If there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s that there’s nothing quite like a holiday at the Sunshine Coast. From Caloundra to Noosa and everywhere in between, it’s a hot spot for people to book themselves a beach house and spend a week or two unwinding from the noise of the day-to-day. Enter Moxy Services, the backbone of the holiday house ecosystem.
Moxy provides specialist property services for holiday and residential rentals in the Sunshine Coast Area. They take care of cleaning, gardening, linen hire, maintenance, and repairs. And to add to all that – they’re a company that values diversity and inclusion.
Ethan is an employee at Moxy Services. He takes care of packing linen and amenities as well as cleaning the Moxy warehouse. Ethan has ASD and he handles the job like it’s nobody’s business, but he remembers a time when it wasn’t all clean sheets in luxury suites.
For Ethan, the work itself is almost second nature after his previous experience in packing stock at IGA, but it was the job interview itself that stood as the main hurdle. There’s a lot of uncertainty that can come from a job interview, and the notion of having to advocate for your worth as an employee can be quite distressing for some aspiring employees.
Luckily for Ethan, he came to EPIC Assist for support.
EPIC Assist takes the wrinkles out of Ethan’s job search
“I got a lot of help from EPIC with my job interview. EPIC helped me a lot with how to respond to certain questions,” Ethan explained.
EPIC Assist (EPIC) is a local Disability Employment Services (DES) provider that connects job-ready people with disability with supportive and inclusive workplaces.
Since EPIC Employment Advisor Mary-Clare got him in the door at Moxy, Ethan’s been in the zone. When we asked about how he’s improved since starting Ethan insisted that he’d gotten a lot faster.
“I can’t think of anything specific, but I’m for sure doing better than when I first began,” Ethan said confidently.
Setting aside the personal developments of excelling in the workplace and building up his confidence, Ethan’s also gotten more energetic since his start at Moxy. He takes his work responsibilities seriously. So when he gets into gear, he’s engaging in a lot of movement and concentration.
“It’s good that I’m keeping active! That’s important because otherwise I’ll just laze around all day. The money is a good motivator too,” Ethan said with a laugh.
Mary-Clare sorts through the load
We let Ethan get back to the sheets and had a chat with his employer, the CEO of Moxy, Soenke. Soenke explained to us just how much his employment experience with Ethan has opened his eyes to employing people with disability.
“It adds stability, it adds great unique skills. It forces us to re-evaluate how we do things as employers as well – which is very valuable. Allowing us to fine-tune our processes and operating procedures. It gets us to do the right thing. We’d love to have more like Ethan if we could,” Soenke said thoughtfully.
Soenke attributes a lot of Ethan’s success in adapting to Moxy’s workplace to his hardworking EPIC Employment Advisor Mary-Clare. Soenke sees Mary-Clare every couple of weeks when she comes in to see how Ethan is doing. She’ll check to see how he’s progressing in his work, if he feels comfortable in the workplace, and if he has any questions regarding the job that he might not be totally comfortable with bringing to Soenke.
For Soenke, Mary-Clare has been a fantastic asset when it comes to Ethan’s ongoing support and how much pressure it takes off him as an employer. He’s also quite fond of how she streamlines the employment process when it comes to new candidates. She’d come to Soenke with a plan for how to gradually ease Ethan into the work at Moxy, and the results speak for themselves!
“Mary-Clare will only send us people that have the tools to perform and the interest to excel in the environment. Everyone comes pre-vetted. She’ll then stay on board to help with coaching the participant through the work we do and plays a key part in their growth in their role. I can’t overstate how valuable she is.”
Soenke recognises the ‘ability’ in Ethan’s disability
Soenke feels that Ethan has become an invaluable part of the team at Moxy. He marvelled at how the young man only needed to be shown all the processes once. And how since then he’s applied himself to work with diligence and persistence.
“He took a little longer than others to really settle into the environment. It’s tough working with a bunch of new people you don’t know. But once he did, we’ve all discovered that Ethan’s got a pretty wicked sense of humour hiding under the hood. He’s been great and super reliable. As an employer, that’s not something to be taken for granted, so we really do value it,” Soenke explained warmly.
Soenke recognises that there’s an uncomfortable stigma in society surrounding hiring people with disability. He believes that it comes from a lack of understanding on the part of most employers. Soenke explained that disability is commonly seen as a lack of skills, when in fact it’s simply a difference in skills. When using Ethan as an example, Soenke points out that while Ethan might be less outgoing than most people, he’s also got the ability to be a lot more focused.
“It’s about playing to people’s strengths rather than their weaknesses to maximise the potential of everyone. Society needs to wake up to this idea. Disability can simply be having strengths in different areas that might not be immediately obvious.”
Final words from Seonke
Before we left Soenke to his work, we asked him for any advice he might give to other employers about employing someone with disability.
“I don’t think there are any organisations with absolutely no room for someone with disability. It’s worthwhile to analyse your own organisation and see where you can find any particular weak spots. We found that we’ve complimented some of our own weak spots in our organisation by employing Ethan. It’s been a very worthwhile practice and I urge other employers to do the same.”
If you’re thinking of hiring a person with disability, start the conversation with us today by phoning 13 EPIC (3742) or sending us a message.
