“When we say ‘family first,’ we genuinely mean it. Flexibility at i’ara is not a policy that looks good on paper, it is something our employees use every day, without guilt or having to justify it.”
Maddi Wright · Founder, i’ara Specialist Support Coordination
Company size
Small, 30 to 99 employees, based in Cairns with a team working remotely across Australia
Segment
Specialist support coordination for the NDIS and state injury schemes. Female-owned and female-led
Recognition
Named on the Best Workplaces™ in Australia List in both 2026 and 2023, named on Best Workplaces for Healthcare & Social Assistance 2026
Children spend school holidays in the office, pets are regulars, none of it requires a form, what a true family-first workplace looks like in the real world.
On its Trust Index™ Survey, 100% of employees at i’ara Specialist Support Coordination said it is a great place to work, against 60% at a typical Australian company. The business is based in Cairns, with a team working remotely across Australia from Tamworth to Innisfail, coordinating support for people on the NDIS and state injury schemes.
Flexibility matters more here than it would at most employers, because of who actually works there. i’ara is female-owned, female-led and predominantly staffed by women, many of them mothers. A significant number are single mothers, or partners of fly-in fly-out workers, in regional communities where that pattern is common. For them, flexibility is not a perk sitting alongside the salary. It is the thing that makes the career possible at all.
“The work we do can be incredibly challenging, so we want our people to have a workplace that supports their whole life, not one that makes their life harder. We trust them to do their jobs well, and in return, we give them the genuine freedom to be present for the people and moments that matter.”
Maddi Wright · Founder, i’ara Specialist Support Coordination
A Best Workplace in THEIR FIRST YEAR
i’ara ranked 23rd out of 100 Best Workplaces in the Small category in 2026
Among listed organisations with 30 to 99 employees. i’ara also placed 17th in the same category on the 2023 list which was its first year certified.
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100%
Say i’ara is a great place to work
Against 60% at a typical Australian company.
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Zero
Roles advertised on SEEK
Résumés arrive from people who already know the brand and approach directly.
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7 years
And some first hires are still here
Several original support coordinators have since moved into management roles.
The Challenge: Knowing It Without Being Able to Prove It
Most organisations come to Certification looking for a diagnosis. i’ara came looking for a receipt.
“To be completely honest, we already knew we were a pretty bloody good place to work, we just wanted the recognition to back it up. As a regional company based in Cairns, we were proud of the workplace we had created and wanted to show that organisations like ours could stand alongside some of Australia’s biggest and most recognised employers.”
That first year landed better than expected.
“In our first year, we made the Best Workplaces list and even ranked higher than LEGO, which was a very cool moment for our team. It gave everyone an enormous sense of pride and confirmed that what we had built together was genuinely special.”
Underneath the pride there was a real gap. i’ara’s read on its own culture came from what leadership could see and hear: strong retention, open conversations, the general feeling around the place. What it did not have was an independent, confidential channel where every employee could say how they felt, rather than how they seemed.
What the First Survey Confirmed
The result validated a hiring philosophy Maddi Wright has held since the beginning, and one that would make most recruiters uncomfortable.
“From the beginning, I never hired based on the most impressive résumé, and I still don’t. When I started i’ara, I felt the disability sector had become a little stale and was really lacking genuine customer service. So, I looked for kind people: people with empathy, strong customer service skills and a real ability to connect with others.”
The theory behind it was that those qualities do not switch off between clients and colleagues. Someone who treats a participant with genuine care treats the person beside them the same way. The first Trust Index Survey was the first evidence that the theory had actually worked, and that care and empathy had become the load-bearing structure of the workplace rather than a line in a values statement.
What i’ara Protects
Family first, in practice
Team members arrange hours around school drop-offs and pick-ups, go to sports days and medical appointments, and step away when their family needs them. Employees have brought babies into the office to breastfeed. Children have spent school holidays there. Pets come along regularly. The distinguishing feature is not the list of allowances but the absence of a permission process attached to any of them.
Remote by design, with a deliberate counterweight
The team works remotely across Australia, trusted to manage their own responsibilities without being monitored or tied to an office. For regional communities that changes the maths entirely, because talented people can build a career without relocating away from the town they live in. i’ara is also clear-eyed about what remote work costs, and builds against it deliberately: regular supervision, regional leadership support, team connection and ongoing training, so that nobody ends up working alone or quietly stagnating.
