spaces with big skill shortages, like in the technology type space, you know, web development, cybersecurity, you know, obviously allied health is one as well. 
Michael Todd   5:03
Yeah.
 
Karen Kirton   5:16
So how do you go about a cadet programme like do you build relationships with a university? How are you? How are you getting the people first question and second one if I may. And how do you give them meaningful work? That's something that often comes up when I discuss this with other businesses. They say I just don't know what I would do. 
Michael Todd   5:23
Yeah.
Yeah. No, no. 
Karen Kirton   5:36
With that person and that's it made me think about when you just said psychology because you're not going to put a psych student in front of, you know, a patient without at least, you know, letting the patient know that I'm assuming and you know being under supervision, etcetera. So yeah, so that's there are two parts of that question. So how do you get the relationships with the universities to get the people and then how do you use them?
Waiting for work. 
Michael Todd   5:58
It's a lot of effort. It's a lot of effort and it's a lot of investment in, in and look, it's not even, it's not even just money. When you think investment, it's also time. So you, you'd look at any business owner, including myself, would look at a, get a programme, I think line by line, black and white, it it, it's probably not worth it in that time. But you you're looking to keep these people, you know, 10,20 years with you and we have examples of that. So you've got to think long term. You have to sort of I guess you got to invest to sort of get the fruits later on down the track. So look it has a massive impact on our business. It's probably top three for the most important parts of our group. It's a chance we see it as a chance to build and still culture before permanent employment which is vitally important.
For someone to sort of come through the grades and see good examples before them, you know from our more established practitioners and and team members. So yeah, look, as I said, we've got approximately 30 in our cadet programme. They're all at different stages. So you know they they have different levels of commitment at times that yes, it's up and down. We definitely wanted to focus on their studies because at the end of the day, we have a mix of cadets and students so they can eventually, you know, finish uni and come and work with us. So yeah, we definitely respect the study and try to work around that. But look, all of our cadets go through a mix of paid and unpaid work with us. They can work on admin, they can work inside our orthotic labs. We we have a footwear store of specialty footwear store out the front of Penrith and that distributes some footwear to.
Our other locations across our group, but also other podiatry's around and other healthcare clinics, they can do sports coverage. We have a lot of good relationships. You know pen of Panthers, Western City Wanderers and the pen and Football Club, a lot of local schools that we have and I'll talk a bit more about that in a SEC to answer your second part of your question, but they get real work experience like they're they're shadowing.
Clinicians. But yeah, I think it's important they it's sort of like a meet halfway relationship if that makes sense. You do provide them with paperwork and largely on, you know casual contracts with us. But they also do a lot of unpaid work. They'll help with sports coverage. They'll come to all our CPD events. They will come to all team bonding events. They'll, you know, they'll be really.
We really integrate with our with our sort of like everything we do, everything we do so but look to be honest, the fruits of that is we always say in their first year, you know their new grad year, the first year of practising, they're like second years to us. They're indoctrinated in our culture. They've done a lot of hands on experience and they're they're confident, you know, as confident as can be before you start practising.
So yeah, and in terms of building those relationships, that was the effort part that I said. First up we have, you know, definitely connections with Union. We we try and rely on them a lot. Sometimes when you get one in AE group, they can be impressed and they'll tell others inside the EU group. So that's always good. That's always good. That's always handy. But that's you know that's up to us to sort of impress and provide a situation that's. 
Karen Kirton   8:29
Tell their friends, yeah. 
Michael Todd   8:36
Really favourable to them, local schools, even before university, were doing work experience with St Dominic's College, Carolyn Chisholm, out here in Penrith of Holy Cross Ride near Ryde for our Ryde location really, really strong connections that will go out and help them and community and charity and issues which we'll get to a bit later but.
So, so much, you know, sort of partnerships there that are that are working for us and and enabling us to get sort of at the, I don't know face to face with those students that are thinking about a healthcare future and get to them before they think about UNI which is which is a really, really big advantage we had like we've got a couple of staff members now that came in year 10 work experience and they ended up. 
Karen Kirton   9:12
Oh wow. 
Michael Todd   9:12
Coming to us as a part of our cadet programme and they're working with us and you know they're up to. We're like cadets that have been with us five years before they've even graduated. So it's amazing, amazing stories like that. And that's why our cadet programme, so important. But yeah, doesn't come without a lot of effort, but it's worth it. 
Karen Kirton   9:21
OK.
Yeah. Awesome. And I guess that connects to you mentioned before about your employee value proposition or your EVP. So for those that that don't know, I guess this is your internal branding. So what's the reason why people would want to work for you as an employer versus the reason why they would come to you as a customer patient in your case?  

