Main program

AHRI Convention Master of Ceremonies

Mimi Kwa, Journalist and author

9:00 AM

KEYNOTE 1

10:10 AM

Embedding innovation into everyone’s DNA

Duncan Wardle, Former Head of Innovation and Creativity, Disney

None of us are going back to “Business as Usual”, and the secret sauce to success lies in the culture you create at work.
Innovation is not something that happens by chance. It’s the result of building an environment in which it can thrive, and you have to give people a set of tools that you may use every day to grow. Companies set on creating a culture of innovation will not only survive, but they will thrive! This goes far beyond having an “Innovation Department”” Now is the time to instil a culture of innovation among every member of your team.
During Duncan’s time as the Head of Innovation for Disney, a company known for redefining pretty much every industry they touch Duncan’s decades of success weren’t merely a matter of luck or chance. Duncan’s results were a direct reflection of his ability to create a thriving, innovative culture, and to ensure that everyone on his teams were put in a position to let their inner creativity run wild.

1a The Futures of the world of work

Ben Hamer CPHR, Chair, AHRI Future of Work Advisory Panel, Lead, Future of Work, PWC

Andrea Clarke, Founder, FutureFit Co

Reanna Browne, Founder, Work Futures

Peter Williams, Partner, Innovation, Deloitte

Natalie Slessor, Head of Customer Futures, Lend Lease

What are the factors that are driving the incredible transformation in the way we do work? This panel of some of Australia’s leading futurists and experts in how the world of work is evolving will explore the futures ahead of us and the opportunities these will present to a changing workforce.

Concurrent sessions 1: Business strategist

Concurrent sessions will explore how HR professionals can enhance understanding of organisational strategy, operations and influence human capability to drive and enable a competitive, agile and effective organisation.

1b Culture in a hybrid world

Aaron McEwan FAHRI, VP, Research & Advisory, Gartner

As organizations plan and launch their post-pandemic work design strategies, many leaders are using organizational culture as the key justification for bringing employees back into the office. Without in-person experiences and time in employer-controlled spaces, they worry connectedness to organizational culture is compromised. However, the future of work is hybrid! The way culture is experienced by employees has irrevocably changed and requires leaders to adapt to the new realities of how culture is lived in the organization. Most organizations are trying to optimize legacy drivers of culture to keep employees connected to culture in a hybrid world. However, these drivers have been rendered ineffective by the new environments we are navigating. The best organizations are uncovering new drivers within hybrid work to maintain cultural connectedness. They understand that hybrid work is not a threat to cultural connectedness – it is an opportunity to strengthen cultural connectedness.

Join this session to explore how organizations are leveraging hybrid work to drive cultural connectedness in today’s new work environment.

• Hybrid or remote knowledge workers spend 65% less time in offices than before the COVID-19 pandemic and are meeting with their teams in-person two days a week less.
• Senior leaders blame these changes for a lack of connectedness to culture: Currently, only one in four hybrid or remote knowledge workers are connected to their organizational culture.
• Forcing employees back into offices to safeguard the previous approach to drive culture connectedness “by osmosis” will backfire, as there is a significant link between flexibility and connectedness.
• Culture connectedness increases employee performance by up to 37% and employee retention by up to 36%.

1c Diversity, equity and inclusion: Critical building blocks for an HR strategy

Dr Michelle Phipps FCPHR, AHRI Diversity & Inclusion Advisory Panel Chair | Chief People Officer, VetPartners

Fiona Krautil CPHR, Principal, Diversity KnowHow

Liz Griffin FCPHR, Head of Indigenous Employment, Generation One, Minderoo Foundation

Mathew Paine CPHR, Chief People Officer, Department of Planning and Environment

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) has never been so front of mind with societal expectations of workforce representation evolving at a rapid pace. What are the DEI opportunities and barriers that HR is presented with and how can these be channelled to drive positive change? A panel of executive DEI and HR leaders will explore a variety of current issues including the value of targeted intervention, creating cultural safety, active allyship and the critical importance of inclusive leadership development – as well as what practical steps can be taken today to progress your organisation’s DEI strategy.

2a The future favours the flexible

Anita Patrick CAHRI, Human Resources Director, PepsiCo ANZ

Dr Sean Gallagher, Director, Centre for New Work, Swinburne University

Dr Ruchi Sinha, Associate Professor of Organizational Behaviour, University of South Australia

David Concannon CPHR, Chief Operating Officer, Employer Branding Australia 

Hybrid work is here to stay, with flexible working arrangements now considered an expectation from employers rather than a ‘nice-to-have’. So how are organisations embedding flexibility into sometimes very traditional structures and attracting workers looking for more flexible work arrangements? A panel of HR experts will share their own experiences in evolving employee value propositions in a post Covid age.

Concurrent sessions 2: Workforce and Workplace Designer

Concurrent sessions will investigate workforce strategy design and the creation of HR solutions to equip an organisation to achieve strategic and operational goals

2b Advancing reconciliation and Indigenous employment through workforce design

Shelley Cable, GAICD CPA, Director, Generation One, Minderoo Foundation

Barbara Sheehy AAICD, National Indigenous Manager, People and Culture, Australia Post

Cath Brokenborough, Executive Lead, First Nations Engagement, Lendlease

Melissa Riley, Senior Manager, Indigenous Engagement, Commonwealth Bank

Gina Bass, Director, Inclusion, Diversity and Wellbeing, Transport for NSW 

The prominence and focus on an organisation’s Indigenous affairs and reconciliation performance has increased significantly in recent years, with many organisations considering it a key strategic pillar and priority. And yet, reconciliation and Indigenous inclusion in Australia’s workforces remains alarmingly low – in 2018, less than half of all working age Indigenous Australians were in work, and still today, more than half of Indigenous workers experience workplace racism. In this session, learn about the findings of Australia’s first Indigenous Employment Index, and how organisations can – and are – actively designing and embedding reconciliation, and Indigenous inclusion into Australian workplaces.

