My name is Ali Burston, I am an Organisational Psychologist and do a little bit of work with Justine as well.  As an Organisational Psychologist we do a lot of work in culture (word undistinguishable) space, Psychometric testing, wellness space, leadership development, corporate mentoring and executive coaching, that what all psychs do.  So we really look at, sort of look at Psychology in the workplace if you like.  So. That is a bit about us and what we do as orgs.

So, first thing I would like to speak about in terms of health and wellness is, from my perspective when I first started studying health and wellness a very long time ago then started implementing a lot of research, the general consensus on health and wellbeing programs it is that it is a nice thing to have right, it is a nice thing you know, it makes everyone feel happy and you know we satisfy a few people that have sent us emails to say can we have yoga next week. No worries I will pick up the phone and organise a few yoga sessions, that’s fine.  Or we’ll get, what did I hear one last week, they organised for a hypnotist to, no disrespect to hypnotists here, if there are any. But yep, but somebody put their hand up and said they wanted a hypnotist, they said no worries we will put a hypnotist on a flight up to Paraburdoo we’ll spend a day up there and do some hypnosis on everybodies, that makes, that will make everybody, it will make everybody feel happy, that is what health and wellbeing is all about, that’s what we think it is all about right.  Absolutely not!  I am about to turn all that on its head, everything you thought about health and wellbeing to this point I am going to show you in the next twenty, twenty five minutes that health and wellbeing programs can make a significant difference to your bottom line and your return on investment right. 

Before I start, first thing, just definition of health so our World Health Organisation defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity’.  And from a wellbeing perspective again the World Health Organisation there states wellbeing ‘is a state of mental health where ‘every individual realises his or her own potential, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully, and is able to make a contribution to her or his community’. All right, we will get that out of the way.

So, first things first, what is our business case?  So what is the health of Australians costing government and business enterprise?

• Total health expenditure 2013-2014 is $154.6 billion which is up by 3% from 2012-2013
• Per person expenditure is $6,639 which is up by properly just under $100 in 2012-2013
• Total health expenditure was almost 10% of GDP last year, this is all ABS stats most recent ABS stats
• 25% of taxation revenue is spent on health, it is not defence, it is not education its capped???? (word undistinguishable) it is just purely on health
• Lastly presenteeism, which I am not sure if many of you know what presenteeism is, but that is actually somebody coming to work, feeling unwell, OK, and not actually performing very well at work on that particular day.  They should properly be at home in bed OK, but they have turned up to work.  That is costing us $34 billion a year in lost productivity.

So where is $154 billion spent per year in health?  First thing, cancer, cardiovascular disease; mental and substance-use disorders; musculoskeletal disorders; and injury contributed to the, to the most of the economic burden of disease in Australia in 2011 OK.

Cardiovascular disease (18%) and mental health conditions (18%) were the most commonly reported of the selected chronic diseases, followed by back pain and problems which were around 15 16, 15 to 16% there.  Around 45% of Australians aged 16-85, a huge age bracket, will experience a common mental disorder such as depression, anxiety or a substance use disorder in their lifetime.  It is almost one in two in this room will experience some of those particular disorders.  In 2014-15, almost half so 45% of adults aged 18-64 were inactive or insufficiently active for health benefits, which was similar to the proportion in 2011 and 2012 we are doing something wrong, OK.  We are doing something wrong.

Thirty five percent of Australians report having a significant level of distress in their lives, that is up significantly.

Twenty five, 26% of Australians report having moderate to extremely severe levels of depression and anxiety, that’s one in four OK.  That number is only getting worse.  We are doing something wrong, we are not doing, it is not right.

Twenty six percent of Australians report above normal levels of anxiety symptoms and in 2015 anxiety symptoms were the highest they have been since 2011 when the Australian Psychological Society National Stress Healthy and Wellbeing survey commenced right.  So what we are looking at there is we are drawing a picture on what the business case is for us to start investing in health and wellbeing in the workplace, OK.  Given we spend the majority of our time, capably eight to ten hours a day in the workplace it makes sense for it to be an avenue for workplace health and wellbeing OK.

I have got some good news for you though, it is not all bad news alright, not everyone jump off outside.  So the daily smoking rate is down to an all-time low of 13%. OK.  In 1989 it was 26% so we’ve got a great big tick there that’s great.  We are now living longer which is fantastic so about 84 years for a female and 80 years for a male.  Between 2003-2013 death rates have continued to fall so 15% female and 20% for male.

Cancer survival is increasing so again it so again it is properly a lot down to research I think. So the mortality rate has fallen by 22% per 100,000 population since 1982.  Its great news.  Cause I am pretty certain that our population has increased.

And our visits to the dentist are becoming more regular, so we have got some good news there too.  Not all bad news.

So, looking at health and wellbeing in the workplace, so one of the most common reasons organisations implement health and well-being programs is to reduce absenteeism costs.  OK, somewhere at work there has got to be a business case here where it adds up for us to spend money in something so we are going to get money back.  OK.  Health and well-being programs aim to actively encourage employees to participate in fitness, education and well-being initiatives in an effort to reduce workplace-related illnesses, as a by product also improve job satisfaction, organisational commitment and enhance culture.  OK.  So we’ve got a whole, just consider it health and wellbeing just sitting here in its self, it actually has a lot of other by products that I will talk to you about this morning in terms of, not just implementing health and wellbeing singular singular self there are a number of other factors within the organisation which help programs (word undistinguishable) assist in.  And today, and certainly in Australia less than 50% organisations promote health and well-being. OK.

Given that many employees spend the majority of their waking hours in the workplace, it definitely makes sense for it to be a health venue for health investment.  Health and well-being programs initiatives aim to both educate and promote initiatives which include pursuing work alignment work-life alignment for employees to aid in work-related stress illnesses.  This is a lot what we are talking about this morning.  Workplace stress is considered a leading contributor to illness, anxiety and depression.  Right so we have obviously had a little chat this morning about bullying and some obviously other workplace related stresses, and how we work through those particular frameworks.  So we know that is out there.  OK.  What I am saying to you now is we can include some of those factors within a wellbeing program, health and wellbeing program tick some of those boxes, it is just another avenue (word undistinguishable) to work on. 

