10 minutes with… Bedford Group CEO Myron Mann
Myron Mann leads Bedford Group, a not-for-profit that’s celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. Business Insight spoke to the CEO about the $50 million Future Bedford strategy, disability employment and his number one rule of leadership.
You’ve had quite a varied career to date. How did you end up at Bedford and what drew you to the company?
Although my background is in commercial enterprises, I’ve always worked with organisations that have a clear purpose and desire to develop and execute on a strategy.
With the introduction of the NDIS, the whole business model for disability employment changed from a legacy model of wage subsidies to a new NDIS way of doing things. I saw the opportunity to join an organisation where we could innovate so that people living with disability could live the life they choose.
I started at Bedford as a consultant, then became its Chief Operating Officer and, shortly after, CEO. It’s been such a wonderful four years at the company, and I know we’re having a positive impact on people’s lives every day.
Today, Bedford is the second largest employer of people with disability in Australia, and despite being a large organisation, I can see what we are achieving in conversations I have with clients every day. We have so many people that rely on us, and for them, we always strive to deliver the right result – that’s the greatest reward in my job.
Bedford has a stellar reputation in an industry under considerable scrutiny. Do you feel pressure to maintain that reputation?
The public has been very critical of the disability services sector, and understandably so. About 90 per cent of all NDIS providers are unregistered, and there have been many issues with integrity, transparency and lack of efficiency.
It’s never lost on me that we’re operating in this challenging environment, with the sector under significant public scrutiny. We bend over backwards to do the right thing for the 1500 clients we support, because we know it’s our daily responsibility to deliver the outcomes for people with disability so they can lead fulfilling, independent lives.
I need to commend the staff at Bedford who are so passionate and caring, and driven to keep our clients at the core of everything we do, and make a difference every day
You might like
The company is halfway through its $50 million Future Bedford strategy. What does this involve?
Future Bedford Strategy is an investment plan to provide more contemporary and inclusive forms of employment for the community through a sustainable model of operating.
The Bedford Board agreed to the Future Bedford Strategy in June 2022, and by July of the same year, we were well underway with implementation.
Future Bedford is ambitious plan. It’s bold and aims to create unprecedented choice and career pathway opportunities for people living with disability through the creation of new social enterprises, fit-for-purpose workplaces and services.
As the only not-for-profit disability employment provider to develop a certified social enterprise business model in Australia, we’re spearheading major sector change on a national scale, offering opportunities for those facing barriers to work to learn new skills and find career pathways.
We’re celebrating 80 years of Bedford in 2025, and one of the highlights will be the opening of a social enterprise hub at Salisbury later this year – the largest of its kind in the nation. The hub will be home to Cultivate Food and Beverage and Dovetail Advanced Manufacturing, two thriving Bedford-backed social enterprises. This significant investment in fit-for-purpose workplaces will allow us to scale and grow these businesses so we can increase jobs and our social impact
This has been a huge undertaking for Bedford, and one that has required much strategic, forward thinking from our team. Of course, we’re also operating in a challenging environment, as mentioned earlier, and by adopting a social enterprise model, we’ve been able to decouple ourselves from a traditional structure of disability employment to a more modern way of operating.
What do you hope Bedford will be able to achieve for its stakeholders at the other end?
Firstly, like all businesses, we must be financially sustainable so that we are able to go forward and continue to offer important services. It’s a challenge to be profitable in disability services, and so the Future Bedford strategy is really a roadmap that is pioneering a new way forward in our sector nationally.
But mostly, we want to increase choice and opportunities for people with disability. That might be in terms of a career pathway, vocational training, skills development and wages. There are many challenges for people with disability, especially for those with intellectual disability, and so we are working hard to find solutions that can work for many people.
For the past 80 years, Bedford has always found ways to address needs in society. In fact, Bedford started as a rehabilitation centre for those recovering from Tuberculosis. These beginnings were both humble and purposeful, powering a simple, long-held philosophy: that no matter the circumstances, people should feel empowered to make their own decisions and have a choice about how they live.
In the end, we want more inclusive workplaces that celebrate diversity and offer greater choice to people with disability. This is why Bedford runs a large and diverse portfolio of businesses from food manufacturing, landscaping and gardening, a commercial laundry and timber manufacturing, to name a few.
Stay informed, daily
We are also working hard to increase social procurement in South Australia as increased business for Bedford allows us to create more jobs for people with disability.
What are some of the major challenges in the disability employment landscape right now?
There is a siloed approach to the way NDIS participants are viewed. Some NDIS participants are under a program of supported employment, while another larger group of participants with disability are being provided disability support through other programs, but don’t have an NDIS plan.
While we understand this way of thinking, we believe that employment needs to take on a more holistic approach for it to work properly and to provide the right number of opportunities for people with disability who want to work.
Also, the Royal Commission into People with Disability looked specifically into the area of disability employment across a wide variety of participants within the NDIS.
Their recommendation was that everyone should be at a minimum wage and there should be less segregation, and this is another key challenge. It’s very difficult to suggest that any one program or way of doing things will work for everyone, it won’t because disability is very individual and there are some many people with varying needs and abilities.
As I mentioned previously, South Australia needs to increase its procurement from social enterprises. It is currently lower than other states. When you spend with a social enterprise, you’re not only getting a quality product or service, but you are also creating jobs and changing lives. All businesses should be considering this to achieve the ‘S’ in their ESG targets.
What about the opportunities for players such as Bedford?
We believe in reinvention and innovation so that we become part of the solution to pay higher wages and have less segregation, which is what Bedford supports.
We know that it’s difficult for mainstream employers to do what we do. But given that about 20 per cent of South Australians have a disability of some kind, the significant economic and knowledge contribution these people can make to the workforce shouldn’t be ignored.
We just have to be innovative in the way we offer solutions, which is the belief that underpins Bedford’s Social Enterprises.
Tell me about Bedford Social Enterprises and how it gives people with disability more choice?
Bedford’s portfolio of social enterprises each has a clear purpose to offer diverse, open employment opportunities. They are run for profit, which is reinvested directly into the enterprise, and we pay award wages.
This model provides greater choice, more career pathways and an opportunity to transition into mainstream employment and contemporary workplaces, which is especially attractive for school leavers. Our social enterprises are branded differently because we offer a completely different experience than what is offered in traditional supported employment, which is more attractive to a younger generation.
What is the number one rule of leadership in your view?
As a leadership team, we talk a lot about the harmony and clarity that can come from managing expectations and having an agreed set of expectations. It’s the simple idea that two people know what to expect from one another. If you don’t have that in place, and one person behaves differently, the other will be disappointed.
Some organisations might consider this to be built into KPI’s, but I think it’s different from that, because it’s actually about culture and behaviour.
It takes courage and soul searching from individuals to achieve this in practice, but there is much benefit that comes when we have a mutual understanding of behaviour.
