Dr. Amanda Ferguson

Since the pandemic, there has been an explosion in people’s desire for work engagement and organisations can capitalise on this. Research has long proven that engaged employees are more productive, energetic, and loyal - and that high engagement directly leads to organisational success. But what makes workers engaged now? How have people’s needs and values changed and how does this impact what organisations need to provide? Organisations that provide the right resources, social context and recognition have greater engagement, retention, and profitability. Workers and organisations must be more conscious in how to drive engagement through these times of uncertainty and changing needs. Learn how to improve employee engagement in yourself and others, retention, and productivity in post-pandemic times. In this presentation Dr. Amanda unpacks: • What is work engagement and what does it mean to love and like one’s work - post-pandemic? • Why is work engagement even more important now in this uncertain era as a win-win for workers and organisation? • Why do workers want meaningful work, to be valued, respected, included, communicated with, heard and empowered? • Why is the relationship between a person and their workplace a key alliance? • What are positive, learning cultures, with “bottom-up” strategies? • Why is it important to know if you - or your employees - work to live or live to work? • What is optimum engagement versus too much - risking potential burnout? • How can organisations provide the right resources to employees, and meaningful recognition - that all increase engagement? • How do people feel part of a community and involved; that their work is meaningful and makes a difference? • How do people feel valued, trusted, and respected, secure, and self-confident? • Why is psychological safety now critical to employee engagement? Key Outcomes: 1. Workers will learn about their personal style of engagement, how to manage, build and gain from it personally and professionally to be more satisfied and successful. 2. Employers and managers will learn how increased engagement creates a stronger worker-organisation alliance and improves business outcomes. 3. Mangers will understand how to help people feel engaged, empowered, and valued in this time of changing drives for engagement.

Managing our stress and risk of burnout has become a major issue world-wide - shown by mass resignations since the pandemic. Burnout is a major financial burden on many organisations, yet it occurs over a long period of time and is quite easy to avoid. History and evolution show us that adaptability and resilience are in our natures. By further developing these skills and attitudes we can manage and even turn adversity into opportunity and be increasingly agile. The pandemic taught us that both workers and organisations must all become smarter, more conscious managers of stress and burnout risks to stay healthy, happy, and productive. In this presentation Dr. Amanda unpacks: • What is good stress and bad - how do we find and manage the balance when it’s so individual? • What exactly is burnout and what causes it, how does it impact satisfaction, performance, and productivity • Why has burnout been listed by the World Health Organisation as a disease? What does this mean for organisations? • We all engage with work differently - causing different risk factors for burnout - how can workers and managers identify and track this? • What is worker resilience and how do we build this? • Why is work resilience only part of the solution, and how does the organisation play the other half? • Self-regulation and social competency - what are these and why are they so critical for resilience? • What are the ultimate strategies for the worker-organisation alliance to stay productive and manage stress and burnout risks? • Why is a loss of meaning so problematic? • Why are boundaries a major risk factor and how can we manage this? • How can we learn our own individual burnout risks and recovery processes if starting to burnout? • How can organisations strategically work best to avoid burnout? Key Outcomes: 1. Individuals will gain insight into their own sources of stress and burnout, how to manage these, recover daily and pull back from burnout risks. 2. Managers and organisations will gain insight into what they need to do to minimise burnout and its costs. 3. A greater understanding and sense of the importance of cooperation and the alliance between worker and organisation in reducing burnout will be gained.

The employee-organisation alliance is critical to productivity and business outcomes. Now - in this new era of uncertainty and worker empowerment - strategic workplace alliances and networks have never been more important. Research shows that organisations operating as networks versus hierarchies will be more successful. Both workers and organisations want better strategic connections. Collaboration, mutual respect, and communication have become dominant themes for staff engagement, retention, productivity, and organisational outcomes. By further developing these skills and attitudes we can manage and even turn adversity into opportunity and be increasingly agile and strategic as workers and organisations. In this keynote Dr. Amanda unpacks: • The all-important employee-organisation relationship - why it is critical now to make this more of a strategic alliance • Change, uncertainty, and the new empowerment of workers - what these mean for workers and organisations • The power in work relationships, alliances and networks of collaboration, adaptability, resilience, and agility • Why agile, strategic, successful organisations are operating as networks rather than hierarchies - and how to do this • The rise of nuanced management - how to do it better, on both sides of the relationship • The ongoing changes in the psychological contract between worker and organisation, that empowers employees - and how to manage these for best outcomes, as a win-win • Job-crafting and career-crafting for management and staff to evolve, reshuffle in their alliance and stay strategically engaged • How to build better connections and networks strategically • The power of psychological safety and the worker’s voice to strengthen work relationships and organisations • Managing the fallout when work communication and relationships falter. Key Outcomes: 1. Increased knowledge, skills, and insights into the importance of the employee-organisation alliance - how it is changing and how to promote and manage this. 2. Confidence and skills in the manager-worker relationship from - both sides - how to help it evolve strategically. 3. Increased skills and motivation for collaboration, strategic internal networking, listening, adapting, crafting and agility.