So, the importance of addressing health and wellbeing in the workplace.  I’ve got a few factors here for you.  So the first one on the list for you is reduced absenteeism.  So effectively a healthier workforce has less sick days.  OK, and so those who participate in health and wellbeing programs, we’ve done considerable research on this, are less likely to take a sick day, OK, than those who don’t.  We also have less presenteeism too OK we have health and wellbeing programs set up. 

So enhanced job satisfaction is another one, alright.  Enhanced job satisfaction is a by product of having a health and wellbeing program set up in your workplace.  OK.  And the reason for that is it is effectively, there is a positive relationship between job satisfaction, employee physical and mental health.  OK.  So the onus comes down to, what we call in Organisational Psychology Perceived Organisational Support.  OK.  So if I have the perception that my organisation cares about me, my organisation cares about me, my organisation has a health and wellbeing program that is, you know, tailored to this workplace, this culture, this year, OK, my organisation cares about me I don’t mind staying back 15, 20 minutes half an hour to finish off something.  I don’t mind working that little bit harder because my organisation cares about me.  It is a reciprocal culture prospective that we take and that is called Perceived Organisational Support, pardon me, which is effectively the holy grail of culture.  OK.  What we are trying to do is create Perceived Organisational Support right, so when we call our employees, you know, to do certain tasks, perhaps sometimes above and beyond, they are happy to do that, because you know what, my employee cares about me.  Right.  It is the all commitment to we look at as well.  The enhanced job satisfaction is a big one, because it also assists in the socio emotional needs of employees.

Next I’ve got enhanced productivity, why would people think enhanced productivity is a good by product of having a health and wellbeing program.  Has anybody got ideas, why are people going to start working a bit better if they are healthier?

They are able to concentrate better, audience member.

They are able to concentrate better. Sorry, what did you say

Cause they are healthier, audience member

Cause they are healthier, so effectively what we are saying here is that, you know, if we have a healthy individual, they’re more likely to probably work a bit harder for you.  OK.  Because they are more productive, they concentrate better, they getting better sleep, their immune system is working more efficiently than someone who does literally no exercise at all.  OK.  Or is it a very healthy individual.  Research is everywhere.  OK.  (word undistinguishable)

The other thing about enhanced productivity is that when your employees aren’t feeling very well, either physically or emotionally their productivity declines.  OK.  So if I’m not feeling very well from a mental or emotional perspective my productivity is going to decline because I am distracted.  OK. And that also effects other areas too in terms of being a safe workplace as well, and fatigue and things like that, I am not even going to go into that space at the moment.  But also from a physical perspective if you are not feeling very well, sort of like presenteeism we were talking about before.  OK.  People aren’t going to be performing as well as they can if they are not feeling very well emotionally or physically.  OK. But if you have got a health and wellbeing program we see a number of studies that suggest we have enhanced productivity if we have health and wellbeing programs. 

Better staff retention.  Why would we have better staff retention because we have a health and wellbeing program set up.  Sorry,

(Word undistinguishable)

Pretty good, pretty good, Helen? (word undistinguishable)

Very similar, absolutely right. So effectively my employer cares about me, my employer cares about my health, my employer cares about my wellbeing.  My employer cares about the fact that I completed an engagement survey a month ago, I got a feedback email back, right, saying this is the top three five things that this particular survey reported on.  OK. Because we are doing our due diligence, our duty of care and reporting back to people on what our feedback is and the survey which we completed and then as a result of that, taking that feedback on and saying OK, well alright, within our budget what can we do here.  OK.  We have gone out to our workplace, we have gone in and looked at, we have effectively done what we call ‘Pos Check Survey’, we have gone out and done an engagement survey on what the employees want at that particular point on a health and wellbeing perspective, we have been very strategic in the initiatives that we have suggested.  OK.  And on a side note, your physical fitness initiatives will reap you better rewards. OK.  Just as a side note, we have been very strategic on what we asked people of, so we then gone through got their feedback given people a feedback email saying thanks so much for completing this survey, we really value your time, these are the top five themes, we are looking at, moving forward perspective this is what we are looking at doing here, here and here.  OK.  Alright.  Does everyone do that?  Laughter.  I don’t do that all the time, that’s OK.  So anyway, that is what we are looking at here.  OK.  What we are doing is when we are looking at better staff retention, the other really important perspective about that is our fantastic new phenomenon called Gen Y.  OK.  Now Gen Y’s have a very different view on health and wellbeing to what other generations have had in the past.  OK.  So if we’re investing in a Gen Y’s health and wellbeing generally speaking according to our research, Gen Y’s feel much better about that.  OK.  My employer cares about me, so therefore I am going to stick around here a little bit longer.  OK.  I don’t mind doing a bit more afterhours, that sort of thing.  OK.  Because for Gen Y’s those particular factors are important.  OK.  The health and wellbeing side is really important and we need to start looking at how to address some of those Gen Y factors as well, but that another, that’s another day. 

Alright better staff retention is a goodie and I guess from my perspective too, employees who are emotionally committed to their organisation displaying improved performance, lower absenteeism and are more likely to stay with the organisation.  Right.

