With over 25 years’ experience in Unilever under the pupillage of CEO Paul Polman, Geoff McDonald has very practical insights on how to go about truly embedding purpose and addressing the taboo associated with mental health within a large global multi-national organisation. Geoff has written on corporate and mental health issues for The Huffington Post and Richard Branson’s Virgin Unite, and even advised The Royal Family and UK Prime Minister on their mental health campaigns.

In this powerful and practical keynote session, Geoff will draw on his extensive experience to demonstrate how – and why – ENERGY is the key to individual, team and organisational performance. Open and brutally honest about his personal experiences, Geoff will offer an incredible insight into why energy is as important – if not more important –  than skills, knowledge and behaviours in driving individual and organisational performance.

You will leave this session with:

1.  An appreciation of how wellbeing is a driver for business performance

2. Insight into how a multinational organisation like Unilever with 170,000 employees worldwide tackled the stigma around mental health, plus some practical suggestions for you to implement in your organisation

3. An approach to ensure wellbeing ‘sticks’ in your organisation as a strategic imperative vs. a ‘nice to have’  –  whether you’re a company with 5 people or 500,000

Following a “perfect storm” that saw declines in customer and financial results, Janet Verden was one of 20 executives from within TNT globally that were hand-picked to transform and turnaround the organisation. Two years later, internal and customer service levels were at record highs with one Managing Director commenting, “You brought energy back into the organisation!” The foundation that underpinned this journey to employee engagement and higher performance is connected leadership!

Join Janet in this illuminating session demonstrating the impact that connected leadership can have on employee engagement, company culture, customer experience and the bottom line!

You will leave this session with:

1. What individuals can do to equip themselves to lead change – change starts with you!

2. How to build trust: Getting to know people as people, not colleagues

3. Changing culture one person at a time

4. Why no one person is as smart as all of us!

At the helm of an organisation, CEOs play the most powerful role in building and nurturing thriving workplaces. Join this diverse panel of CEOs to hear from, and contribute to, a dialogue around how culture, wellbeing and performance is driven – and modelled – at the top.

An exchange of intriguing ideas will pivot around the following questions:

1. How do you manage your own wellbeing, especially under pressure or when something doesn’t go to plan? How do you maintain balance between work and home priorities?

2. As a leader, who do you need to BE in order to lead a thriving workplace?

3. What do people value in a workplace today and has that changed over time?

4. What are the first signs from your experience that your culture is no longer thriving? What is the most critical next step?

5. CEOs need to balance stockholder expectations with people. When cost-cutting becomes critical, how do you balance training, development and people?

Over his 30 year career in some of the world’s major financial institutions, Brian has ridden the wave of the banking boom in the 90s and braced the challenges brought on by the GFC.

Today’s financial institutions are very different to how they were in the 80s, as are the skills that leaders require to succeed. This became only too apparent to Brian when he suffered a psychiatric breakdown at the age of 40 and realised he had unknowingly been suffering from depression since he was a teenager. This experience inspired Brian to champion mental health awareness at board-level across the UK, offering candid interviews to the likes of the BBC and The Telegraph and accepting a position as Vice Chair, International for London’s City Mental Health Alliance.

Having been exposed to many senior leaders over the past 30 years, Brian now sees a new style of leadership emerging – where those who are authentic, open and honest are the healthiest, the happiest and therefore the most successful.

You will leave this session with:

1. An authentic and personal insight into mental health issues in the highest levels of the corporate world

2. Why organisations across the globe are challenging mental health at board level

3. How successful leaders ‘keep it real’

Westpac has a five-factor strategy to wellbeing developed with the input of global subject matter experts around the pillars of health, values, family and community, work and financial. Unlike many organisations who tackle wellbeing through campaigns or ad-hoc initiatives, Westpac applies a wellbeing perspective to key programs of the organisation – including performance management, leadership capabilities, development, appraisal, relationship management etc. – from their inception and creation.

The result is that wellbeing at Westpac is not optional. There is no stigma with mental or physical health that needs to be overcome. Wellbeing is subliminally integrated into ‘the way we do things around here’ and unconsciously woven into the very fabric of the Westpac organisation!

Successes of this approach include increased help seeking behaviours, recognition of the influence of wellbeing to performance and more traditionalistic measures of productivity including absence, output and revenue.