The All-In Yarn
Once a month the whole organisation meets for what i’ara calls the All-In Yarn, and the chair rotates so any support coordinator or employee who wants to lead it can. Around it sits a daily digital rhythm on Microsoft Teams, with whole-of-company channels and smaller location-based groups. Every support coordinator has regular one-on-one time with their team leader, and leaders stay available through the day for training, guidance or a complex matter. They are often the first call when something is wrong, professionally or personally. Access to the owner runs the same way, without layers in between.
Managers with creative freedom
The management structure is lean, and leaders speak daily rather than meeting about culture quarterly. Recognition is treated as an explicit leadership expectation, delivered through direct feedback, company-wide shout-outs and public credit online. Managers are also given genuine creative freedom: if one of them spots something that could be improved, streamlined or introduced, they have backing to go and explore it rather than waiting for the idea to come down from above. When a situation calls for particular sensitivity or fairness, they lean on a leadership colleague with a deep background in human resources and human development.
The Results: A Reputation That Does the Recruiting
Great Place To Work Australia records that 100% of employees at i’ara say it is a great place to work, against 60% at a typical Australian company. Among the statements returning unanimous agreement were being trusted to do a good job without someone watching over their shoulder, being encouraged to balance work and personal life, and being treated fairly regardless of age and of sexual orientation.
The clearest commercial signal is what i’ara has never had to do. It has never advertised a position on SEEK. Candidates find the business through its social media, where the website and channels feature the actual team and actual clients rather than stock photography, and then approach directly. The line candidates use most often is that i’ara “just look like a family”.
That reputation is reinforced by where the team turns up. i’ara people sit on First Nations roundtables with the NDIA, speak at disability networks, contribute to local council discussions and supervise university students through the practical components of their degrees, nine of them so far. Maddi and several support coordinators have lectured at the local university. The business also runs sector events, including a pickleball networking competition in Brisbane that it believes was an NDIS first.
On retention, after more than seven years, some of the support coordinators hired in the earliest days are still there, in a sector that is highly transitional and carries real burnout risk, and several of them now sit on the leadership team.
The workforce itself includes support coordinators who identify as First Nations, employees with disability and lived experience, and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Maddi frames inclusion as an operational question rather than a representational one: whether the working conditions actually let people with different lives, responsibilities and experiences stay, succeed and progress.
What i’ara Does Differently
The practices behind the result
- Hiring for kindness, empathy and the ability to connect, rather than for the most impressive résumé
- Flexibility used without guilt or justification, covering school runs, sports days, appointments and family emergencies
- A monthly All-In Yarn with a rotating chair, so any employee can lead the whole-of-company meeting
- Regular one-on-one supervision and regional leadership support, built specifically against the isolation of remote work
- Managers backed to introduce or streamline anything they identify, without waiting for approval from the top
- Certification badges in email signatures, Teams backgrounds and across LinkedIn and Facebook, rather than buried on the website
What Comes Next: An Industry Running Thin
i’ara is unusually direct about what the next two years look like, and the honesty is worth reading if you work anywhere near this sector.
Support coordination is facing significant reform with little detail yet about the model that follows. The NDIS price limit for support coordination has not moved in seven years, while wages under the SCHADS Award and every other operating cost have kept rising. Margins thin each year and support coordination businesses are closing around the country.
“Our greatest culture challenge is fatigue. The industry is tired, and the ongoing uncertainty can be emotionally draining for both our support coordinators and our leadership team.”
i’ara is growing more strongly than ever through all of it, which does not cancel out what its people feel about the future of their profession.
“We cannot give our people answers that the industry does not yet have, but we can ensure they feel informed, supported and secure in the strength of the organisation around them.”
Maddi Wright · Owner, i’ara Specialist Support Coordination
Where Culture Work Starts
i’ara did not write a flexibility policy and hope people used it. It hired people who would use one without apologising, then removed every reason they might have felt they needed to. The 100% is what happens when the thing you screen for at interview turns out to be the thing that holds the place together seven years later. If your own flexibility policy is used mostly by the people who feel safest asking, that is the gap worth looking at, and the survey is how you find out who those people are.
