Best Practice - Full program podcast

We speak with proud Torres Strait Islander woman (Kubin; Moa Island descendant) Carla McGrath and proud Yorta Yorta man Ian Hamm about what First Nations perspectives bring to governance and management.

Emotions at work - do you repress or ruminate? Both could be dangerous for your career. Harvard Medical School psychologist Dr Susan David is one of the world's leading management thinkers. Her Ted talk has been viewed more than five million times and her book Emotional Agility is a bestseller. Susan discusses the benefits of bringing our whole selves to work; emotions as data not directives (we shouldn't let them boss us around) and why emotional agility is important for teamwork and creativity.

We take a deep dive into this medical mystery and look at how workplaces and individuals can navigate the world of work as they recover from long COVID.

Teamwork, resilience and grit – just some of the skills from sport that we can all learn from when it comes to our work. So how can the corporate world harness these skills, and what can we learn from the athlete’s mindset?

It’s not just about getting the job done when we’re working hybridly, it’s about the connections we make. And this has been lost when we’re working from home, and this is making us feel lonely. In the second part of our hybrid work feature, we look at how hybrid work can leave us feeling lonely and disconnected, and what we can do about it.   Guests: Mark Mortensen - Associate Professor, INSEAD Dr Caroline Knight - Research Fellow, Curtin University’s Future of Work Institute Sasha D’Arcy - Psychologist and ‘Inventiologist’ at Inventium

Hybrid is here to stay. So, what is pandemic-driven hybrid work doing to our ability to focus and what do we need to do to find that elusive flow state in this brave new world of work? In the first part of our hybrid work feature, we look at hybrid work and our level of focus when working from home, compared to in the office, and along the way we’ll bust some myths and get some attention hacks.   Guests: Sue Williamson - Associate Professor of Human Resource Management in the School of Business at UNSW, Canberra Katherine Johnson - Associate Professor in Psychology in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne Sasha D’Arcy - Psychologist and ‘Inventiologist’ at Inventium

What is your role in your family of origin? Jester, responsible one, black sheep or peacemaker, we all have one. But did you know the role you have inherited or the values and beliefs your family held could be holding you back at work? Professor Deborah Ancona runs us through how to recognise the “family ghosts” and how to bust them.   Guest: Deborah Ancona, Seley Distinguished Professor of Management at MIT’s Sloane School of Management HBR article Deborah co-wrote on Family Ghosts in the Executive Suite Producer: Maria Tickle

Would you call yourself an introvert, or an extrovert? Or are you a bit of both? When it comes to personality traits and states, it’s not black and white. It’s a spectrum. But sometimes we still desire a label or a name for what we are. Many of us have done personality tests for fun, or have been asked to do a psychometric test when applying for a job. Here in Australia, around 40 per cent of recruiters and employers ask candidates or employees to do one of these tests. But how helpful are they, really, when it comes to our work? Guests: Luke Smillie - Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne Nick Haslam - Professor of Psychology at the University of Melbourne Dr Martin Boult - Psychologist and Senior Director Professional Services at The Myers-Briggs Company, Asia Pacific

What was your first job, and what did it teach you? We’re turning back the clocks and heading back into the supermarket and greasy fast-food joints to find out just why first jobs are so crucial in our careers and what they can teach us. If we put on our detective caps, we can look at our first jobs and pick up the little clues and insights about ourselves that can help us navigate our current career. And if you have kids, or are mentoring young people, we learn how we can advise teenagers on what to look for in their first job. Guests: Professor Julia Richardson, Curtin University School of Management and Marketing Daisy Turnbull, teacher and author 50 Questions to Ask Your Teens: A Guide to Fostering Communication and Confidence in Young Adults

Cryotherapy, sleep apps and binaural beats, are just some or the more than 20 biohacks Lisa Leong uses to perform her best at work. Are they useful or a complete waste of time and or money? We recruited three scientists to run the research filter over these hacks. This episode was originally broadcast on Tuesday 12th November 2019

Even today, the class you are born into can largely determine your career. Research by Diversity Council Australia shows that more than any other diversity demographic, it was social class which most determined Australian workers’ experience of inclusion or exclusion at work.  Talking about class at work can be awkward, especially when most Australians believe we live in the land of a “fair go”. But, talk about it we must. Amanda Rose has dealt with the stigma her whole life, simply because she comes from Western Sydney. When an event MC introduced her as “from Parramatta…but that’s ok because she’s gorgeous” she knew things had to change. Amanda has since gone on to found six businesses including Western Sydney Women, an organisation which offers free programs and workshops designed to help women from the area thrive in the workplace.  Author and journalist Rick Morton grew up in poverty in rural Queensland, and believes his acute understanding of the class experience has shaped his career.  As an award-winning journalist, Rick has broken stories on aged care, refugees and the NDIS for some of Australia’s biggest news publications.  Lisa Annese, CEO of Diversity Council Australia shares the surprising findings in their ground breaking class research, and how workplaces might overcome our unconscious class biases.  Report by Diversity Council Australia: Class at Work  Producers: and Maria Tickle Producers: Kara Jensen-Mackinnon and Maria Tickle This episode was first broadcast on 31 May 2021