It's not very good investment then. 

 
Michael Todd   10:08 
No, it'd it'd. It'd be largely a waste. It would be, yeah. To, like, prepare, prepare a really, really good person for someone else. You. You don't want that? Definitely. Look at look at the reality is geography sometimes hurts and things like that people relocate. And you do, you do you have to. You have to see and you hope that you've prepared them, you know, for their careers in the best way possible even if it's. 

Not with you, but look, we believe our EVP and that focus on people plays such a strong part in our in our future success. It's we feel like it's so important these days or you you must know yourself. It's so important compared to back when I was first starting working and and I think that's a good thing I think looking at all the you know cultural well being and issues and things is is definitely improving workplaces. 

For the better. So look, we place strong emphasis on that community and well being. We've run a look a couple of examples. We run our annual mental fitness and well being week across our group, that's third year will be next year. Guest speakers throughout the week blocking out of schedules and clinical time initiatives and exercises to practise these. 
It place it places it at the forefront of our our people's mind at the time that we're doing it. So we and we hope that they carry through that with the year and everything they do, every arm of our business has a charity or community attachment to it. I think that's important too. We do have a bit of a unofficial slogan. Well, it's official slogan, but we don't really launch it to the public. It's more internally, it's called be one's best. 
And that is being best for yourself and your constant development in your career. It's making your patients at their best, obviously, that's why we're here, but it's also the communities, the communities we work in and allowing them to be at their best constantly. So what we do is, for example, our footwear stores version is called the Foot Care project. So we have boxes and bins at some of those partners I mentioned earlier. 
Every location as well as you know, some key other sort of sporting allegiances and locations they collect second hand choose and we sort through them, fit them on the homeless every month or so homeless or disadvantaged. So it's an amazing initiative to be part of and I think things like this help us all feel good about our working careers like Healthcare is a great purpose in itself. You know as a as a sort of. 

Sort of a career, but if you can give time to further our communities and disadvantaged people, I feel like that helps overall satisfaction. Further, it does for me. It's, you know, you get you're giving back and and doing more so and at the end of the day on one of the team here. So yeah, you've got to want to you've got to sort of want to turn up to work but yeah we see it. We see that EVP is we're really proud of it it's been built out of time. 

 
It wasn't like this, you know, last year, two years ago, three years ago, it's been built constantly. But no, we can really be proud on it. And I'm more than happy for anyone to see it on our website. 

 
Karen Kirton   12:33 
Yeah. Awesome. And yeah, and I can see, you know, because of the industry that you're you're in, you're gonna have more people that are purpose based. But we also know, you know, the research tells us that the younger generations, you know, Gen Y and Gen Z have a much higher expectation onus on their employer. 

 
It's for that corporate social responsibility, no matter what industry you're in. And and I think, you know, if you were bringing people into that kind of industry, but then you don't actually care about the people and it's just all numbers and KPIs and you're gonna lose people pretty quickly. So you know you've you've been able to marry those things together well. 

 
Michael Todd   13:13 
I completely agree. It's. Yeah. Look, it's. Yeah. No, I I agree. I agree. I have nothing further at it. It really is like people see it as a I've talked to like other business owners in healthcare and outside they they think it's a burden. But I I don't. I think I think it is preparing the world to be a better place, you know, like having that focus. If employees are looking at that and it's not like. 

 
Michael Todd   13:32 
Just a transaction of wages and work and we always say we want to build careers, not to have, just have someone work a job. You know, we wanted to feel like it's a career, like they're contributing to something long term and not just a role they're doing at the moment. So I feel like people call it a job or a role. They're they're with you, you know, 3-4 years Max. But if people start to build a career and some non clinical time. 

And you know, they can do other things in management and no sports coverage. And just just there's every industry has their little things they can do. I I just feel like your your attention's gonna be much better. 

 
Karen Kirton   14:01
Yeah, which takes us to what I mentioned earlier about a certain award that you got recently. So you recognise as a great place to work. So could you tell us more about that and and what is it achieving that mean to you and the team? 
Michael Todd   14:08 
Mm-hmm. 
Yeah. Look, we did some great achievements this year, but this this was amazing. It was actually, yeah, last year we went through the process like it was October, November last year, 2024 and we what it means amazing our our Holy Grail absolutely Holy Grail for a business that focuses so much on people and employment and and making it. 
Curry for. 
For people that absolutely are Holy Grail we we don't really these days like seek any financial awards or best business. You know in the area type awards like we I do I did say we sort of tend to focus on ourselves a lot. So yeah we don't really go for those types of wards but we we always looked a great place to work as like a badge or a certification that we we'd want to achieve and get there.  

