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Frontline leadership role clarity project.

Ability First Australia is undertaking a project that defines the role, competencies, and capabilities of the Frontline Leader.

Spread over 4 stages and completed June 2021, we anticipate this project will have a profound impact on the long-term viability of the NDIS: facilitating career pathways, informing recruitment practices, and increasing capacity for leaders to be successful in their roles.

This project is funded by the Australian Government Department of Social Services. Visit www.dss.gov.au for more information.

Frontline leadership role clarity project: a pathway to attracting, retaining and growing a skilled NDIS workforce

Current state role

The first stage of the Frontline leadership role clarity project is to define the ‘current state’ role for Frontline leaders.

The findings have been published across downloadable resources for use by providers, Frontline Leaders, Scheme participants and carers.

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Resources

The findings of the Frontline leadership role clarity project have been published here.

1. Project Background

The purpose of the Frontline Leader project is to define the role, capacity and capabilities of the Frontline Leader to inform organisation and job design, recruitment practices and training methodology.

2. Participant Views of the Frontline Leader role

The recent Ability Forum was used to identify participant expectations and the extent to which Frontline Leaders provided value at these touch points. 

3. Typical Frontline Leader Tasks

We sought to identify the percentages and main activities currently undertaken by Frontline Leaders. The purpose of this exercise was to better understand how Frontline Leaders invest their time and how this might change.

4. Frontline Leader views on their future role

We asked Frontline Leaders to work in small groups to identify the key requirements for several performance areas. These are their findings.

5. A generic position description for the current Frontline Leader

The collection of position descriptions revealed a range of definitions existed for the Frontline Leader role, and so the role of the Frontline Leader was outlined as follows.

Help us improve

As a Frontline Leader, your thoughts on this important project are vital to us. Please take a moment to let us know your thoughts.

Future state role

The second stage of the Frontline leadership role clarity project is to define the ‘future state’ role for Frontline leaders.

The findings have been published across downloadable resources for use by providers, Frontline Leaders, Scheme participants and carers.

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Resources

Information about the future state of the Frontline leader role has been published below.

1. Organisational Design Report

Ability First Australia is undertaking a project that defines the role, competencies, and capabilities of the Frontline Leader. Spread over 4 stages, we anticipate this project will have a profound impact on the long-term viability of the NDIS: facilitating career pathways, informing recruitment practices, and increasing capacity for leaders to be successful in their roles.

2. Organisational Designs and Span of Control

The span of control is important as the
NDIS embeds a supervision allowance into each billable hour that a DSW provides to participants, and this offsets the costs for supervision by Frontline Leaders. The current NDIS supervision allowance funds approximately 90% of a single Frontline Leader at a span of control ratio of 15:1.

3. Capability and Leadership Framework

The Capability and Leadership Framework outlines capabilities that an organisation needs to deliver against its key priorities and also what ‘good’ leadership looks like. The Framework also provides a consistent approach for evaluating talent – for selection, promotion, and development activities.

4. Future State Frontline Leader Position Description

As a frontline leader your main responsibility is to directly lead the delivery of services by a team of Disability Support Workers (DSW’s) and/or other associated frontline staff to deliver high quality services to NDIS customers that meet their needs and expectations. These services must also be aligned to organisational, service, and individual customer outcomes.

5. Participant Views of Frontline Leader Competencies

The desired outcome of the survey was to identify participant views on competencies, and these views were used to confirm the competencies listed in the FLL Capability Framework.

NDIS Sector Toolkit

People are your biggest asset, and recruiting new employees represents a significant investment on your organisations behalf.

A robust, well planned recruitment process means that you are better placed to select the best person for the position and the needs of your business. You are also more likely to select someone who is happy to be in the role and able to flourish.

The below resources have been specially developed and are available to assist you in recruiting, on-boarding and training your next frontline leader.

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Resources

The documents for the NDIS Sector Toolkit are now available for download.

1. HR Toolkit Documents

The purpose of this Frontline Leader Recruitment Guide is to provide best practice methods and tips for managers, selection panel members and others involved in the recruitment and selection of Frontline Leaders in the Disability Service industry.

2. Career Pathway Framework

The Career Pathway Framework has been designed as part of the Frontline Leader Project to give people an opportunity to enter the Disability Sector as a Frontline Leader from a range of backgrounds with bespoke and intentional pathways to upskill.

3. Educational Framework

The Educational Framework documents have been constructed based on the Capability Leadership Framework.

4. Technology Enablers

Incorporating technology into standard business practices generally benefits organisations with employee engagement and productivity. To determine what additional technology enablers were required to support productivity for the Frontline Leader workforce, an analysis of current state technology was completed. Here we present our findings.