Chief Human Resources Officer — Virtual-Care Division

The mandate

An Australian virtual-care division is broadening from predominantly employer-funded episodic consultations into commissioned pathways, insurer programmes and direct patient services. Each channel brings different operating hours, continuity obligations and clinical response standards. The board has planned a new CHRO appointment before growth accelerates because the present workforce model treats practitioner supply as interchangeable hours rather than a governed clinical capability.

Approximately 1,450 employees and material partners include doctors, nurses, allied-health practitioners, care coordinators, pharmacists, engineers, customer teams and corporate functions. The CHRO will own workforce strategy, organisation design, employee relations, reward, talent, culture and people operations. Credentialling and professional practice are shared with clinical governance; the CHRO must ensure employment processes reinforce, never replace, licensed accountability.

The payer reset begins with demand segmentation. A late-night acute triage service cannot use the same roster assumptions as a scheduled chronic-care programme. The CHRO will link contracted response, acuity, continuity and supervision to establishment by hour and skill. This should expose where overtime, contractor dependence or thin specialist coverage is masking an undeliverable promise.

Practitioner status requires careful design. The workforce contains employees, sessional clinicians and service partners whose legal and professional relationships differ. The CHRO will standardise selection, credential checks, induction, supervision and renewal while preserving correct classification. Commercial urgency cannot produce a weaker entry threshold for contingent clinicians, and an employment contract cannot be mistaken for clinical authorisation.

Virtual work changes supervision. Leaders cannot rely on physical visibility to detect uncertainty, fatigue or unsafe workload. The people model will include accessible escalation, case review, observed practice and protected peer connection. New clinicians should demonstrate platform, communication and remote-assessment competence before carrying an independent queue.

Payer-specific teams risk becoming separate cultures. The CHRO will build common clinical and behavioural expectations while allowing real workflow differences. Mobility between programmes needs skills passports, credential scope and structured orientation. Simply transferring a high performer into a new pathway without checking its population and escalation demands is unacceptable.

Reward will be reviewed for unintended behaviour. Measures based on contacts per hour can shorten consultations, discourage escalation or disadvantage complex patients. Incentive design should balance access, continuity, quality, teamwork and documented outcomes, with professional judgement protected. The CHRO will test whether targets create pressure that staff are reluctant to report.

Workforce wellbeing must move beyond generic offerings. Remote clinical work can combine isolation, intense emotional demand and continuous screen-based queues. The CHRO will use absence, turnover, case mix, schedule volatility and speaking-up data to identify pressure points. Recovery time, workload caps and manager capability will be designed around actual exposure rather than a universal wellbeing campaign.

Industrial and employee relations may become more complex as operating hours and roles change. The CHRO will consult early, distinguish genuine service need from convenience and ensure changes comply with Australian employment obligations. Workforce flexibility achieved through persistent unilateral exceptions will not be treated as a sustainable model.

Leadership architecture needs clarity. Clinical, product, operations and commercial leaders currently share decisions without always knowing who has final authority. The CHRO will map accountabilities for demand acceptance, staffing, clinical escalation, platform incident and patient communication. Executive objectives must reward enterprise outcomes rather than channel optimisation.

People data requires stronger governance. Rostering, credential, performance, payroll and quality systems do not consistently share identifiers. The CHRO will establish an authoritative workforce record, defined access and rapid notification when status changes. Sensitive clinical-performance information must be separated appropriately while still enabling employment action when required.

The division also needs a domestic and international capability pipeline. Scarce remote-care experience cannot be bought indefinitely. Partnerships, supervised development and internal conversion will build nurse, allied-health, product and operational leaders who understand digital delivery. Succession should include readiness evidence, not a list of names.

The CHRO is expected to spend substantial time with roster planners, clinical supervisors and programme teams in Sydney. This onsite base is deliberate: the organisation wants people strategy developed beside live service decisions, even though many clinicians deliver care remotely.

What you will own

• Channel-specific workforce strategy and establishment.
• Organisation design, leadership accountabilities and succession.
• Employment, contractor, reward and employee-relations frameworks.
• Credential-enabled onboarding with clinical-governance partners.
• Remote supervision, capability and workforce wellbeing.
• People data, rostering interfaces and status controls.
• Leadership behaviour and speaking-up conditions.
• Workforce integration across payer programmes.

The first 12 months

In the first 60 days, map demand to rostered capability by pathway, identify uncontrolled coverage and review whether incentive or contractor arrangements create clinical or employment risk. Agree immediate guardrails with medical and operational leaders.

By month six, establish common workforce standards, launch skills passports and implement leadership accountability for schedule, supervision and escalation. Complete consultation on material organisation changes.

Within twelve months, reduce premium external clinical hours by 25%, lower regretted turnover in critical roles by 20% and achieve 100% current credential and training evidence before independent queue access. At least 90% of priority shifts should meet defined skill-mix standards, and every critical role must have a named successor with assessed readiness.

What the sponsor will look for

• Demand translated into precise skills and roster requirements.
• Consistent entry standards across employment models.
• Incentives that do not compromise clinical judgement.
• Remote leaders detecting workload and capability risk early.
• Employee relations handled before operating change is imposed.
• Successors proving readiness through observed responsibility.

The person

You bring 22–28 years in people leadership, including CHRO or major-division responsibility in healthcare, virtual care, insurance services or another regulated, distributed workforce. You have redesigned a clinical or professional workforce around a changing service model and can show what improved in coverage, retention and accountability.

Australian employment-relations knowledge is essential, as is experience with mixed employee and contractor populations. You must be credible with clinicians without claiming clinical authority, and sufficiently analytical to challenge roster averages. International workforce exposure is valuable. The role is permanently based onsite in Sydney with wider regional engagement.

Compensation and terms

Base compensation is AUD 440,000–590,000 plus annual incentive and long-term participation tied to safe coverage, critical-role retention, workforce compliance, leadership depth and service readiness. This permanent appointment is onsite in Sydney and reports to the Group Chief Executive or designated executive-committee sponsor. The planned timetable precedes material channel growth.

Confidentiality

The division, care pathways, payers, workforce arrangements, practitioners, systems and plans are confidential. Detailed information follows fit and conflict review plus signed confidentiality. Applicants must not approach virtual-care providers, commissioners or clinicians to identify the organisation.