2c Belonging! New Workplace. New Workforce. New ways. New Data.

And what it all means to the People and Culture profession and the work we do everyday.

Rhonda Brighton-Hall FCPHR, Founder and CEO, mwah | AHRI Diversity and Inclusion Advisory Panel member

James Hancock, Co-Founder, mwah

After 5 years of serious dedicated Belonging research, we can talk confidently on what really matters. We can codify the essential elements that allow every individual to thrive, and map the impact that has organisational performance.

We use data, research, and some awesome case studies to give you a new way to understand and leverage your unique culture. From this comes new ways of working, new ways of leading, and an ability evolve your organisation through any cycle.

Whether it be ‘community’ rather than organisational employment contracts, democratisation of data to every person, performance alongside inclusion, or getting the people ‘S’ element of ESG data right, the way organisations are designed now, will fundamentally change the HR profession for the future. Right now, we are presented with both our biggest opportunities and greatest challenges.

We look at the impact of new ways to measure and understand culture, the data you will need, and exactly what to do when you get it.

2d The Era of Choice: Empowering Employees in the New World of Work

Monica Watt, Chief HR Officer, ELMO Software

The pandemic has shifted employees’ thinking from why, to why not? Why can’t I work a condensed week? Why can’t I work remotely? It’s forced employers to rethink essential business practices and embrace the rapidly changing nature of work if they want to retain, motivate, and engage their staff. But while hybrid work is here to stay, how do organisations ensure it doesn’t damage productivity in the long-term? In this session, ELMO’s Group CHRO, Monica Watt, will discuss:

• How to maintain and strengthen company culture within a dispersed workforce
• The importance of flexibility, choice, and autonomy for today’s workers
• How to get managers on board with the shift from input to outcome
• Why it’s time to forget the five-day-week

3a HR’s role in improving the productivity of Australian workplaces

Michael Brennan, Chair, Productivity Commission

Michael Brennan, Chair of the Productivity Commission will explore the critical role that people management has to play in raising productivity levels in organisations and the wider public interest. In particular he will identify some of the specific people management practices that can both boost worker output and contribute to more fulfilling and happier working lives.               

Concurrent sessions 3: Culture and Change Leader

Concurrent sessions will examine how HR can influence an optimal organisational culture and provide valued insights to achieve individual and organisational objectives.

3b Unlearning the future: Practical strategies for the future of work

Reanna Browne, Founder, Work Futures

The many and varied futures of work can be overwhelming, and it can be difficult to move from futurist narratives to practical actions that we bring to work on Monday.

Learn how to think and act like a futurist in an uncertain present with Reanna Browne, practicing futurist and HR expert by unlocking new ways to take action in the present. Reanna will reframe the way we think about the future and how leaders can leverage external change to disrupt short-termism and move from either/or to and/both thinking and transform the present.

3c Are you driving your culture, or is your culture driving you?

Corinne Canter, Head of Consulting, Human Synergistics Australia

Culture can accelerate or break the execution of strategy, motivate high performance and ethical behaviour or it can create collateral damage no organisation wants to be associated with.  When it comes to workplace culture, here’s what’s true: Culture is the only thing that makes your organisation unique and different.

And in 2022 as CEO’s elevate culture from the a ‘nice to have’ program of work to the main game and critical success factor –HR professionals have a renewed opportunity to act as cultural architects and activists to ensure culture is a potent and unassailable force in helping your organisation bridge successfully into the new post-covid world of work.

A world where hybrid working has become an expectation and where the war for talent has gone next level. Skill shortages are increasing especially in specialised skills, prompting those with the highly sought skills to leave their existing employers for organisations with positive workplace cultures because in this post covid world, a good pay cheque isn’t enough for talent retention.

Yet, how to shift culture can feel elusive. You cannot see it or touch it and you cannot do it without senior leaders or employees being on board.

This session focuses on the skills and capability required to lead culture change effectively and sustainably. Attendees will learn ;

• How to develop the business case for change
• How to turn senior leaders into culture change advocates
• How to crowd source your culture strategy 
• The 10 critical “must know’ factors to successfully work on your culture
• Participants will also receive resources to help build a successful business case 

3d Show Them Who You Are – How to win the battle for talent through transparency

Rachael Townsley, Director of Marketing, Indeed

In this session, Rachael Townsley, Indeed Australia’s Marketing Director, will discuss the importance of transparency and how organisations can leverage transparency to win the battle for talent. She will identify the key factors driving job seeker and employee behaviours and demands, strategies you can implement to ensure greater transparency and how embracing corporate transparency will translate into a stronger employer brand and a successful recruitment and retention strategy.

3:50 PM

KEYNOTE 2

4:50 PM

Why wait? Using goals as a vehicle for change

Sebastian Terry, CEO, 100things

In a world of constant disruption and change, it’s our goals that act as our personal vehicle for evolution. Integrating every aspect of our lives. Sebastian Terry, Founder of 100 things will reframe not only your perspective on what it is to realize and attain personal and professional ambition, but how to turn goals into reality in just four steps. In a story that has gained global attention, Sebastian will share how personal development inspires collective evolution.