You will leave this session with:

1. An appreciation that wellbeing is not a campaign or singular concept

2. Insight into the types of programs and ways of working to which wellbeing is compatible and critical to success

3. How to embrace the individual and collective priority of wellbeing

For the past five years, Optus has been offering an incredibly successful employee wellbeing program to its 10,000-strong, highly-diverse workforce that focusses on the four key areas of nutrition, activity, stress and sleep. Having identified the huge impact mental health can have on productivity, innovation and the bottom line, Optus incorporated a ‘Healthy Minds’ program to tackle this complex, highly-individual and personal issue.

Join Megan Kingham, Optus’ Manager Health and Wellbeing in this interactive session as she reveals how looking at the work environment – not just the behaviours – is allowing Optus to make a real difference in employee wellbeing. Explore Megan’s tips for improving psychological wellbeing for your own team and workplace by first acknowledging that one size doesn’t fit all!

You will leave this session with:

1. How to assess your own team or workplace environment and the implications on the psychological health of your people

2. A variety of initiatives you can run in your team or organisation and what works for different demographic groups

3. How to communicate with your people on complex issue of mental health and what works for different types of people

Do you know your purpose? Do you understand what drives you as a leader? Your purpose transforms you from being a manager to being a leader, allowing you to communicate clearly and truly connect with the people around you. With true purpose you can show up in any circumstance as passionate and authentic. It guides you in every area of your life, not just at work.

Peggy Renders is on the leadership team of global software giant SAP and is recognised by many of her peers as the most inspiring and authentic leaders they know. She is passionate about conscious leadership, innovation and building high performing teams. Her purpose is to live her life in such a way as to inspire others to dream big and live authentically.

Join Peggy’s candid and open session, learning from her experiences to help you on your own leadership journey to high performance!

You will leave this session with:

1. Advice on why it’s important to know yourself, your strengths, your purpose AND how to identify all this for yourself!

2. Ideas to build a following and take people on a journey!

3. How to become like Teflon and keep on going in the face of adversity

Nikki Beaumont is a CEO and industry leader with a very big heart.

She founded recruitment company Beaumont Consulting in her bedroom in Bondi 17 years ago and since then, Beaumont has become one of the most highly-regarded recruitment firms in Australia.

Key to Nikki’s success has been the unfaltering investment she makes in her people. From guiding the careers of her team through personal mentoring and development, to providing industry-leading training programs, Nikki has crafted a work environment that is conducive to success – where her people are nurtured and motivated to achieve their personal best not only for the business, but as importantly, for themselves.

You will leave this session with:

1. A real-life story to demonstrate that when people are the priority, profits will naturally follow

2. How flexibility and freedom are the keys to hire and retain the right person

3. Why close relationships and open conversations are vital to a successful team and how every leader can achieve them

Today, for most of us, we have become disconnected from the land, from our tribe, from our food and from our spirit. Wayapa is an innovative Aboriginal wellness and connection practice that is based on ancient Aboriginal knowledge and concepts that has been developed for a modern-day context. Created by Jamie Thomas, the practice of Wayapa combines earth mindfulness and narrative meditation and movement in a series of 14 elements to teach participants the importance of connecting into the earth and nature for holistic wellness.

Having an energy connection to the Earth is what has sustained Australian Aboriginal people to be the world’s oldest, continuous living culture – for over 80,000 years!  Through Earth mindfulness, deep breathing and narrative meditation and movement, Wayapa provides a sense of belonging to the Earth while creating holistic wellbeing.

You will leave this session with:

1. First-hand experience of how earth mindfulness can create individual wellbeing and increase productivity whilst looking after the planet

2. A set of movements and mindfulness techniques that can be practiced by anyone and at any time

3. How to live a Wayapa lifestyle that benefits everyone

With over 100 papers on various aspects of employee health and productivity published in peer-reviewed medical journals under his belt, we are incredibly honoured to welcome Dr. Wayne Burton to speak in Australia for the very first time! During Wayne’s extensive career as Global Corporate Medical Director for American Express – and before that as Corporate Medical Director for JPMorgan Chase – he has discovered that all successful, sustainable programs are data driven, emphasising continuous quality improvement.