And we wanted to confirm what we know already. You know that we are a great place to work. So I guess it is as it sounds, we just wanted the certification but ended up like it was just so surprising just a month or two ago we got #2 on the list of best health place, best, best places to work in Australia for healthcare and Social Assistance 2005. 

25 and that's in Australia for number 2. We're like, so got smacked at that like, you know, very proud of what we do. But you never expect something like that. And then we were #18 on the list for best places to work in Australia or across all industries. So like to be 18 in in Australia was was a big surprise. We didn't we didn't know there was. 

 
We actually didn't know. We thought you'd just go through the process and get the certification, but we didn't know there were like a competition at the end and we missed everything we missed. Like the the awards night, everything like that. Like we didn't get to anything we didn't get and we probably wouldn't have. I think it was in Melbourne, so we we wouldn't have gone. But like amazing, amazing to get those two acknowledgments further on great place of work. 

 
Yeah, that'll be that'll be pride forever being a part of that. 

 
Karen Kirton   15:56
Excellent. Now being a business owner, see, I have a business, it's pretty easy, but but if you had some lessons that you would share with others about your approach to people and culture?  What would they be? What are your your top things? 
Michael Todd   16:16 
Yeah. Wow. That is a broad question that is your broadest of the day. OK, look, I hope already there's there's some things that others can use. I'm I'm definitely always learning and and listening. I've I found I listened to a few of your earlier podcasts and really enjoyed some of them and took some notes down. So like, I hope I hope people have got a bit out of it already.  

Look, I think it takes a lot of leaders, leaders with culture and talent development. It takes a they need a lot of help. Firstly with this area of operation, I think you know that the best out of anyone, it takes a lot of effort and attention. But I think it's much easier than not placing emphasis on it. 

To be honest with you, I it cost you so much more time to catch up later and and we started with probably probably not an ideal culture like we've had time to shape it over time. So you know I I always think of that quote. It's similar to this like what what happens if we train people and they leave and then the answer is what happens if we don't and they stay you gotta put the time in you know like you. 

You sort of have to. You have to put the time and I think I think there are too many my advice, too many defensive tactics and not enough attack out there in terms of being proud of your culture and showing it. I I know many businesses don't put their staff on their team page on their website for example for and that's due to fear of someone approaching them or trying to steal them. Like to me that is. 

That that's backwards and and nuts you. What about what? About what you were losing there, like the pride in your team members being on your side and feeling like they're part of something special and contributing. You know, like you if you want that culture like you got, you got to, you got to live it out loud. And we have like, some 8090 people on our website that you Scroll down and you see everyone and anyone could technically find them. 

 
I guess, but gees, if we're worried about that, how we're doing something wrong. I don't think that's what you should be worrying about. We should be worrying about a lot more than that. If we're worried about that. So I feel like you get out what you put in. You have to invest in people and their development as well as your culture. There is a big cost. Whether I think I mentioned before, whether it's time, money or another, but I think it's definitely a people first approach. I don't think enough businesses have that these days and you have to do it. You have to have a people first approach these days and that will lead to happy customers, clients, patients or or whatever they are in your terms. So yeah, you want to, you want people to not have a job or a role with you, you want to have a career. 
They want to be part of not just work at I I always assess it from my own point of view. Do I enjoy coming to work or, you know, would I? Would I enjoy working at this place like at the end of the day, I'm coming in, you know, full time as well as the others. And. And you wanna come to work. I'm incredibly biassed. I want to come to work and have a good time, so. 

I think if you look at it through those lenses and you and you start to really ask yourself, are you putting that time in into your culture and talent development or are you just expecting him to come and do that, that sort of role? It's hard, as you said it's it's a sarcastically, it's a very, it's a very difficult role and it takes a lot of time and you can rarely switch off. But I just think the the other side of the contract. 

 
Trust to that is much, much more costly. It's your sleepless nights, it's your you know your lost profits because staff aren't sort of passionate. And what you do it's it's not contributing to overall objectives. There's there's so much to lose by not doing that. So yeah, if I had to enter broadly and from the top, it'd it'd be investing in your people in that culture development. 

