We put enormous focus on staff learning, development and safety

Having a highly skilled workforce is a big part of how we provide high quality support for our clients and renters. Launch Housing has put a huge focus on staff safety, wellbeing, retention and skill development over the last few years, to ensure that our staff can be the best they can be at work and feel supported to do great work with our clients and renters.

We also turned all roles permanent two years ago, taking the insecure funding risk of homelessness programs on as an organisation rather than passing it onto our staff. Job security is essential for mental and financial wellbeing, and we strongly feel that we are not living our values as a homelessness and housing organisation if we don’t provide our staff with the security they need to get and maintain their own housing.

The success of these initiatives can be seen in our low staff turnover rate of only 18%. This is significantly less than the sector average and has been steadily decreasing at Launch Housing for the last four years from 27% in 2020/21. Staff turnover in specialist homelessness services is traditionally high due to the nature of the work we do, the insecurity of funding and the high number of contract-based jobs, however our whole of organisation focus on staff safety and wellbeing is seeing results.

Organisation-wide initiatives that support staff learning and practice include targeted learning and development initiatives, diversity, inclusion and belonging activities, and safety and risk management. All of this and the work we do is underpinned by our Practice Framework.

Our Practice Framework recognises that the people we work with have often experienced trauma, and as an organisation we need to be doing all we can to ensure we are working with and supporting people within this context. This trauma-informed focus is applied to all clients and renters at properties owned and managed by Launch Housing.

Our staff are experienced homelessness practitioners who have collective wisdom and specialist knowledge in how to tackle complex challenges and achieve exceptional outcomes for clients. We invest in staff learning and development to support them in their growth as homelessness and community sector experts.

Diversity and lived experience

The diversity and lived experiences of our staff is a big part of Launch Housing’s strength as an organisation.

• 20% of staff have lived experience of homelessness
• 44% of staff have lived experience of family and domestic violence
• 20% of staff identify as part of the LGBTQIA+ community
• 10% identify as a person with a disability

And while only 2% of staff identified as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander, we have set a target to increase that to 7% by the end of 2026. See our Culturally Safe Services Theme for more information on how we will do that.