You will leave this session with::

1. How to measure the relationships between employee health, performance, productivity, “presenteeism” and engagement

2. The ability to identify which workplace programs have the greatest impact on employee health and productivity

3. Why engagement is more than program participation, how to measure engagement and its impact on health and productivity

For more than a generation, through good years and bad, from $100M to nearly $1B in revenue, Patagonia has pushed the limits of integrating life and work. From campus closures when the surf is up, skateboards and rock walls in warehouses, to pet friendly policies that extend to an onsite bird rescue centre, employees at Patagonia have countless ways to bring their whole selves to work every day.

The result is a company culture and employee experience that is thriving by nearly any standard. Turnover is low, morale is high, and applications for open positions continue to rise. Patagonia’s turnover rates hover around ½ to ⅓ that of their competitors, and in a recent survey, more than 9 out of 10 employees agreed Patagonia is a “great place to work,” that they are “proud to work here,” and “rarely look for a job at another company.”

At the heart of Patagonia’s culture is an authentic and relentless drive to save the planet. That same passion permeates everything aspect of the culture and serves a true north star guiding what they do. Patagonia’s people can sniff out and will reject anything that is not fully authentic to this mission. The key to Patagonia’s success is finding their true values and passions as a company, finding people who believe in them as much as they do and then sticking to them at all costs as honestly and as authentically as they can!

You will leave this session with:

1. A model for building authentic values and passion that your company can drive at any cost

2. A range of work-life integration ideas and actions that can work in your company

3. Ways to engage employees directly in driving their wellbeing and finding more days at their best

In this session, Mikey challenges people to have the courage to ask what’s really going on in their own team and organisational cultures. Because it always starts with you – who do you need to BE in order to DO what you need to do? And what are you going to do about it?

Vinomofo is proof that you CAN genuinely care about people and succeed in business at the same time. In fact, if you are to succeed, you MUST care! Vinomofo has managed to pull off this delicate balance, winning Telstra Victorian Business of the Year 2016, whilst being acknowledged in the top 25 Great Places to Work list 2016.

How did they Vinomofo achieve it? Vinomofo took care of the basics, well. They never settled for ‘good enough’. They never stop evolving, growing, changing, learning. Vinomofo has an unwavering commitment to bringing their outrageously optimistic vision to life, and not settling until they do!

You will leave this session with:

1. Comfort in knowing that you’re not alone in feeling any one of the three universal fears we all share…

2. Belong and reconnect with that passion for why you’re doing this great wok in the first place. Just in case you forgot!

3. Knowledge of who to BE in order to DO that one thing that will have the most significant impact on your company’s culture

With 50% females in the leadership team and a high proportion of disabled, indigenous and LGBTI employees, John’s 60 strong Property and Network Division is of the most diverse teams in Caltex. The impact of this diversity has resulted in the Division receiving the highest engagement scores organisation-wide. But does this necessarily lead to higher performance and profits?

In Caltex Property and Network, the team has seen an average 55% reduction in process time for projects, 15% reduction in build cost, 23% reduction in maintenance costs and 28% increase in equipment uptime! The transition to a high-performing, inclusive culture is not an easy one however.

You will leave this session with:

1. The magic formula: Diversity x inclusion = engagement. Engagement x clear objectives = performance

2. How to make flexibility and part-time opportunities work for your organisation

3. Embracing team members as whole people and including children and babies in the workplace

4. John’s top tips on training, leading by example and successful communication

5. Why and how inclusion goes beyond your own team(s)

The working week seems to stretch into infinity with technology and expectations resulting in us all being available 24/7. But how much work do we actually get done? Is it more or is it actually less? The eight hour work day, designed to create a safe workplace for physically exhausting roles has all but disappeared and the type of work we now do is very different. What kind of working rhythms do we really need for today’s mentally exhausting jobs?

A number of years ago Nicole, an organisational leader at RMIT University, suffered from an undiagnosed neurological condition that resulted in her being unable to perform her role in the traditional sense. Through research and perseverance she has managed to carve out a new way of working that enabled her to function effectively in her role whilst managing her condition so that many are unaware of the challenges she can face on a daily basis.

Understanding and capitalising on the importance of rest and what many would deem “unproductive work” was the key to success. By using time in a different way Nicole was able to continue to lead her team, deliver on her objectives and still manage to design and create new concepts and initiatives.

You will leave this session with:

1. An understanding of the importance of rest in mentally exhausting endeavours

2. How you might be able to use “unproductive work” to build flexibility into roles

3. Alternative approaches to “standard” work activities

Founded in Vancouver, Canada in 1998, lululemon athletica is a technical athletic apparel company for yoga, running, training and most other sweaty pursuits.

