From a triage program to taking care of his team’s careers.

Tom is an occupational therapist based in Melbourne, now leading APM WorkCare services across Victoria and Tasmania. Like many of APM’s senior leaders, Tom began his journey as a clinician and brings that hands-on experience into everything he does.

I started my APM journey at Biosymm to set up a 24/7 injury triage program. Once that program was set up, I sought out an opportunity and moved into APM WorkCare. The APM group has a lot of opportunities, and that’s why I decided to move into this group and this business. I knew there was good people working here.” 

For Tom, his role at APM WorkCare enables him to help people in a way that truly aligns with his passion. 

“What I find really rewarding is that I know how important an occupation is and how disruptive having an injury at work or being in an accident can be to someone’s life. And so the work we do in getting people back to work is so important. So that’s what I really love about the role.” 

Tom sees real value in being part of a leadership group that’s grounded in clinical experience, people who understand the challenges and limitations because they’ve worked through them themselves. 

“Having the chair being an OT, to our own Health and Prevention CEO being a psychologist, to my general manager who’s worked as a consultant exercise physiologist, to myself as an occupational therapist. We’ve all done the job. So when you’re talking about limitations or services or issues, they understand and relate to them. We can all think of a solution together to fix that problem because they’ve done the job. I’ve done the job.” 

The flexibility of managing your own diary and being responsible for how you tackle your workload is an essential aspect of achieving a great work-life balance at APM WorkCare. 

“One of the benefits of being in occupational rehab and being at APM WorkCare is that we trust our consultants to manage their own diaries. And that gives them true flexibility. They might go on the road in the mornings and then write reports in the afternoons. That’s up to them. We trust them to get their work done, and it enables them to work their life into their working day as well.” 

And there are plenty of opportunities to fit in professional development and learning opportunities. 

“One of the development opportunities I’ve had is that I’ve participated in the Harvard Business School. And that has been really beneficial to my learnings from businesses, looking at different case studies and how those businesses have succeeded and then how we could potentially apply some of those learnings into APM.” 

Now in a senior leadership role, Tom finds deep satisfaction in mentoring others. 

“I enjoy that aspect of my role in helping my team develop. Ultimately, we’ve been growing a lot, and that’s created opportunities for us to promote our senior lead consultant to management roles as well. And being able to assist in that development has been really rewarding.”