Psychological safety is about how safe people feel to speak up in the workplace, be heard and get their needs met or make a difference. Cultivating psychological safety leads to greater work engagement, loyalty, productivity, and retention. It has become a dominant workplace issue, in our post-pandemic world and is mandated in NSW. Workers are more aware and proactive about their needs. Workers and organisations must be more conscious in jointly evolving and strengthening a strategic alliance of psychological safety through these times of great uncertainty - for benefits to both. • Why is psychological safety such an important issue now to both individuals and organisations? • Why did NSW government mandate psychological safety and what does this mean? • How do we share ownership and help each other to see both sides - the manager’s challenges, as well as the worker’s? • workers and organisations must be more conscious in driving engagement through times of uncertainty, disasters, and stress • Why is it viewed as a worker-team and organisation issue, and the relationship being good or bad? • Why is it also about good work-life boundaries - and how does this mean different things to each person? • What is the psychological job contract and how have the enormous changes since the pandemic re-written this? • How are ongoing changes impacting employee safety, empowerment, and engagement? • How are changes impacting risks of burnout and how to avoid this? • Insights and practical examples will explore how organisations and employees can co-create the psychological safety they both need, to evolve and strengthen their alliance strategically. Key Outcomes: 1. Increased awareness of this uncertain era and why psychological safety matters more now than ever for workers and organisational outcomes. 2. How workers, managers and other stakeholders can collaborate strategically, be respectful, encouraging, and communicative. 3. Build an evolving, stronger alliance, where people feel part of a safe community, sharing critical information, empowering, valuing, and trusting people - with resulting loyalty and productivity

Most workplaces want employees to set ambitious or ‘stretch goals’, but the guidelines provided for these are fundamentally flawed. Most of us know how to achieve regular goals, but it takes a deeper understanding of scientific research to know how to achieve ambitious goals. Ambitious goals are how we achieve great things and succeed in life and work. We admire people and organisations that achieve greatness. We aspire to these achievements because they bring deep satisfaction, fulfillment and meaning. One of the main problems with ambitious goals is that they entail great uncertainty, and because of this, it is impossible to set complete plans. Through research and experience, Dr. Amanda has the keys and shows individuals and organisations how to crack the code to ambitious goal setting and achieving. In this presentation Dr. Amanda unpacks: • Why is goal setting and achieving so critical to our success - as people and organisations? • What are the differences between regular and ambitious goals and why is it so important to understand these for success? • Why do we admire elite performers and aspire to achieve ambitious goals ourselves - what’s the thrill all about? • What are ‘stretch goal’ processes and how are they flawed? • What does science show in how to set and achieve ambitious goals? • What does experience show us about what works? • What is the ‘uncertainty problem’ of ambitious goals and how can we deal with it? • How can we best set up and manage ambitious goals? • What internal resources must we have or gain in order to pull off an ambitious goal? • What help, or external resources must we have? Key Outcomes: 1. Learn what an ambitious goal really is, and why it predicts great success and fulfillment. 2. Discover how to crack the code and achieve an ambitious goal 3. Learn how to support workers and others in teams on joint and individual ambitious goals.

Top corporate performers have shared for many decades that their secret of success is meditation. A great mind is only effective to the extent that we are in charge of it. Mindfulness and meditation are rapidly gaining importance and are increasingly used at schools and in the workplace. These are regarded by many health and performance professionals to be vital to our wellbeing and performance in our increasingly uncertain and stressful world. Quality of sleep has also become a critical health and work performance issue. All these abilities enhance our health, happiness, and performance in areas of life - work, personal and relationships. In this presentation Dr. Amanda unpacks: • What is mindfulness and why is it increasingly popular, right from child day care to corporate executives? • Why do top performers and elite athletes use meditation and visualising? • Why do people increasingly turn to these in the workplace and organisations are taking this increasingly seriously? • What is the science behind meditation and visualisation? • How does it work? Can anyone do it? Are there risks? Why is it increasingly being de-mystified? • What it is the mind-body link and the mind-brain link? How can we enhance these for optimal functioning? • Why is brain health: sleep, exercise, nutrition, and oxygen increasingly discussed by scientists and business coaches? • Why are sleep, burnout and work performance interrelated? • What are common causes of sleep deprivation • How can we solve sleep problems, be in charge of restoring our energy and mind power? Key Outcomes: 1. Understand the world of the mind and how much more use and management you can have over yours, and how much more healthy, happy, and productive you and your team can be. 2. Gain a practical experience of being led safely in and out of a trance or mediative state by Dr. Amanda, a registered health professional. 3. Be shown how to develop your own unique pathway to reliable, better sleep