From the humble beginnings of just one store in Vancouver, lululemon athletica is now a global organisation, employing over 6,500 people and most recently expanding into Asia. A constant that has never wavered through all this global growth is their desire to look at the whole person and empower people to reach their full potential through providing the right tools and resources, and encouraging a culture of leadership, goal setting and personal responsibility.

Join Amanda and Alex to hear how an unwavering focus on values and purpose has helped lululemon overcome the challenges they have faced with global growth while staying locally relevant and keeping the culture alive! This is a fully-interactive session where you’ll not only learn from the lululemon experience, but also delve into your own values and purpose to bring more passion into your own work and the success of your organisation!

You will leave this session with:

1. Clarity of your own core values, where they are alive and where there is opportunity

2. An understanding of the benefits and challenges of being a purpose and values based organisation

3. How lululemon overcomes the challenges they have faced with global growth while staying locally relevant and keeping their culture alive

Leaders are increasingly becoming aware that creating a culture where employee wellbeing can
flourish is critical to business success.

But how do you engage employees in wellbeing strategies they haven’t asked for?

Physiotherapist, ABC radio personality, Today Show expert, and creator of the multi-award
winning ABC Happy Body At Work program, Anna-Louise Bouvier, shares lessons learnt from rollouts
to over 30,000 employees to illustrate the benefits to individuals and organisations of best practice
wellbeing, done well.

In this practical entertaining session, you will learn how a happier body can support a happier mind,
and how small changes to everyday habits can help employees’ to manage stress, sleep better and
increase their resilience and productivity, both at work and home. Anna-Louise explores how our
work and home lives are interconnected, so improving one aspect can positively impact other parts
of our life, and this can create a ripple effect within organisations.

For workplace resilience programs to succeed, not only do they need to be well designed and
delivered, they need buy-in from people at every level. Anna-Louise will discuss the importance of
thinking strategically about health and wellbeing, and how you can bring your people along for the
journey.

You will leave this session with:

1. The latest research about the impact of sitting less and moving more on energy, mood, stress, and
sleep and how this helps sustain a high performing life.

2. The essential ingredients of a successful wellbeing campaign that you can implement in your
organisation

3. Creative approaches and proven methods to create and maintain high engagement.

To pioneer a new era in government services…..the thinking and planning for Service NSW started in 2012. Launching on 1 July 2013, this brand new organisation was determined to leave behind the traditional government service of complicated processes, numerous agencies and multiple communications channels. All of which ultimately resulted in low employee engagement and unsatisfied customers.

Service NSW had a clear vision to become the leader in transactional services for the local community through establishing a customer-centric one-stop government service model. At the heart of this vision was to embed a culture of deep customer focus. There was a definite need to put the power back in the hands of the customer to choose when and how they interact and communicate with their government!

Of course embedding a people-focused performance-driven culture does not happen overnight and can take years to build. But by providing a clear customer-centric framework, shaped with unique values and a continuous improvement ethos, in less than four years, Service NSW have done exactly that. Today, Service NSW boasts a consistent 97% customer feedback score and the highest employee engagement scores in the public sector!

You will leave this session with:

1. An insight into Service NSW’s people-centric ethos which places the customer at the heart of everything they do and their unique DNA which incorporates the three values of Passion, Accountability and Teamwork to support this

2. How scorecards, employee recognition, training, onboarding, recruitment and internal communications have been reengineered to support the vision and cultural change

3. The importance of a continuous improvement model like the ‘Circle of Service NSW’

2020 is talked about like some major milestone (anyone remember the ‘millennium bug’?), and yet for all the articles and thought leadership on the topic, most fail to acknowledge that it’s less than 1,000 days away.

Now is the time for us, the humans, to take action to prepare. This session will explore some of the data and levers that will help us understand the world we’ll be living in by 2020, the role that AI, automation and robots have in this age, and the things we need to do as humans to stay human and build an environment where we thrive, and not just survive.

Where many sessions fill you with theory, this is a hands on, interactive, and practical session. Do will take us through some of the experiments that Atlassian has run to pioneer it’s inclusive and innovative culture, and everyone will leave this session with awareness and actions.

Be prepared to participate, be vulnerable, and learn something new!