Day in the Life of Melbourne Team Manager Brendon Carter

You know you’re meant to be a manager when guiding others to success and seeing them thrive is just as rewarding as your own achievements. That’s certainly the case for Accredited Exercise Physiologist Brendon Carter who has given us insights into his role as a Team Manager in our Melbourne office.

Brendon’s Career Journey at KINNECT

Brendon worked as a personal trainer and gym instructor while he studied at university, teaching group fitness classes (which he still does) and working as a customer service manager. He came to KINNECT in 2019 after finishing university, following a short stint as a contracted exercise physiologist (EP) in a private practice where he worked with Department of Veterans Affairs clients.

“I didn’t want to be on contract anymore, and even on my last university practical placement I was feeling that working one on one with patients on an appointment basis wasn’t for me.

There weren’t many clinical EP jobs going but I saw some occupational rehabilitation roles available and decided to give it a go for a year, even though I had a fear that I’d lose my clinical ability,” Brendon recalled.

Brendon quickly advanced from his initial role as a Graduate Consultant to Senior Consultant after just twelve months, and to Lead Consultant a year after that.

Describing himself as an ambitious person who doesn’t like to stagnate, he still sought new challenges. Brendon knew he enjoyed training others and helping them in their development and growth, so when the Team Manager position became available, it felt like the right time to move up.  His latest role has certainly fulfilled his wishes:

“It’s a whole new challenge. When you deal with the same issues day in day out as you do in private practice, you experience a bit of fatigue. It’s a job that does come with its challenges and problems when you’re dealing with people in a personal injury setting – not everyone wants to be helped so you’ve got to be persistent and come up with solutions.

“Even though I’ve worked as a manger before, in this setting I’ve learned so much about managing people, particularly when you’re delivering a service and working with multiple stakeholders,” Brendon said.

Brendon’s development as a clinician and a leader has been supported by his managers from the beginning: “When I first started the Melbourne team was small so had a consultant from the Gold Coast coming down to manage the team. I learned a lot form her as a mentor.

“Our permanent manager had a different approach and she taught me how to hold myself and others accountable and she really challenged me. It was hard at the time, but I have a huge respect for that now that I’m a manager.

“James Buckley, our Victoria State manager, has always been vocal about his encouragement of my professional development too, supporting my nomination for an ARPA Victoria Workplace Rehabilitation Award for Outstanding Consultant (which I won!).”

His professional development was further enhanced when he participated in the pilot Emerging Leaders Program in 2021, during COVID.

His favourite part? Living the values and feeling valued.

KINNECT’s values (happy people, highlight skilled, delivering sustainable value) and our ‘Why’ – helping people – plays a large role in Brendon’s satisfaction with this role.

“I definitely feel like I align with the core values. I enjoy helping people and it’s why I love what I do.

“I’ve worked at many places who say they have values, but I’ve never worked somewhere where the values are at the forefront of the business and emphasised so strongly.

“Whether I was aligned with them before I started, or became aligned during my time here, I’m not sure, but when values are made clear and lived day-to-day you it gives you so much respect for the business. It carries right through to our CEO Kevin, who called me on my first day and remembers my partner’s name. In a company who has over 200 people, the fact that he does that says a lot about our culture,” Brendon explained.

While the business’s values haven’t changed over the last four years, how Brendon experiences the sense of satisfaction when helping others has:

“There’s a difference now compared when I was consulting. Back then I’d have someone who was difficult and averse to the services, but by the end I’d developed a trusting rapport and worked towards a positive outcome – it was the best feeling.

“It was so rewarding when I had case managers and return-to-work specialists asking for me by name because of having such a good experience.

“Now as a team manager, it’s about building the team’s performance and seeing them achieve those outcomes after putting in the hard work, with or without my guidance.”

Brendon’s advice to EP’s considering a career in occupational rehabilitation:

Firstly, Brendon believes that Eps need to be prepared for a complete change to what their used to:

“We work hard, but it’s rewarding in a very different way. When we get challenging cases, I always say that “Nothing is life or death in Occ Rehab”, but you’ll feel so good when you get a great outcome, even if it’s difficult now.”

Brendon also advises that people come prepared to learn new skills they mightn’t have needed before like time management, report writing, and meeting targets.

“My previous skills working in customer service, and having some exposure to rehabilitation with veterans, made it easier to transition over. I love it,” Brendan enthused.

Day in the Life

We’ve got a large office so there are a few team managers, so we all have our own team and responsibilities. We also have a strategic business partner as well which helps with the administrative and business development side of things.

My typical day is all about managing consultants but that can look different from one day to the next.

I might do some real-world supervision to check in on my consultant’s development or with a new starter to help them towards independence. This means I’ll go out to worksites with the consultants, seeing different jobs and industries and building relationships with employers. It’s probably the highlight of my day.

Then I’ll be back in the office reviewing out team dashboards, holding weekly supervision meetings with each team member to identify any barriers they’re having on cases, for example they might need to work on client-centricity. I can identify areas for improvement, offer guidance and identify when there is a need for case reviews.

Other parts of my role include responding to customer feedback, good and bad, and actioning new referrals by allocating consultants to cases according to their capacity. I’ll call the referrer and the employer to gather information and then hand the case over to the consultant.

If you’re interested in a role that will challenge you in the best ways, why not join us? For information about current vacancies, visit our Careers Centre