Continuous improvement for sustained social impact
When people think about Outlook Australia’s Social Enterprise, they often picture recycling facilities, reuse shops and waste management sites. Behind the scenes, however, there’s another important piece of the puzzle: understanding how we perform so we can continue creating positive outcomes for people, communities and the environment.
Over the past month, leaders from across Outlook have come together to review the performance of each of our social enterprise contracts. These planning sessions looked at everything from recycling and reuse outcomes to customer service, workforce planning and financial sustainability.
The goal isn’t simply to measure success. We aim to better understand what is working well, identify opportunities for improvement and ensure our services continue delivering value for the communities we serve.
An important part of these conversations is recognising that every aspect of our operations contributes to the bigger picture. Looking after our equipment, maintaining safe workplaces, delivering great customer service and supporting our teams all play a role in achieving strong environmental and social outcomes.
To help keep our teams engaged and informed, and to encourage ownership over results, we have also introduced a new Performance on a Page dashboard. This provides our social enterprise sites with a clear snapshot of how they are performing, making it easier to celebrate successes, identify trends and focus on continuous improvement.
At Outlook, every item diverted from landfill, every customer interaction, every container returned and every person employed contributes to our purpose of creating an inclusive society for all. By understanding our performance and continually looking for ways to improve, we’re strengthening our ability to create lasting environmental, social and economic impact for the communities we work alongside.