And the last one, greater employee engagement, right.  So appealing an issue promote a healthy culture, foster a culture of wellness engagement and delivery on feedback, enhanced productivity people want to.  So what I am getting at there is I am saying, if we are going out into our workplace and doing engagement or pulse check surveys on what people want to see in an health and wellbeing program from a number of different initiatives that we have thought through and we possibly already have feedback on already in the past we are going through and delivering on some of those feedback factors OK and looking at that and saying OK you know people have said they really want a personal training sessions down at the foreshore.  People want us going in there, you know we are going to have a group HBF Run for a reason, you know we are going to have a whole group in that, we are going to have you know some corporate massage, we’ve also decided we are going to replacing some vending machines, not all of them, we are going to start doing that, because what we are trying to do here is in a heart club brand and OK we are also going to start marketing much more heavily what health and wellbeing is all about.  Because effectively with health and wellbeing programs we are not necessarily targeting those people who are already healthy and physically fit and great and active we are not necessarily targeting those people, we are targeting those people that don’t value health and wellbeing.  OK.  And according to these stats, there is at least, thanks mate, according to these stats there are at least 45% of people in a workplace that don’t value that health and wellbeing and also don’t do sufficient enough exercise.  OK.  So what we are doing there is we need to work at a strategy on how we engage these people that don’t value health and wellbeing.  OK.  How do we do that?  Right.  In the same respect to how do we create better engagement with our staff.  OK.  Because engagement helps us with productivity, (word undistinguishable) job satisfaction, helps with better organisation commitment,  perceived organisational support, OK, health and wellbeing is just a small little pillar in that whole kettle of fish around how we get better engagement with our staff.  OK.  Better engagement leads, as I have said before, better staff retention.  OK.  We tick a lot of boxes with health and wellbeing. 

So the importance of addressing health and wellbeing in the workplace.  Health of senior staff needs safeguarding.  OK.

Healthy and happy employees are more productive OK.  There is a lot of research which suggests that but if employees are not feeling well or are physically emotionally, their productivity declines.

Organisations that sponsor and promote health and well-being enhance their brand/image OK.

Team cohesiveness is increased with greater communication.  So when we looked at that, in the research we were looking at a number of years ago, the intent on the sense of belonging, OK and the emphasis on people wanting to be in social groups, OK and so whether that is working in a personal training session or doing a lunch and learn on stress management, or understanding more about what mindfulness is the sense of belonging, so us addressing the socio emotional needs of our staff increases when we do these group sessions, OK.  Now those group sessions not only help us in terms of communication and things like that, but it also helps us develop a better relationships to.  We can tick a lot of boxes by holding you know, for example a pt session down on the foreshore, something like that where we have got people engaging with each other, you know, people from different divisions, whatever it is, you know talking about their work going out to talking to, you know, to a nice open space, getting some fresh air, doing some exercise and then coming back.  OK. So it is not just from a health or physical respective that we are looking at there, we are also looking at it from an engagement perspective, and as I said the importance is on the sense of belonging.  OK.  Especially in a workplace where and obviously as a society so much is done on a smartphone, an ipad a laptop.  OK.  Humans it is a basic need, want, desire for humans is the social interaction with others.  OK.

So, the employee who is exercising, and typically is healthier as a result, will likely show up to work with more energy and enhanced positivity.  OK. 

It has been recognised that employees who are emotionally committed to their organisations display improved performance, reduced absenteeism and are more likely to stay with the organisation.

Workplace health and well-being programs can assist in creating a psychologically healthy and safe workplace.

So, this is where we turn health and wellbeing around a little bit.  Healthy employees are going to cost you less because the return on investment is four to one and in some cases six to one, so what I mean by that is for every $1 you invest in health and wellbeing you will get between $4 to $6 back in absenteeism expenditure.  OK.  Not a bad business case from my perspective.  Every $1 you invest in health and wellbeing, as long as your program is running fairly strategically, it is effective, OK you have gone out and sort engagement from your people and you are implementing what people are asking you of, you will get $4 back, between $4 and $6 back in absenteeism costs.  OK.  Alright.  Healthy employees cost you less money.  Alright.  That’s a business case to think about.

So.  Wellness programs have often been viewed as a nice extra, not a strategic imperative.  Alright.  Latest research suggests that our ROI on health and well-being programs is generally between 4:1-6:1.  Some studies out there where it is 15:1 something like that.  They must have poor engagement repour. 

Case study one.  Alright I don’t know what those guys were doing.  OK Case study one, I’ve got three here to show you.  So in 2010: 28,000 employees it was a global study across 15 different countries found when health and well-being programs are managed correctly, alright, employee engagement increased nearly eight times.  OK.  That is 28,000 employees 15 countries.  Further, organisational performance increased 2.5 times compared to a rival organisation that didn’t manage their health and well-being program strategically or effectively.  And when I talk about strategically or effectively what I mean, as I have said to you before, it is about engaging with staff, having a consistent process, OK, having properly one or two people that manage health and wellbeing, it is not just sort of an added extra on a HR individual, it is not part of that at all.  OK.  And it is also going through and doing routine evaluations.  OK.  So routinely evaluating and testing and looking at saying OK so what of these initiatives are working.  Running mini surveys after every particular initiative that we run.  OK.  It is about all those things, that is how we run strategically and effectively. 

Case study two.  So we have a 185 in this particular study.  So participants were not heart patients, but they received cardiac rehabilitation and exercise training from a wellness person.  Of those classified as ‘high risk’ when the study started according to body fat, blood pressure, anxiety and other measures. 57% were converted to ‘low risk’ status by the end of the six month worksite cardiac rehabilitation and exercise program.  Further, medical claim cost had declined by $1,421 per person, compared with those from the previous years.

Alright.