 
Karen Kirton   19:04 
 
Yeah. Look, it's obviously music to my ears because yeah, I I sing from the same song sheet, but I I absolutely understand why. For for many people, they they know that, but trying to actually put that into practise is. 

It's hard because it can be very difficult sometimes to see the tangible benefits of spending that time and energy versus not and spending it on other things, which takes me to, I think my my last question, which is you know I I'm assuming you've learnt all this the hard ways perhaps.  

So is there one thing that you wish that you knew earlier about how to lead a table like one you know, particularly hard lesson that you had to learn along the way?  

 
Michael Todd   20:09 
I've had a little lesson. Look there there. There's been so many. Jeez, I'm picking one which people learn challenges.  

Do you know what? It's probably we we haven't really learned it the hard way, as you'd say, like through through repercussions or anything like that. But I'm going to take it away from everything we've talked about and I'm going to talk more about compliance and the importance because I've heard about it in other businesses. We've had a little bit of it here, but we're we're able to sort of rescue the situation. We know what I'm talking about. 
Straight away, but the compliance part of getting everything right at the start, so employment handbook policies clearly stated at the start, contract drawn up really well and not just starting someone. I know many businesses just start someone you know and obviously how it goes and it goes you know it really does go really quickly and then.  

You you fall back on times that you may need to discipline someone or point out a policy of things if you haven't had that acknowledged signed somewhere down the track, it's really, really hard to manage a person on that. If you found the wrong person. We haven't learned from this directly, but I just know it's happened and we we've been able to rescue it a few times, but sometimes we've had a hand. 
Book signed. 
And you still have to go back, but that people don't really read those things. You know what I mean? Like, they go through all this stuff. They got the contractor, which is enough in itself. And then you got handbook and other annual leave policies. And you know, all that type of stuff, social media policies and and things. But I think it'd be that I think people I've talked about rushing, rushing around, investing in people and and focusing on all the all the fluffy things.  

Getting them right and spending a lot of time on getting to know people personally as well as professionally and and truly caring about their development. I think it's a compliance side. I think people would tend to fall that by the way. So I think everything's good now. I found the right person through this really, really good improvement process and then they forget to just do the legal part, just do that true HR, human resources, not people management part. So.  

I think that would be it. Make sure and if you don't have that, if you're a small business or or or a business like ours, even invest in it. Invest in getting some templates done. Having it there just so you can fall back on it at one stage and but because nothing ever goes perfect, nothing ever goes perfect. So I think that would  

 
Karen Kirton   22:20
Yeah, I love that because it's something that we talk about is that we don't have the foundations right in your business. You cannot create a great place to work. You know, if people don't have employment contracts, you know, the things with policies, yes, they're boring, but they create consistency. And if you don't have consistency, that's where you get issues. 
Michael Todd   22:26
They do.
Absolutely. 
Karen Kirton   22:40 
And you know, if you don't have position descriptions, that's where people don't have clarity. So, you know, it's all these boring things. But actually without them, it's very difficult to to build anything of worth. So I couldn't couldn't agree more. So, look, thank you so much for for joining me.  

It's been great, I absolutely. I love your energy and your philosophy on on everything and I, you know, couldn't be happier for you with with the award as well. So if people are listening, wanna get in touch with you, what's the best way to do that? 

 
Michael Todd   23:03
That's good.
Yeah. So if they want to refer to some of the things we talked about about the website, that's just www.onepointhealth.com.auhappy email address to be there as well. It's just Michael Michael at one point health.com dot AU. So yeah, happy to be reached out. It's always it's better if people are willing to help others. So yeah. 
Karen Kirton   23:32
Yeah, absolutely. That's that's how small businesses run as well through everyone's assistant, so. 
Michael Todd   23:33
Good thing.
Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. 
Karen Kirton   23:40
Right. Well, thank you. I'll put those in the show notes as well for anyone listening and for those listening, if you receive value from this episode, I'd love it if you could leave a rating or review our Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So someone else can find the episodes to help with their business episodes released on Mondays. So if you click subscribe, you'll be notified.
Of when it's available. So thank you again Michael, for joining me today. It's been an absolute pleasure. 
Michael Todd   24:06
Thanks so much Karen enjoyed the chat. 
Karen Kirton   24:08 
Thank you. And for those listening, if you have any feedback, questions or ideas for future episodes, head on over to amplifyhr.com.au or connect with me on LinkedIn and we can start a conversation.