By Michael Botur

Anushka Samaranayake joined enableHR in April 2022 as Implementations Project Manager, taking care of clients’ technology requirements.

Anushka first came to Australia nearly 20 years ago and has some great stories to tell about trips to Africa and Sri Lanka, and balancing Melbourne meetings with Geelong family life – not to mention some impressive adventures with lions, tigers, and STEPtember.

In this article, we’ve put Anushka in the spotlight and find out about life at enableHR and how his role is crucial to ensuring our clients are getting the most value out of their HR and safety software.

What does your role entail?

In simple terms, being Implementations Project Manager means I work with our clients to optimise and tailor enableHR to suit the requirements of their businesses. Every project I work on is different because every business we work with is different.

Can you provide some examples of projects you’ve worked on? 

  • A 1000-strong security company in New Zealand may need its enableHR to allow staff to upload their security clearance credentials using employee self-service (eSS), so I set up the system accordingly.
  • A youth social work organisation needs functionality such as customised fields to record police vetting, ID and volunteering history in employee records and create confidentiality settings to control who is allowed to access certain fields and records – I customised the fields for the user.
  • A group of franchised fitness studios needed help with adjusting templates and configuring checklists to ensure pre-employment, induction, and termination work well, are legally sound, and intuitively designed to make the users’ experience easier.
  • Because a wrongly-worded contract could land a client in hot water, it’s my job to ensure contracts carefully created for clients have the approval of the legally-qualified experts at FCB Workplace Law – enableHR’s sister company.

What’s work-life balance like for you at enableHR?

I enjoy having a balance with which I can come into the office in Melbourne’s CBD for the most important meetings, but I’m allowed to work from home regularly. I usually go to the office one-to-two days a week, then often on a Friday night I’ll socialise with my Melbourne-based friends after work.

I live with my wife Erika, my three-year-old daughter Ayana, as well as a cocker spaniel named Alfie.

What have you found is different about working for enableHR compared to other places you’ve worked?

This is the first organisation I’ve worked for where I can honestly say I feel really cared about. They have employees’ best interests at heart and will do as much as possible to help you grow in your role. Example: In June, unfortunately my mum passed away in Sri Lanka. I had no bereavement leave, having been in the job only two months, but my managers and HR arranged for the company to let me go. That was a time when I really felt looked after and cared about and there wasn’t pressure to come back.

This November, the company has allowed me to work remotely from Sri Lanka while I visit my dad.

A month ago, you took part in STEPtember, a virtual challenge that encourages employees to take 10,000 steps per day while raising funds for people living with cerebral palsy and encourages a more active, engaged and productive workforce. You won out of 28 steppers, putting in an impressive 628,000 steps. Tell us your secret to winning?

I walked morning, lunchtimes and at night! And because we live close to the coast, I’ve been getting a lot of walking done on the beach, including on weekends.

You’ve volunteered at a lion and tiger reserve in South Africa three times, for a month at a time. Tell us about those amazing experiences.

My family is Sri Lankan, though I was actually born in Zambia. I love animals and some of my favourites are big cats. Growing up, I had always wanted to go back to Africa. In 2012 I Googled volunteering in Africa and connected with the Boskoppie Lion and Tiger Reserve which is in Kroonstad​, Free State, South Africa.

After the first time I went, I didn’t want to leave. You get to hang out with big lions and tigers, the cubs, cleaning enclosures, looking after them – plus I met a great bunch of people from all over the world – who I went back and reunited with in 2013. I even took my wife Erika on honeymoon there in 2018; we wanted to see Victoria falls (on the Zambezi River at the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe).

I volunteered at Boskoppie three times in total.

And we’ve heard you once had a close scrape with a lion at Boskoppie?

The place I volunteered is a breeding camp, which means they breed the cats then moved them to different reserves. Part of my work meant, I needed to assist in physically moving the lions around, and the first time I did this, I was on the back of a utility vehicle and the sedated lion woke up! His back paw was on my foot so I couldn’t move. The lion was disoriented and didn’t know what was going back on and jumped off the ute! He went back to sleep though, and we got him back onto the ute. Later on, when I took my boot off, I realised when he’d leaped out of the vehicle, one of his claws was so sharp it sliced through my boot and into my sock – it was a close call.

enableHR and FCB: creating great workplaces

If you’d love to apply to join the team at enableHR, please keep an eye on our recruitment page. We’ve won multiple Employer of Choice Awards, and we celebrate diversity and work-life balance with most roles in the company offering flexible working arrangements. We’ve always got something going on to support our people and culture from paid parental leave for those employees who are starting or expanding their families and fitness drives to employee volunteering, recognition programs, and mentoring programs, there’s something for everyone. If you haven’t already, you can learn more about us here.

Michael Botur is a copywriter and works for FCB and HR Assured. Based in sunny Northland, New Zealand, Michael’s passionate about shaping words to give audiences persuasive stories – sometimes for sales and marketing, other times for journalism, art, or entertainment.