And last case study, number 3, Perth based oil and gas engineering consultancy had an ad-hoc and reactive approach to wellness.  So effectively what I said when I first started speaking this morning, it was someone rings up, or someone sends an emails can we please have pilates next week, yep no worries, I ring this person up we’ll get pilates here, we have had it before can you come and do eight pilates sessions, yep no worries, charge us $300 OK done.  Alright finished, alright email back, pilates sessions starting next week 12.00 to 1.00 come to this room this is what pilates this is what we are doing.  Is that familiar to anybody in here, that sort of Ad hoc, reactive approach OK?  This is what this particular organisation had, right.  There average sick days were over 15 days a year OK.  So their absenteeism costs were costing them an enormous amount, alright.  Over 15 days a year, the national average is 9.8 OK.  So there was something not working right here they had vending machines packed full of junk in there, they had, as I said a very affable approach.  Normally those people who ring up for a health and wellbeing initiative, something like that, were those healthy ones, OK who would say we need PT sessions or we do the City to Surf or something like and then they just go and ring up and say yep I can organise that and then that’s done.  Alright.  OK.  This sort of ad-hoc reactive approach to health and wellbeing.  That is exactly where this organisation at.  So after implementing a structured program for just one year, they reduced employee absenteeism by 4.28 hours per person saving $250k in absenteeism expenditure in one year.  Now the great thing about a health and wellbeing programs is that you will see a pretty good return on your investment after one year or so, but then it gets better, OK because your people are getting healthier.  That sometimes takes a bit of time, but it is a fundamentally turning it back to value set. OK.  And as I have said to you before, it is talking to those people who don’t necessarily  value health and wellbeing, OK who think this is not important for me,  they’re the ones you want to turn around, cause we’ve got a business case 4:1 even 6:1 in some cases.  Alright.  They’re, they’re those particular people we need to engage with, for us to go and approach, do some sort of survey with them and say focus group possibly even and say OK well look you know what sort of initiatives would interest you.  OK.  Well actually Ali I quite like yoga, OK that’s cool, alright well who else likes yoga, are they quite a few people who like yoga, alright we can look at turning this around.  OK.  It is those people we need to engage with, because healthy employees cost you less. 

Right so, when we start to address health and wellbeing in the workplace, I have got half a dozen things here for you so:

• Starting an engagement process to reliably measure workplace culture in organisational health and well-being.  So that is one of your first steps, OK as I said to you get an engagement survey running, OK.  Be careful that your group does not know, employees don’t have survey fatigue, OK because that is not going to help you, you have got to think of something else that they have got to survey cause they have got survey fatigue.  When I talk of survey fatigue, I mean survey after survey after survey, what’s this one here, OK yeah, Just tick, tick, tick here, right that’s survey fatigue, alright.  So perhaps rebrand it or rebadge it as something else, alright.  But what we want to do is get an accurate measure, an accurate pulse check of what’s happening in the organisational health and wellness, because that is going to help us create a base line.  Right
• The next thing you are going to need is senior leadership, you are going to need their leadership and you are going to need their buy in because that is absolutely critical.  A few others this morning talked about leadership being a top down process exactly the same for health and wellbeing.  You present a business case, happy to give you all the research that you need.  OK, present a business case which says health and well being programs are going to save this organisation X amount of dollars return on investment 4:1 even 6:1 you know that is hopefully going to turn it around for those people in those senior leadership positions, they are going to help drive your organisational health and wellbeing programs, because the buy in that you get from them at this level is going to significantly help you for those, effectively the rest of us and the rest of the organisation because having a senior GM or having a director or someone like that heading down to the foreshore and doing a personal training session with the rest of his team or, I don’t know, 20 or 30 other people is showing the rest of the organisation from a cultural perspective that this is a good thing to do.  OK.  We believe in this and even more, job satisfaction increases, my employer cares about me, job retention.  OK.  We need visible leadership, we need supervisors to help us, so perceived supervisors support as well is very important so when we are busy and under the pump we need supervisors to understand and say oh look I know you are under the pump take an hour out and go to this class, go and do a lunch and learn on stress management or mindfulness or healthy eating or something like that cause it is important for this organisation living those values through that supervisor that supervisor level.
• Create accurate baselines so you can measure Return On Investment improvements – must have valid absenteeism data, alright, so what I am talking about there is the particular organisation that we were working with there that case study three, they had, their absenteeism data was OK but never, you know, they looked at absenteeism on the whole, but sort of half way through what we were doing they came up with this idea of thinking that I’m am glad we should of asked them not to, but they came up with this idea of putting carer’s leave with absenteeism leave.  OK.  So when you go to do the time sheet you would tick carer’s leave as absenteeism leave as well, absenteeism leave and carers leave are all sort of combined into one.  OK so that’s, that’s not helpful.  Alright, so what we are looking at there is make sure you have really good, accurate absenteeism data.  So that people are actually recording sick days so you can look at that and get a baseline.  Say OK oh look, you know what, we are spending $450,000 a year on absenteeism costs alright, we are going to spend $50,000 on a health and wellbeing program and over twelve months I am hoping we are going to get a few dollars back after that OK and we keep enhancing it, right we keep going through that engagement process.  We are smart about the initiatives that we are running.  Alright.  We don’t have an ad-hoc or reactive approach.  Alright.
• Set participation and expenditure KPI’s.  So what I am looking at there is going through from senior leadership perspective and saying we are going to create a pillar, we are creating a wellness pillar, OK.  So what that means is when you look at KPIs and expenditure, OK, we are only able to expend over a certain amount of employees, here is how much we are going to do, we are going to divvy up we know how much it is $500 per employee whatever it is over a 12 month period that is going to be our expenditure budget, but then we are also going to say to our senior leadership team, these are your KPIs you currently got 20% participation rates in your team.  We want the at 50% by the end of the year. OK.  This is a value set, we’ve got a business case here that tells us we are going to save a whole lot of money and help the employees are going to cost me less.  This is now a KPI.  This is part of a corporate management system.  OK.  So it can entwine itself in that to. Right.  At the same time we are creating better and healthier employees, we are getting better job satisfaction, we are being more productive, OK, we are ticking quite a few boxes here by being very strategic, and having a completely different view on health and well being OK.
• Last two, promote workplace value in health and wellness in recruitment process.  OK so that sort of goes back to the fact that what we are trying to do there in a HR process is saying we have really great health and wellbeing program, alright so we offer this subsidised gym memberships, you know we do all these great things in terms of creating a healthy workplace, come and work with us, because the likelihood is that you are probably going to attract people who have that very similar value.  That is a bonus for you.  OK so we go and advertise, promote and market that during our HR process via the recruitment process.  OK.  Because that means we are encouraging people who have a similar health and wellbeing process to us to come and work with us.  Yeah.  It is also cultural too.
• And delivery is key. Alright.  It is the way we are delivery our message around communication we have to our people, the way we are branding it, the way we are looking at our image around creating what the value set is and driving that through the rest of the organisation in saying this is a value, this is what is in it for you, because fundamentally people are all about what’s in it for me.  Tell me what’s in it for me, then I will think about it, alright and then I will decide if I am going to do something about it.  Alright, then it is up to us to work out what is actually in it for you, how am I going to badge, re-brand that to ensure it is appealing and our initiatives are easy and convenient to attend.  OK that’s how we work out what is in it for them.  So you have got a better way of turning that around, if you can work out what is in it for that particular person.  Yeah. Means we can communicate better as well

