Live workshop · Thursday 22 October 2026 · 90 minutes
Which grad will get busy — and what will they cost you by the time they do?
A live working session for allied health clinic owners hiring a graduate this season. The wage path the award has already written for that hire, what "busy" has to mean for the role to pay for itself, and the three things to look for at interview that predict it.
Bring your diary. You'll read it live and leave with the job spec it writes.
Live on Zoom · 12:30pm–2:00pm AEDT (Sydney) · $97 incl. GST · recording included
Culture Of One by the numbers
239
Community members
$15M+
Clinic revenue under advisory
14 years
In the private sector, Australia and the UK
Invited to speak
APA FOCUS24 · AOPA Congress 2025 · Physio & Private Practice Symposium 2026
Sound familiar?
- You hired the strongest clinician in the interview, and nine months later their diary is still half empty while the wage runs every fortnight.
- You wrote an above-award offer to win them, and the award has quietly caught up to it before their first anniversary.
- Your new grad is "busy" — on patients taken off the rest of the team, so nobody's diary actually grew.
- The job ad said "dynamic team, competitive remuneration", and the applicants were whoever was left after the bigger groups had their pick.
- You know you'll need more clinical hours next year, and you can feel that the same hire gets dearer every July.
None of that is a clinical problem. It is a hiring filter problem — and it is fixable before you write the next ad.
On Thursday 22 October, Shane runs a live 90-minute working session:
'How to Hire the Best New Grads — Which Grad Will Get Busy, And What That Hire Costs By The Time They Are'
The same material Shane uses privately with seven-figure practice owners, taught live and applied to your own diary on the day. By the end of the session you'll know:
The cost of the hire
- Why a graduate's first pay rise arrives on the award's timetable, not their anniversary — and the date it actually lands for a hire made this season.
- What the offer wage you write becomes on the day each of those rises lands, and which of them you have any say in.
- Why an above-award offer is a margin the award closes from underneath, and how to set one knowing that.
What "busy" has to mean
- What busy has to mean, in numbers, for a graduate to cover their own cost — and how that number moves every July.
- The early signals in a graduate's first weeks that tell you a caseload is building, before the wage bill does.
- Why the strongest clinician in the interview isn't always the one who gets busy, and what to look for alongside clinical skill.
The three markers of commercial competence
- Availability: how to hire for the hours your diary actually needs filled, and how to test for it at interview.
- A niche: how a speciality your clinic doesn't yet offer becomes a caseload the graduate builds for themselves instead of taking from the team.
- The gap in your team: how to read the demand your current practitioners can't match, and write the role around it.
- The interview questions that separate a graduate who will build a caseload from one who will wait for one.
Live, with your own numbers
- Read your own diary for the demand you're currently turning away, and leave with the job spec it writes.
- How to fit a graduate into an existing team so their caseload is additive, not redistributed — the start of a new grad program rather than a one-off hire.
- The one change to make to your job ad on Monday.
Here's the scoop
Most owners treat a graduate hire as a one-year decision at one wage. The award treats it as a multi-year decision with the rises already dated. For a physiotherapy graduate starting in February 2027, the first rise doesn't wait for an anniversary: the award's next stage step operates from 30 June 2027 and the annual wage review stacks on top from the first full pay period on or after 1 July. In most payrolls that is one payslip. Then, twelve months into their career, the award moves them into the second-year experience band — it counts years in the profession, not years with you. Three rises inside the first year, none of them chosen by the owner.
That is the cost side, and it is the easy half. The harder half is that the cost only works if the graduate gets busy — and "busy" is not a feeling, it is a billings number that climbs every July alongside the wage. In our experience clinical excellence is a poor predictor of who reaches it. Three other things predict it far better, and all three can be read off your own diary before you write the ad.
The session walks the escalator on a worked composite graduate, turns "busy" into the number your clinic needs, then turns the three markers into interview evidence and a diary read you do live on your own four weeks of bookings.
Hire for commercial competence: the person you believe can confidently build a caseload, not necessarily the best clinician in the room.
$76,225
A graduate physiotherapist's award-minimum cost in year one: $1,308.80 a week × 52, plus 12% super, for a February 2027 start, before the first rise lands.
Health Professionals and Support Services Award, Level 1 first-year rate from 1 October 2026
+16.8%
Where that minimum sits by month twelve: the stage step, the July review and the second-year band, none of them yours to decide.
July 2027 review modelled at 4% — a projection, stated as one
About half again
What the same graduate costs by their third anniversary, with roughly a third of the increase coming from the award's staged rises alone.
Same assumptions; every forward figure re-runs when each stage is determined
Who is Shane Gunaratnam?
Shane spent fourteen years in private practice in Australia and the UK, built and ran his own clinics, and now advises seven-figure allied health owners on the economics of running a team: what each clinician earns the business, what the award does to that, and what has to change so it still works.