Imagine you’re applying for a job. You’re asked a few questions and have a conversation online. But it’s not with a human. It’s with a chatbot. How would you feel? Possibly relaxed? Maybe even a bit more confident? More likely to apply for that job, if there’s no intimidating interview panel? Probably. AI is increasingly being used in recruitment and it’s being employed to make the hiring process more efficient, less daunting, and some argue, free from bias... so how does it stack up? And given these technological advancements, is it time to call the CV obsolete? Guests: Charles Cameron -  CEO of RCSA Australia & New Zealand (Recruitment, Consulting and Staffing Association) Barb Hyman - CEO of PredictiveHire Professor Andreas Leibbrandt - Monash University

Call it what you like, The Great Resignation, The Great Reshuffle, or even The Great Reimagination, the employment landscape in Australia has changed radically in the past two years.  CEO of the Australian HR Institute Sarah McCann Bartlett and career coach Kate Richardson talk us through how can you use this moment in time to your career advantage and what businesses need to do to get through it. We also hear stories of pandemic career changes from software engineer Zubin, UX designer Fern and clinical researcher Fay. Producer: Maria Tickle

Australia’s renowned for its multiculturalism. But when it comes to the workplace and leadership positions, that diversity isn’t represented. So, what’s going on? In part two of our special series, we dive into some solutions to improve diversity and inclusion at work to see Australia's multiculturalism reflected in leadership positions.   Guests: Daisy Auger-Dominguez - Chief People Officer, VICE Media Group and author, Inclusion Revolution Juliet Bourke - Professor of Practice and non-executive director at the UNSW Business School

Australia’s renowned for its multiculturalism. But when it comes to the workplace and leadership positions, that diversity isn’t represented. So, what’s going on? In part one of our special series we dive into cultural diversity and inclusion at work - what’s behind the lack of diversity in leadership roles, and what can be done about it. Guests: Jieh-Yung Lo – Director, Centre for Asian-Australian Leadership at the Australian National University Tim Soutphommasane – Director, Culture Strategy & Acting Director, Sydney Policy Lab, and Professor of Practice (Sociology and Political Theory) at the University of Sydney. Former Race Discrimination Commissioner (2013-2018) Octavia Goredema – Career Coach & Author of PREP, PUSH, PIVOT Jean Jing Yin Sum – Life Transformations Coach & Host, Asian Women Rising

We’ve been living through the greatest workplace disruption in generations. Now, two years and counting of Covid here in Australia, that volatility isn’t going anywhere and business managers are struggling. Energy is low, resilience is low, and staff numbers are fluctuating as people fall ill to Covid. Combine, mix and stir and you’ve got the ‘Covid shiftstorm’. We go inside the world of managers and hear what’s happening, how they’re feeling and get some tips on how to get through this tough period. Guests: Professor Kim Felmingham - Chair of Clinical Psychology in the School of Psychological Sciences, University of Melbourne Karen Gately - Founder, Corporate Dojo With thanks to the managers who shared their stories with us: Natalie Feehan - Chief Customer and Commercial Officer, EstimateOne Lia Pacquola - Head of PR and Corporate Communications MYOB Adam Chalk - Owner and Manager, Buddha Bowl Cafe

We all know the impact of stress on our minds and bodies. But it turns out that it’s not the stress itself that’s impacting our health - it’s how we think about it. We hear from people about their experiences of work-related stress and how it impacts them, and our expert panel tell us how to change our stress mindsets so we can harness its power to work and live better. Guests: Alison Earl, Author, speaker and trainer on mindset and resilience Dr Kari Leibowitz, Health psychologist and mindset researcher, Stanford University

What we want in our leaders has evolved; we’ve seen a growing desire for more ethical and empathetic leaders. But destructive leaders are still in charge in many workplaces and their impacts are far-reaching. So how can we identify them and, more importantly, change them? We look at the personality traits and four styles of destructive leaders and get some tips on how to avoid them to help improve employee and business wellbeing. Guests: Professor Paula Brough, Professor of Organisational Psychology and Director of the Centre for Work, Organisation and Wellbeing at Griffith University Dr Vicki Webster, Founder and Director of Incisive Leaders

Since the start of the pandemic, the global take-up of the four-day work week has accelerated. We first looked into the pros and cons of the four-day work week back in 2020 when it was very much in its early days in Australia. Since then, more companies and industries in Australia and around the world have adopted the four-day work week. We get the latest on what is and isn’t working in this global workplace experiment and what we can learn from the early adopters.   Guests: Andrew Barnes – Founder, Perpetual Guardian and 4 Day Week Global Alex Pang – Founder, Strategy and Rest Nikki Beaumont - Founder and CEO, Beaumont People Kath Blackham – Founder and CEO, Versa Sasha D’Arcy – Four-day-week employee at Inventium

Workplace bullying is a complex and insidious problem that one in 10 of us in Australia experience at some stage in our careers. We look at the organisational structures behind bullying itself, how many of us might be unwilling bystanders, and the impact it has on us physically and mentally.   Guest: Michelle Tuckey, Professor of Work & Organisational Psychology within UniSA Justice & Society and the Centre for Workplace Excellence. With thanks to Jessica, Neil and Therese for sharing their stories of experiencing workplace bullying.