So in summary

• Total health expenditure $154 billion a year up by 3 % in 2012-2013
• One of the most common reasons organisations implement health and well-being programs is to reduce absenteeism expenditure.
• Given that many employees spend the majority of their working hours in the workplace, it makes sense for it to be a venue for health investment.
• Health and well-being program initiatives aim to both educate and promote initiatives, which include pursuing work-life alignment for employees to aid in work-related stress illnesses.
• Research suggests that the return on investment on health and well-being programs is generally between 4:1-6:1.
• And lastly workplace health and well-being programs can assist in creating a psychologically healthy and safe workplace and the organisational advantages of implementing health and well-being programs are:
  • Reduced absenteeism
  • Enhanced job satisfaction
  • Enhanced productivity
  • Better staff retention
  • Greater employee engagement.

Thank you for having me.

OK Just a little quick sort of context about our situation so our school is just coming to the end of sixth year. In 2011 we are commenced with 315 kids so we have a rapid growth currently we have 1110 next year we have 1140 enrolled which is large. There will be 42 classrooms and 26 transportables on our site.  There are 112 staff if they all turn up on the same day remembering that we have job share arrangements and all that sort of stuff so there is there is never that many of the site at one time that helps unless it’s a school development day.  We have a large staff turn over each year and this is through natural attrition so we have a relatively young staff we have about 15 ladies who are pregnant at the moment so their off on maternity leave and they need to be replaced. We have growth happening all the time, when we get growth we need to employ more staff to come in to teach those classrooms that have developed.  So we are dealing with large staff turnover for that reason.  So that has very real implications for us.

So we have a very strong induction program in our school, and it is not just induction about where are the toilets and where is the canteen to order your lunch, it is very much about understanding the culture we are trying to develop in our school, so that people feel that they can bond and can feel part of the place as soon as possible and don’t feel as if they are late comers to the process or they don’t belong to the rest of the staff.  It is really important that we don’t call each other things like foundation staff or foundation principal.  We don’t use words like that.  We just are staff at Aubin Grove.  Mentoring program is very much important for people to get those answers to those questions so they don’t feel lost for an extended period of time up until eventually they start to work it out for themselves but also they feel like they are being cared for by someone who has taken the time to call them before they start in this school.  We will do that this year when we select our staff we call them and then their mentor calls them and invites them over normally in their team.  Oh we have teams in this school, so we have kindergarten team, pre primary team, all the way through to year six team, specialist teachers, education assistants team depending on the staff member they get to meet everybody, and then they go out for coffee or go out.  And then we also have a strong coaching program because in our belief in order to be happy in the workplace you have to be functioning to your maximum capacity.  You have to feel that your capacity has been built to a stage that you really are making the contribution which is expected of you. 

Ok so for us it is all about the culture that we have been striving to build ever since our inception.  So we have a very very clear purpose, everyone in our school knows what the purpose is and it is as simple as that.  That every single student in our school has to be a successful learner and every single teacher has to be a highly effective educator.  It is no good making excuses, it is no good saying that this kid comes from the wrong side of the tracks, this kid comes from a different area, this kid, comes from a different family situation.  In our situation they are all students and they can all learn.  And we do that in this particular environment we place extremely high expectations on ourselves.  In fact we have written out our high expectations.  So we have a list called our high expectations and they are talking about what we do in the classrooms, what we do in the playground, what we do after school as well.  And then before people come to our school we give it to them and ask them to sign up to that.  By sign up to that physically sign on the bottom line to say this is clear, it is explicit, we know exactly what we are letting ourselves in for and we really want to be part of this and we have this expression amongst ourselves that if they are not knocking the door down to come to Aubin Grove then they are not coming to Aubin Grove.  They have to really want to be here.  But we do that in an environment where we also invite professional growth.  Our teachers as part of what they want to do, you will see in a moment, when they were coming to our school they wanted to come to a school where they weren’t going to stagnate, but they were going to be offered the opportunity to grow as teachers.  And by enlarge our first group of teachers were relatively young but since then, through our workforce planning we realised we really do need to have a demographic that is representative across an entire spectrum male, female, young, middle aged or older all that sort of stuff.  That just don’t matter if they are young or not, these people just want to come to become better teachers and they want to be supported to do that. They expect that, and that is their expectation they place on me.  And they do this within an environment of absolute care.  So we care for people, they know they are cared for and we show how they are cared for as you’ll see in a moment.

So for me the thing that we try to always do whenever we are making decisions in our school is we try to place the word ‘why’ first.  Why do we do this, because in order to engage people really need to understand the purpose behind something.  No one really wants to be inflicted with another what or another how unless the know why this is happening and wherever possible the best way to do that is to be able to involve and consult with staff.  So that you are not just naturally assuming something, you are actually listening.  So for us the question I asked and continually ask our staff is in a perfect world, the question I originally asked when we first began was, in a school where there are no limits, where money isn’t an object, where pervious experiences don’t inhibit us, in the world where anything is possible what sort of school do you want to create? Obviously that sort of question changes slightly over the years so it becomes in a perfect world in Aubin Grove what would you like the school to look like sound like, feel like? And this are the responses, and we asked this question at least once a year because like our high expectations we are always developing those, reviewing those and asking ourselves whether they still hold, whether we want to add to them.  So these are the responses I got:

• They want to belong to a place where professional learning is common and the growth is natural;
• That there is trust respect and care evident;
• That there is a climate for collaboration and teamwork, you know teaching can be one of the loneliest professions of all.  You can go into a classroom, you can be, if you are in a transportable, you are not even connected to other rooms so may not see another adult possibly until lunchtime some days because you might be on playground duty at recess time. So the whole idea of being able to work collaboratively with fellow adults was incredibly important to them. 
• That their views are sort, that they are then considered and they are not necessarily always acted upon but they are valued after they have been considered;  and
• They wanted a workplace which was fun and enjoyable because who wants to come to anywhere let alone a school where you are not having fun.