He has sat in the hiring conversation this workshop is about more times than he can count — the owner who hired the best CV in the room, and the diary that never filled. He hired graduates for years before he started teaching owners how to pick the ones who get busy.
Don't take our word for it
Owners who've done this work
"Shane had literally done what I was trying to do. My own ego almost stopped me — I figured I could do this myself. In four months we went from the early fifties to just under $70K a month. It's way simpler now. Worth every single cent and then some."
Ryan Taylor — Director, Glide Physio
"What resonated with Shane was that it was more about people and culture than just the numbers. We went from 45–50K a month to sitting between 55 and 60. It's also given me the confidence to raise my prices and sleep at night."
Frank Romeo — Director, Form Focus Physio
"My practice has grown from a solo operation to a small team of five. When I have felt out of my depth, he has helped me navigate the issues with a personalised and collaborative approach. Shane's mentoring has been invaluable to my personal growth in leadership."
Samantha King — Physiotherapist, True Balance Physio
"Shane's guidance was practical, no-nonsense, and exactly what I needed at this stage of my career. This helped me consolidate everything I've learned, reinforce key business principles, and introduce new ways of thinking."
Jane Grey — Director, Queanbeyan Physiotherapy Centre
Jane Grey, Queanbeyan Physiotherapy Centre: from $64K a month and losing team members to $122K a month, her best month ever, inside six months.
Ryan Taylor, Glide Physio: the $70K month in his quote was four months in; the practice is now seven figures a year, in new, expanded rooms.
A Queensland NDIS owner: back on the tools after losing several team members; rebuilt the team around a new grad program and a 2IC, and now runs at $120K+ a month without him treating.
Here's everything you get
- The live 90-minute working session — Thursday 22 October 2026, 12:30pm AEDT, on Zoom
- The escalator, walked on a worked graduate: every rise dated, and what your offer wage becomes by the time they're busy
- The number "busy" has to mean for a graduate to cover their own cost — and the early signals that it's building
- The three markers of commercial competence, turned into interview questions and what a good answer sounds like
- The live diary read: your own last four weeks, the demand you're turning away, and the job spec it writes
- One change to your job ad, written before you leave
- Live Q&A on your shortlist, your offer and your team
- The recording, yours to keep
$97
AUD, incl. GST. A graduate hired this season is a multi-year commitment well into six figures before super. This is $97, and it changes which graduate you hire.
7-Day Money-Back Guarantee
If the workshop isn't worth it to you, email within 7 days of the session and we'll refund the full $97. No forms, no hard feelings.
This is for you if
- You own an allied health clinic with a team — physiotherapy, exercise physiology, occupational therapy, podiatry, osteopathy, chiropractic, speech pathology, psychology — and you are hiring a graduate this season or next.
- You've hired before and watched a diary stay empty for longer than the business could afford.
- You want the next hire to add a caseload, not spread the existing one thinner.
- You'd rather know what the hire costs by month 36 before you write the offer, not after.
This is a working session, not a webinar you half-watch on mute. If you're a sole operator without a room to fill, you'll get the map but not the immediate use. If you want a script that talks a graduate into a diary they can't build, that's not what this is.
But if you have a team, a room, and a hire to make, you have two options: write the next ad the way you wrote the last one, or spend 90 minutes building the filter first.
Can't make it live?
The recording is yours to keep. But the live session includes the diary read and Q&A on your own shortlist and offer — that part doesn't survive to the recording.
Is this a pay calculator presentation?
No. The cost of the hire is the opening twenty minutes, and the free calculators on this site already do the arithmetic. The session is about what "busy" has to mean, who gets there, and how to hire for it — with your own diary on the table.
I'm not hiring a graduate, I want someone experienced.
So does every other owner, which is why the experienced, autonomous, culturally aligned clinician who fills a diary on day one is the hire every clinic is competing for. The session is about the hire you can actually make and keep: a graduate who gets busy because the role was built around demand you already have.
Do I need anything ready on the day?
Your appointment diary for the last four weeks, open. The diary read works on real bookings — where demand went unmet, what nobody on the team offers, and who patients asked for that you couldn't match them with.
Is this only for physios?
It's built for allied health clinic owners with a clinical team. The worked wage figures are physiotherapy because that is where most of our clients are, but the hiring filter, the diary read and the interview questions apply to any practice.
What if I'm hiring in November, not February?
The wage path is the same; only the timing of the band steps moves with your start date. The session covers both a November and a February start, including what a thirteen-week ramp that runs through Christmas does to the numbers.
Thursday 22 October. 12:30pm AEDT.
Ninety minutes that change which graduate you hire, and a job spec you can post on Monday.
Your Zoom link is on the confirmation page the moment payment clears, and in your inbox straight after.