Media Backgrounder - Oho

Oho keeps a constant watch on employee and volunteer accreditations to protect vulnerable Australians.

About Oho

Oho is a purpose-led technology company with the mission to protect Australia’s most vulnerable. It does this by providing organisations that have a duty of care with a solution for continuously monitoring their accreditations. Oho keeps a constant watch on the registration status of people who are required to have verified credentials as a condition of their employment. This means organisations can be confident their employees and volunteers are safe to work – and that the people under their care are protected.

New regulations have put the onus on organisations to ensure this: that the people it cares for are always safe. Yet, stories of abuse that take place under the care of unsafe workers continue to surface in Australia. A major reason for this includes the antiquated methods organisations are using to manage employee checks, with many still relying on spreadsheets or paper-based records. Another is that most organisations fail to monitor their safety checks after the initial hiring process. With its cloud-based verification platform, Oho aims to stop this cycle of abuse.

Launched under the leadership of Claire Rogers, former CEO of World Vision Australia, Oho is the only provider that delivers permanent and perpetual proof of verification. Its platform includes an automatic and continuous verification system; and it extends nationally so that every vulnerable Australian is protected and so that every organisation can be confident their employees and volunteers, past or present, are accredited. If not, the organisation will be notified immediately when their accreditation is revoked or due to expire.

Non-compliance bears significant risk – both social and financial – for organisations employing people unsafely, not to mention the potential damage to fellow colleagues and those receiving the care. Oho closes this window of risk for all parties.

Oho’s technology stores all verification records securely and transparently, remaining compliant with privacy laws. It replaces inadequate paper-based or spreadsheet record-keeping so that organisations can keep an accessible, effective, and secure audit trail to manage their employees’ accreditations. Oho has expanded its capacity of automating the revalidation process to include a range of national safeguarding accreditations such as:

  • Working with Children Checks
  • Working with Vulnerable People Checks
  • Teacher’s licenses
  • Medical registrations and first aid certificates
  • National Police Checks

Organisations across a range of sectors from disability services, child, health and aged care, sports, education, and even religious organisations all employ workers whose accreditations Oho can verify. The pricing model is based on the number of people in an organisation who require checks to their accreditations, and there is no limit on the number of users or managers that can access an account on Oho.

Today, Oho verifies over 8,000 employees, contractors and volunteers on its platform, protecting an estimated 50,000 vulnerable people through its technology.

About Claire Rogers, Oho CEO

Claire Rogers is a strategic leader and an expert in social innovation. She brings a wealth of experience to lead Oho in its vision to end the abuse of those in the care of others. Previously the CEO of World Vision Australia, the country’s largest not-for-profit organisation, she has extensive global and local experience in multiple financial services divisions of ANZ including a role as the Head of Digital Banking. Rogers has consistently led organisations to deliver on their purpose and commercial potential and continues to develop and inspire teams to shape a safe yet agile working culture.

Claire wears many hats and is bringing her expertise to Oho from her other roles of being a director of the Melbourne Business School Limited and Methodist Ladies College, Kew. She is also an active member of Chief Executive Women (CEW) and the AICD and Scale Investors which is an angel investor network focused on female founders.

History of Oho

Oho, formally called Duty of Care was founded in Camberwell with the purpose to improve Australia’s safety standards for vulnerable people. Oho’s founders previously provided technology services to not-for-profit organisations across the community sector. Inspired by the life story of a survivor at the Royal Commission into Institutional Child Abuse, Oho set out to create technology that can assist in the protection of the vulnerable and ensure safety to all Australians.

Oho, is derived from the Dutch name for the Eurasian eagle-owl due to its incredible vision to see long-range and the ability to move to telescopic vision in an instant when it notices something. The company’s mission is to ensure that organisations are always compliant when their workers, contractors and volunteers are caring for vulnerable people, to keep Australians safer.

Oho stands guard beside organisations working with the vulnerable so they can deliver their mission safely.

For more information on Oho visit weareoho.com

Media Contact:

Madeleine Brown
E: Madeleine.brown@weareoho.com
T: +61 413 177 124

Rick Willis
T: +61 411 839 344