So why, well we did it this way for three reasons.  The first one is because the assumption, making an assumption that you know what a workplace should look like is always fraught with danger.  So it is about listening. Also I wanted staff buy-in.  In order for people to be committed to what we are trying to create, then they need to buy in to that, only way you can ask someone to buy into that is to have a say.  And finally ownership which is linked to buy-in, that they feel that this is their school, that they own it, that they are not just my school, because I never ever consider it to be my school but then we all share it, we share the successes, we share the responsibilities, and we share the accountability.

So when we managed to put all that together, it actually, at the end of the day came down to three simple words: this is the environment; this is the place they wanted our school to be like; they just wanted a place that was safe and happy.  And safety obviously is not necessarily physically safety but that safety that is professional safety where you can take risks, where you can make mistakes, where you can ask questions, where you can expose your vulnerabilities through performance management so forth and that you then not judged harshly you are actually supported to be able to make improvements that are linked to the questions around expectations around professional growth.  And of course, happiness, the system is natural isn’t it, you think that schools be happy places just by virtue that there are children in them, but I have worked in a couple of particularly toxic schools where it is incredibly unhappy and some of the staff were looking for a fresh start and looking for a place that they had no history, that they could build from the ground up so for them there previous experience were dictating what they wanted this new place to look like and happiness was very very important.

So what did I have, so for me, it was incumbent for me as a leader to have some ideas as well, I can’t just well you guys go and get a facilitator here, so I had some experiences that I was very keen to bring to the school and the first one was a way of being, has anyone heard of the F!SH Philosophy? I’m sure there are people who have. So the F!SH Philosophy is the glue that keeps our school together, I will talk a little bit about that in a moment. 

We have a thing called the 3:6:9 rule and we also have our school motto, our school motto is the LEAF motto which represents our environmental commitment but it also has the four aspects or the four principles which we operate our school by.  We are there to learn, we are there to enjoy, we aspire, and we are focused on what we are doing, and that is the mantra which applies to the kids every bit as much as it applies to every single one of us as adults.

So the F!SH Philosophy if you don’t know about it, if you do I will just a little bit over this.  This is the actual basis of our behaviour management and our code of conduct in the school.  These awesome principles are so entwined in so embedded;  Justine is a mum is in the school and as the school board chair would be familiar with this.  This is the language that our community has actually taken on, so it doesn’t matter how old a kid is in our school, even in kindergarten as they develop the language all the way through to year six these kids not only know these words but they live by these words and in many cases parents have said to me this is now the language in our house, this is how we live our life.  So we have an environment where play is central, it is about creating a fun and light hearted environment.  And what that does is it says to me and it says to everybody else, that we have to maintain it, we can’t just say we are going to do this and then just forget about it. So things like rock, paper, scissors, rock stuff and you will see in a minute, and all those other type of things it puts the onus back onto us to make sure we don’t just do this just once in a while, and we don’t just say this at the beginning of our school’s foundation, this is about our needs this is the way we agreed to act towards each other we just need to keep going.

The second principles is to make their day, and that is finding ways to lift up their spirits and to make sure you take responsibility for how other people are and to where possible help them if you see they need some help.  So that could be a physical situation; it could be where that you are picking up on someone being down for a fact you know somebody is unhappy for whatever reason that is part of the commitment we have made to each other day.

The third one is to be there.  It is about being in the present it is about making eye contact, it is about if someone comes into your office that you are not looking to the side, at the email or the work you were doing when they walked in, you are not looking at your watch or you are not looking beyond them when a child comes in to show you his work that you put everything aside it is all about the work that they show.  When a staff member comes in asks you something, tells you something that they feel you are absolutely there for each other.  It is the same for each of them towards themselves as well and towards me when it is me seeking their attention.  And the fourth one is about choosing your attitude.  It is about saying that everybody has a right to feel a particular way, but nobody should really be able to blame anybody else about the way they have chosen to feel.  And the video that we use, and we use it in our induction, we use it with our children, our older children in particular and we use it regularly amongst ourselves. There is a guy in there from the Pike Place Fish market who says you know,  I properly wouldn’t choose to be coming to work at 4 o’clock in the morning  in Seattle to clean fish, to put out the front of the fish stands to sell to people but if I have to do that I am going to choose to be the best fish cleaner, the best fish scaler and the best fish server that I can possibly be.  So you know anything about the F!SH philosophy it is about, there are things like throwing fish, people coming from all over the world to see this place, it is spectacular, it is loud, it is vibrant and we ask ourselves, so what, we don’t have fish to throw, so what do we throw? And I mean it doesn’t matter what the answer to that question is, the answer is really is dependent on whoever you are, and whatever your workplace is, but it is the conversation we have around that and it’s the agreement you reach around what are we there for and who we serve and how important that is, and how we go about doing that is important. 

So the F!SH philosophy is our code of conduct, I just would say as a coincidence something we are pretty proud of, the guy who wrote this book, the guy who wrote this book, if you haven’t read it, it is a beautiful little read, every single staff member who comes to our school gets a free one when they get their induction.  This is not the first one, the first one is just called “Fish!” cost $19.95.  I think everyone should have a look at it.  The guy who wrote it is Steve Lundin, he comes out of Minnesota in the States and he actually sought out our school.  I have no idea how he heard about us.  When he came to Australia he then came to Western Australia and spent an entire day in our school and gave me an autographed copy of the book and spent about four hours in classrooms talking to kids and could not believe what these kids were saying about how F!sh was changing their lives, reducing bullying, changing their attitudes towards others and so forth.

