World Creativity and Innovation Day
On the 21st of April the United Nations globally celebrates World Creativity and Innovation Day. This time provides people with an opportunity to try to solve old problems in new ways–with the potential of finding better and more effective methods to accomplish our goals!
Raising awareness about the role of innovation and creativity in each aspect of human development. The main idea behind this day is to push countries into creative multidisciplinary thinking at both group and individual levels.
On this important day we thought it was fitting to speak with Arriba Group’s newly appointed Head of Innovation, Michelle Barratt. Michelle started with Rehab Management 4 and a half years ago as a Client Relations Manager working across a variety of spaces including workers compensation and corporate clients.
Can you talk to your journey since working at Rehab Management? You started off as Client relationship Manager at Rehab Management in 2017. How did you get into the Innovation space?
I came to Rehab Management 4.5 years ago as a Client Relations Manager working across a variety of spaces including workers compensation and corporate clients. My passion was always in innovative programs and I had a strong focus on partnerships with our customers that flourished into exciting ideas and pilot programs that can support injured people to get their lives back on track. As part of my CRM role I was constantly looking for that next big solution or game-changing intervention for our shared customers. And as a Psychologist I could see the benefits for all by incorporating more evidence-based psychosocial intervention into multi-disciplinary programs.
Naturally it led me into the Innovation and Customer Engagement role which was very much a position driven by our CEO and her endless passion to innovate and create! This role felt like all my dreams coming true at once, to be whole-heartedly committed to the development of innovative programs and tools was like a lift-off in Rehab Management.
We had always been doing things that others were not but that resource commitment was huge and over the span of the next 2 years we rolled out a number of award-winning programs and tools such as our StepUpToday goal-setting mobile app, the CheckInToday health coaching program and the Digital Health & Wellbeing Tools platform. The frequent collaboration with the wider Arriba Group innovation team meant we could effectively collaborate to stay ahead and remain agile and dynamic in what became a time of great disruption due to the COVID19 pandemic.
Why is innovation important to you (and the business) and what are your plans for the group in your new role?
Innovation is important to me because I see what a broad impact innovative programs and tools can have for our customers, our people and the broader Australian community. The work we do at Arriba Group is live-changing and being innovative, dynamic and agile in our approach is key to achieving the best outcomes. Innovation is a mindset that I want everyone to share, I talk a lot about those ‘magic moments’ in customer engagement, the micro opportunities we all have every day, whether we are working with a Disability Employment Services participant, NDIS participant or injured worker – we have so many opportunities to be creative and thoughtful – and make the difference for someone by thinking outside-the-square.
Preparing for the next financial year has already begun for our team, we have launched the Evolution23 survey project which gives us deep and rich insights into the current challenges, emerging trends and bright ideas of our customers and team. This is a great starting point to define a whole-of-group approach to innovation and I am super excited to see what themes develop and what strategies we will employ next year to support the group into the future.
We will be launching some really exciting services in the second half of this year – so watch this space.
