For the past 12 months I have occupied a position as a Farm Household Case Officer based in the Warwick Service Centre servicing customers in the Warwick, Stanthorpe, Texas and Tenterfield regions. In this time I have travelled to several different locations to engage with stakeholders, colleagues and clients to discuss the FHA program and my role as a FHCO. I have presented information to colleagues that occupy the Centrelink sites, Assess sites and Agent sites within my region to assist with any problems, risks or uncertainties that staff within these sites have and assisted with service of my FHA customers.
Through my travels around my region I have been able to learn a great deal about the issues affecting rural farmers and their …show more content…
I have found that pressures are mostly coming from increased debt, shrinking margins, low-income and so in turn have a higher reliance on credit. The stress that this causes has the ability to result in depression and mental illness. In our position we have the ability to contact the customer to discuss current activity, often we are the only contact that the farmer has with another person for months and this can cause isolation. I have been able to determine the needs of several of my farmers who are suffering isolation and have been able to get consent for an outside organisation such as a Rural Financial Counsellor to visit the customer on their property to discuss their needs. This enables the customer in most situations to take the first step towards better health and an improved financial …show more content…
It was expected that we could work in a virtual team self-managing our work priorities and making use of our relationships established if support was needed. I was able to effectively contribute to my work load whilst giving feedback up the line to managers to innovate change within our positions, and the way in which our customers where serviced. I have worked closely with national and upper management to get task cards changed, policies clarified including RTO approval, support through WIKI and ICT issues fixed for the Customer First System.
I have been able to effectively make critical decisions in line with the policy and protocols of the payment. I have assisted management and fellow FHCO’s to understand the legislation and policy to which I was given this as my portfolio. I have also created an automated stating system which generates accurate results to reflect the amount of each activity that we undertake in our positions each month to be used at the Regional Managers meetings each month. I have since had this approved and it is now the generic spreadsheet that all South Qld FHCO’s use to input there critical data into for their
Through my travels around my region I have been able to learn a great deal about the issues affecting rural farmers and their …show more content…
I have found that pressures are mostly coming from increased debt, shrinking margins, low-income and so in turn have a higher reliance on credit. The stress that this causes has the ability to result in depression and mental illness. In our position we have the ability to contact the customer to discuss current activity, often we are the only contact that the farmer has with another person for months and this can cause isolation. I have been able to determine the needs of several of my farmers who are suffering isolation and have been able to get consent for an outside organisation such as a Rural Financial Counsellor to visit the customer on their property to discuss their needs. This enables the customer in most situations to take the first step towards better health and an improved financial …show more content…
It was expected that we could work in a virtual team self-managing our work priorities and making use of our relationships established if support was needed. I was able to effectively contribute to my work load whilst giving feedback up the line to managers to innovate change within our positions, and the way in which our customers where serviced. I have worked closely with national and upper management to get task cards changed, policies clarified including RTO approval, support through WIKI and ICT issues fixed for the Customer First System.
I have been able to effectively make critical decisions in line with the policy and protocols of the payment. I have assisted management and fellow FHCO’s to understand the legislation and policy to which I was given this as my portfolio. I have also created an automated stating system which generates accurate results to reflect the amount of each activity that we undertake in our positions each month to be used at the Regional Managers meetings each month. I have since had this approved and it is now the generic spreadsheet that all South Qld FHCO’s use to input there critical data into for their