So, the 3:6:9 rule. It is a structure, it is just a simple thing, I mean we have all been in places where everyone has their heads down, they don’t look at anybody, they hope they don’t have to say anything, because they don’t really want to be like that, if they are a parent who are dropping off kids maybe they have had an incident with them recently or whatever, they don’t really want to be able to make eye contact again, or it is just too much effort.  So for us we have agreed to this rule, 3:6:9 rule and it is pretty, well we don’t actually measure the distances, but if you are within about three metres we have agreed we are going to say g’day to each other.  We are just going to say it by saying ‘Hi Rob’ or ‘Hi Anne how are you’ after that.  So it is ‘Hi’ and a name and maybe a greeting. Or it can be ‘Hi how are you going’.  If it is a little further away, it just a smile, it is always a smile ‘Hi” as you keep going and if it is even further away it is, if people are coming across the playground, coming to work into morning, or going it is amazing what a difference this makes. And Justine would know that you know were out there every afternoon in the car parks saying goodbye to people, in the morning welcoming kids and their families to our school.  It is just a vibe and it is absolutely the easiest thing in the world to do, but how often do people not do that, how often do people just put their heads down do they pretend they are not seeing people, hoping they are not seeing people.  It is incredible how much you can feel uplifted simply by having someone say hello to you and if they know your name and using your name. So 3:6:9 rule works for us and the learning, enjoy, aspire, focus is actually evident in our entire school.  So when we look at this at early childhood operational plan is completely predicated by that.  So that when we say learning is an early childhood focus learning look like in early childhood and how we then go about it.  What does enjoyment in early childhood, so on and so forth. So it actually becomes the framework for our operational planning within our school. So it doesn’t just become four letters or an acronym people can never remember, it becomes actually our mantra we actually live by.  It wouldn’t be a kid in that school or a teacher or a parent I would think who does not know learn, enjoy, aspire, focus.  It is on all our branding it is on everything we have around us.

So in having established the why, we then can, I will talk about three of them, there’s the what and how, so what we do and how we go about it.  So for us our F!SH committee, they decided that they wanted to be known as that, some people call it the Social Committee or Social Club, but to really sort of keep that F!sh thing happening at the forefront we decided to call it, our guys call it the F!sh committee and they are responsible as a group, that’s always the most popular committee you can put your hand up for, they are the ones who really can come up with great play, fun, social stuff which goes on with in our school.  I will talk about what some of those things are in a minute.  We also have a kids matter, kids /staff matter committee and they take care of things really on an educational sense, but also just in a work sense.  So they look at physical environment what that looks like, is it a welcoming environment, is it a happy environment, is it the sort of place we would like to come to work to everyday.  We listen to staff who ask for requests as Ali was saying a minute ago, I got nervous when she started talking about yoga it is not the entirety of our wellness program but yoga was something which came up, we had staff who wanted to do it. We had a parent in the school who was doing, who was a yoga instructor, they asked if they could have a staff room to do it in after school, as it happened to be on Thursdays.  Yep no worries I think she was charging them $10 an hour, or $10 a session and then the kids matter committee heard that they were paying $10 and they said shouldn’t we pay for it. And I said of course we should do, and we paid for staff to attend.  So the instructor just invoices us just once a term now and we pay for that.  There is a fitness class in the morning that people can go to we have, this is not something that, it just evolves, people set it up other people turn up same as volley ball on Friday afternoons.  Then we have planned fun activities that go on through F!sh committee. We have ‘mugged’ a couple of times a year, I don’t know if you have heard that ‘mugged’ experience, has anyone done the mugged experience?  So if you have been mugged it means that someone has picked you out and bought a mug from Things or somewhere like that filled it with some cool things that might be something that you like, chocolates or a cool pen, or whatever a balloon, all those sort of things that put a smile on your face.  And you rock up to work in the morning, someone has snuck in before you, here’s your new mug on the table and we have created a photocopy thing which says “congratulations you have been mugged”, it is now your job to mug someone else.  And you know you have been mugged because you have to stick your poster up after you have coloured it in on your door so if someone doesn’t knows who has been have been mugged , you don’t have to colour it in, but it’s a school, you colour in at school.  

If just arriving to school you know it is a school (word undistinguishable) they don’t get mugged to many times before someone else gets mugged at all.  We have random acts of kindness, birthday buddies, occasionally we have staff dress up we don’t tell anybody we just decide amongst ourselves what we are going to get dressed and the kids come to school and they how come no-one told us it was a dress up, we went it is not for you, it is for us, we’re getting dressed up.  So we do that, we create something different, we have a man of the year competition going at the moment so we are just doing our gender equity. There are a lot of women in teaching and part of our workforce plan is to try to correct that imbalance a little bit so we are at looking at more blokes.  The blokes sometimes feel a little bit disenfranchised because the women are always dominating conversation in the staff room and how they are going, doing.  So we have decided to have man of the year competition.  So once again some of the guys have got together grown a mo for Movember obviously so it is a men’s competition so you can’t just grow a mo, it has to be competitive.  Next particular event, one guy picked three point throwing after school on a Friday is was, we did cool and frisball at one place on Friday night the other night, it has been going all year.  We keep a tally in the staff room and everyone gets to laugh at the fact I am coming last because they are all younger and vigorous.  They are not smarter because I wanted Trivial Pursuit but they wouldn’t let us do that, I have far too many advantages.

We’ve had team building days where we just throw the rulebook out when it comes to a pupil free day, and we have just done complete My Kitchen Rules one day. They all rocked up in the staff into the undercover area in fact not knowing what was going to go on, other than they were just that they weren’t going to do much work that day, sorry Justine, but this is properly not what the parents want to hear when they think about operational planning using data or something like that.  We just put everybody in a random groups gave them $200 budget and told them they just had to disappear to come back at lunchtime and the theme was street food, and each of them got a country of the world they had to focus on, their cuisine and they also had a $50 budget to be able to spend and set up their own street food stall using whatever they could buy for $50 at the local shops or they could scrounge around the school.  And that kind of stuff was.  That was, three years, two years ago and they are still talking about all the time.  The food, we saved so much money because we did not have to cater that day. 

