Monash IVF chief people officer Niki Howells Schramm details the wellbeing strategy keeping fertility care teams resilient
The medical field is a high-stakes sector that carries plenty of emotion. IVF is a subsection of this field where the emotion can be amplified even further.
For Niki Howells Schramm, chief people officer at Monash IVF Group, the ASX-listed fertility care provider, preventing burnout among clinicians and support staff has become a core part of how the organisation is run, not an add-on to it.
Speaking with HRD about how the business supports its people through a high-stress, high-pace environment, Howells Schramm laid out a layered wellbeing model built around early intervention, peer support and a workplace culture that encourages staff to seek help before problems escalate.
Fertility care sits at the emotional edges of both patients' lives and clinicians' working days, and Howells Schramm said that reality shapes Monash IVF's approach to employee wellbeing.
"Managing employee wellbeing is critically important for us so we try to have a range of supports in place for our employees including leadership development and training in how to identify and manage signs of burnout and fatigue in employees, a network of trained peer support champions to provide independent, confidential guidance and support for employees and comprehensive employee assistance program which provides holistic health support from goal orientated health coaching, to healthy eating support, general medical advice, chronic condition support and management through to psychological and wellbeing support," she said.
The organisation also runs regular guest speaker sessions and events focused on health and wellbeing, reinforcing the message outside of formal programs.
Rather than treating burnout as something to manage after the fact, Howells Schramm said Monash IVF's focus is on prevention – which starts with helping employees notice the warning signs in themselves.
"We find prevention is critically important so trying to ensure employees are aware of and access the supports outlined above but also working to create an environment where employees recognise the warning signs early and feel safe and comfortable to speak up so we can help to address issues," she said.
That prevention focus is complicated by the nature of the workforce itself, according to Howells Schramm. "We are incredibly fortunate to have very passionate and dedicated employees who are absolutely committed to their work. The flip side of that can sometimes be that they put the care and wellbeing of others before their own."
"For us it is about ensuring our people are encouraged and supported to look after themselves so they can provide the best quality care and support to our patients," she said.
Employee training carries a dual purpose in a clinical setting, Howells Schramm said – maintaining technical competence while also preparing employees to move into leadership.
"A robust employee training program is incredibly important both to maintain and develop our employees' clinical skills but also to support and develop our employees as they move from clinical or operational roles into leadership positions," she said.
"For us we really try to focus on a strong blend of formal learning and development combined with on the job training, mentoring and stretch opportunities to grow and develop our people."
Howells Schramm pointed to a shared sense of purpose – helping patients through their fertility journey – as a unifying thread that runs from front-line clinicians to corporate support staff, and one she credits with helping the business perform.
"One of the best things about Monash IVF is the commitment to our purpose and how focussed our people are on contributing to our patients' fertility journey. From our front-line clinicians through to our corporate support functions that sense of purpose really helps us deliver as everyone has that ultimate purpose or goal in mind and that really shows in how our people turn up each day," she said. "It also means we are able to attract and retain great people."
She linked that culture directly to clinical outcomes, saying strong results reflect the people behind them: "We have some of the highest success rates in the industry and that is an absolute tribute to our people and the work that they do."
The comments come as Australian employers more broadly report growing recognition of workplace wellbeing, with a recent industry survey rating health and wellbeing programs among the highest-scoring categories for employer performance nationwide.
For a sector like fertility care, where clinicians are exposed daily to patients' emotional highs and lows, HR leaders say that kind of structural, prevention-first approach is becoming less of a differentiator and more of an operational necessity.
