A Day in the Life of Affiliate Team Leader, Chelsea Johnson

KINNECTers are a diverse group of people with a wide range of talents that extend far beyond medicine and health. Our administration, affiliate team and project management staff keep the wheels turning for the doctors, nurses and allied health staff delivering services on the ground. One such superstar, is Chelsea Johnson, our Affiliate Relationship and Project Administration Team Leader. Here, she tells us about the wide scope of her dual responsibilities, why she loves wearing the Kulture Captain cap, and what her busy days can look like.

When did you start with KINNECT?

I joined KINNECT in August 2021 as a Project Administration Officer, but the role changed into to Medical Support and then Health Surveillance Officer, but I always worked in the project team. I haven’t had the most usual pathway of getting to where I am today. I started in a role that doesn’t really exist in the same form anymore, although other team members still do the work it involved.

What made you apply to KINNECT?

The focus on culture and teamwork stood out to me. The first phone call I had was really positive – the people were very friendly, and I got a great vibe.

I was only 20 when I first applied and wasn’t sure where I wanted to go with my career. Before KINNECT, I studied via online distance education while dancing full-time for the Queensland College of Dance (formerly Promenade), and Le Credo Dance company. I was fortunate enough to have some amazing opportunities at a young age like dancing in the Commonwealth Games and touring China for a contemporary dance festival.

I thought that would be my career but then COVID hit so travelling with dancing was no longer on the agenda. I worked at a kid’s gym teaching dance classes and doing some of the administration which gave me some exposure to managing a business. KINNECT seemed like the right fit and it’s played out well.

What’s your favorite thing about working at KINNECT?

I was never interested in working in a normal nine-to-five job sitting behind a desk – I thought it would be boring. But taking on that first role as part of the projects team and progressing into the affiliate* team has shown me that it can be a whirlwind – there’s lots of different activities and tasks so the days go by quickly.

I love the work that I’m doing. I get to talk with so many different people across the organisation, whether it’s service delivery or support services or some of our specialist functions. My schedule doesn’t look the same every day. In the projects side of my role, I get to see the project from start to finish and I really enjoy helping clients when they come to us for something specific.

I’m also the Kulture Captain this year. I think of myself as a social butterfly, and I like keeping myself busy so that role lets me share my passion and enjoyment with other people. I find it important see culture as a team effort – everyone needs to play a part, so if I can be a driving force that encourages it, that’s amazing.

It’s also another opportunity to get to know people on a personal level. Organising culture events and after work catch ups is really nice because you get to know the team much better which makes coming into the office easier.

*Our affiliates are partner clinics who help us deliver pre-employment and health surveillance services to workers in more locations around the country.

What has been the biggest challenge?

Being a younger member of the team means I don’t have much experience, so I’m learning as I go. It’s about realising that I’ll make mistakes and that’s okay, but with a team of colleagues around me I’ll be supported through that. It was daunting at first, but I take it day by day and keep learning. I’m very organised, so that helps.

What would you say to someone who is considering applying for a similar role?

You’ll need great communication skills, be able to create relationships with people, and be adaptable to change.

Every day you’ll be actioning so many different tasks and communicating with different people – whether it’s talking to our affiliates and partners and maintaining our relationships, reviewing partnership opportunities, or having discussions with external clients about their project requests. You might be discussing dates and times and finalising run sheets over the phone with clients, and in some circumstances, depending on how large that project is, having in-person meetings with them.

KINNECT doesn’t offer your usual administration jobs. The affiliates and projects roles differ compared to other administration roles at KINNECT in that we don’t work off a dashboard or have standard workflows, it’s more fluid than that. We’ve got a planner, and each team member has responsibility for how they communicate with their partners, manage relationships and coordinate projects. Even though I know my processes really well, everything is tailored to the partner or project I’m working on so we can action the request in the best way.

Day in the Life

Morning:

First up, I’ll make sure the task allocations for my team are updated so they all know if there are any specific focusses for the day. I’ll then work through any email escalations that are urgent or need actioning for projects and affiliates and review my calendar to see if there is any preparation I need to do for meetings.

Each week we’ll have a medical support department team leader catch up, and some days I might then have affiliate meetings. These are quarterly catch ups with our affiliates where I’ll have prepared some reports so we can go over numbers of appointments, costs, and I can assist them with any queries.

I’ll also support my own team with any queries they have, like getting approvals to book in an affiliate team. We have weekly affiliates team meetings too so we can come together to review urgent actions.

Once a month, I’ll also have a Kulture meeting with the Kulture Reps from each office to go over how the previous month’s activities went and plan what we are doing for the next few months.

Afternoon:

In the afternoons, I work on project scheduling which involves creating schedules for immunisations or pre-employment screening activities. e.g. drug and alcohol testing or ongoing health surveillance testing (audiometry, asbestos training, on-site medicals, respirator fit testing). I’ll find the staff resources we need, schedule appointments in the consultants’ calendars, make sure funding is set up correctly, create project summaries for consultants, send confirmation emails, and set project meetings with the delivery team to make sure everyone has what they need.

If time allows, I’ll work on Affiliate document updates or continuous improvement tasks and review the activity of our top affiliates.

If you’re searching for a role with plenty of variety and the opportunity to grow, explore the vacancies listed in our visit our Careers Centre.