Apollo Care has recently been featured in The CEO Magazine, reinforcing its position as a leader in transforming aged care across regional Australia.
Apollo Care is an aged care provider focused on strengthening services in regional and rural communities. Its model is built on partnering with existing homes rather than replacing them, allowing each site to retain its identity while benefiting from centralised systems, governance, and operational support.
This approach addresses a key issue in the sector. Many smaller providers struggle with compliance, workforce shortages, and financial pressure. Apollo Care provides the structure and scale needed to keep these homes viable, while still maintaining strong local ties.
Led by CEO Stephen Becsi, the organisation was founded with a clear goal, to improve aged care outcomes in areas where services are often under strain. Its cloud based operating model supports this vision by removing the need for a traditional head office. Instead, it runs a lean and connected network that enables faster decision making and greater efficiency across multiple sites.
The result is a modern aged care platform that delivers consistency, resilience, and long-term sustainability, while keeping care close to the community.
A partnership built from day one
Behind Apollo Care’s growth is a network of strong partnerships, including its long-standing relationship with E.L Blue.
Apollo Care engaged E.L Blue in 2020 at its earliest stage, before its first aged care home was fully integrated. As a startup, Apollo Care had a clear strategy to outsource core business functions such as HR, payroll, IT, and finance. This allowed the leadership team to focus on growth while relying on specialist partners to build the operational backbone.
E.L Blue’s initial role was focused on workforce optimisation during Apollo Care’s first acquisition. This was a complex process that required extensive consultation with staff and unions, along with careful management of employee relations. Acting as a trusted intermediary, E.L Blue helped align expectations between employer and employees, ensuring a smooth transition and stable workforce from the outset.
This early success set the foundation for a broader and deeper partnership.
Scaling workforce capability across regional Australia
As Apollo Care expanded its footprint across regional Australia, the scope of E.L Blue’s involvement grew alongside it.
What began as targeted HR and workforce support has evolved into a fully integrated partnership. E.L Blue now delivers end to end human resources and payroll management services across the organisation.
This includes:
- Payroll processing and compliance, including Single Touch Payroll
- Award interpretation and workforce compliance across multiple sites
- HR advisory and employee relations support
- Recruitment, with a strong focus on regional workforce attraction
- Learning and development to support staff capability
- HR system implementation and ongoing optimisation
- Policy and procedure development aligned with regulation
- Complex investigations and industrial relations matters
- Workforce reporting, analytics, and governance support
The ability to deliver across all areas has been critical in a sector where workforce challenges are constant. Recruiting and retaining qualified staff in regional Australia remains one of the biggest barriers to growth. Smaller talent pools make it difficult to build stable teams, which often leads to heavy reliance on agency staff.
E.L Blue has played a key role in addressing this challenge by strengthening recruitment capability and building more sustainable workforce models.
Driving measurable outcomes
The partnership between Apollo Care and E.L Blue is focused on outcomes, not just advisory support.
One of the most significant achievements has been the reduction in agency staff usage across Apollo Care’s network. By improving workforce planning, recruitment, and retention, E.L Blue has helped deliver substantial cost savings while increasing continuity of care for residents.
Beyond cost reduction, the partnership has also delivered:
- Greater workforce visibility through improved reporting and data integration
- Stronger compliance across multiple sites in a highly regulated environment
- Standardised processes that support consistent operations at scale
- Improved employee engagement through clearer structures and support systems
E.L Blue works closely with Apollo Care at both management and board level, providing strategic workforce insight as well as hands on operational support. This dual role allows the team to influence direction while also ensuring execution on the ground.
A partnership that evolves with growth
Rather than acting as an external advisor, E.L Blue operates as an embedded partner, taking ownership of outcomes and adapting its support as the organisation grows. This includes implementing new systems, refining workforce strategies, and responding to the changing demands of the aged care sector.
This flexibility has been essential in supporting a fast-growing organisation operating in a complex environment.
Together, Apollo Care and E.L Blue demonstrate how the right partnership model can support sustainable growth. By combining local care with strong central capability, they are helping set a new standard for aged care in regional Australia, one that balances efficiency, compliance, and community connection.