Next year we are going to be speed dating, I think, what was that thing you said at lunchtime – Audience member?

‘Lunch and learn’ – Audience member

Yes ‘Lunch and Learn’ is that like something quick bom bom bom.

It is a one hour session over lunchtime. – Audience member

Ours will be called ‘SPLASH’, so it is Staff Professional Learning and Sharing.’

‘Much better than ours’ – Audience member

So next year we are going to do it, staff don’t know this yet.  I told Justine yesterday.  We are going to do it in speed dating format so they are going to rock up and they are all going to have to come with something to share, on a topic we are going to give them.  We do this regularly anyway.  So we want something which is going to work for you in the classroom. 

But when the rock up to in the staffroom there will be some tea light candles in there and they will have to sit opposite someone, that we randomly select and then when the lights go down I put on Marvin Gaye singing ‘Lets get it on’, then they start.  Every two minutes they have to move to the next person and they share their idea, and then to the next person.  We kinda go this five session thing going throughout the year, which goes from the speed date to the picnic on the grass, to the marriage, to the anniversary.  And then each one has it’s own music and its own theme.  So it creates that, we are learning but we do it in a fun way and that fits in the F!sh requirements.  And we also place as I said a massive emphasis on staff voice.  So we have a very very strong distributed leadership model it is called the ‘Distributed Leadership Team’.  Each team has, elects its own leader.  That leader then meets with me and my executive teams, my deputy principals a couple of times a term, minimum.  We pay them a small amount of money, about $3,000 a year to take on this role, because they also then meet with their own year level teams during their planning time which is in school time every single week and that is about moderation of judgement, it is about planning, it is about collaboration, all those sort of things, but they take on a leadership role which is just below the Deputy Principal role and gives them great experience but also a great two way communication flow.  Professional learning has to be differentiated, not everybody is on the same level indistinguishable. And for me, what we focus on is that we can live in one of three zones.  We can live in the comfort zone, or we can live in the growth zone, or we can live in a panic zone.  The research says that no learning ever takes place in the comfort zone or the panic zone.  So for us it is about just being in that growth zone where we are challenged to get better.  It is a bit like the, the analogy I like to use is it is a bit like netball, if you are throwing a netball to somebody who is stationary, big deal you are standing still, you can catch it.  If you tell them to move and you throw it in front of them, that you throw so far in front of them that they can’t reach it they get frustrated, they feel you are making light of them, that they are not supported, that they can’t possibly succeed and so they give up, or they will get angry.  But if you just put it in front of them where they can reach it or they can catch it, that is their growth zone, they have achieved it, they have actually done something that’s a little different they feel that it is attainable, there is something shows it is measuring progress or growth.  And for us our goal is to feel comfortable always living in our growth zone. And that is the challenge we give ourselves.  And the staffroom does not have to look like most other schools, we have created an environment that has lounge chairs and circles one large circle so there are no cliques no tables where God help you if you go to that table because somebody has been sitting in that seat ever since the school opened.  So we try to create the most open and vital room as possible.  It is incredible the positive vibe particularly on Wednesday which is our big morning tea day we get all the people in there.  We have also got this thing which says you can’t just have morning tea in your own little part of the school with just your own friends.  You can’t have a kettle, you can’t have a toaster, you can’t have a microwave in those parts of the school because if you do that’s what you will do you will be going there, never come part of, you will never meet people, you will never feel that we are part of a team. You will feel that you are part of your little team.  So it is always in the staff room the most important room in the school.

Just in getting close to the end now.  What is it that I want to be able to create? What was important to me when I wasn’t the boss.  So for me, this is what I know, I am sure you all know this stuff anyway.  And this is what I try to make sure I do, and tell my Deputy Principals to do when they are working closely with new teams.  For me I want my boss to know who I am. I really want my boss to know what my job is and how I do it, whether I am good at it or whether I am struggling with it.  And so my responsibility is to make sure I know, and I do know them all but there are days when I ask somebody, does she work here, because there so many of them and they come in so quickly, and now I am not picking a lot, it might be an educational system for a kid with special needs or whatever. But I will have to find out and make it my business to go and say hello and introduce myself and introduce relief teacher even if it is for one day.

My boss values and appreciates me, that he or she shows me that he or she appreciate me. It can just be talking in the staff room at the urn instead of just pretending that you don’t know that person or that you don’t have the time to stop.  An email that says thank you for doing something, any sort of acknowledgement anything will works and someone who just knows about your family, knows your partners name, know what your husband or wife’s name is, knows where your kids go to school. That they believe that the family matters, for us family means first in our school.  If someone needs a day off, or someone needs time to be able to be somewhere with the family its going to be (word indistinguishable) question.  Because the last thing I want is to faint that they are sick in order to go to a sports carnival or to something and that creates a culture of deceit and mistrust.  So I would rather they would say, look if somebody goes there and can I have a short work day, I would say yes (word indistinguishable). 

So what have I learnt out of all this? Well for me is that the six years I have been at Aubin Grove I have learnt that it takes time and effort, but that you can’t not do it without time and effort otherwise it just won’t work. It becomes fake, people knows it is fake.

Then you have to celebrate. You can’t just assume that this is going to keep happening and people are going to be happy for it to keep happening. You have to stop and take stock and celebrate the progress, the successes and achievements.

Communication is everything, and it is not just top down its got to be two way, you have got to be able to listen, and you have got to as I have said before take on board at least show consideration. So listening is important, and it is got to be real, cause as I have said before people will see through any pretence and as I said when I started, will have very well tuned bulldust metres, they will know if you are not being authentic. 

For me it doesn’t just happen, it takes time and effort, it is hard to build but it is much harder to sustain. It is very very easy to build on a promise. Donald Trump, you are going to see what is going on there.   Let’s see if he can deliver, because the delivery is the big big ask.  So you have to work at it.  (Word indistinguishable) F!sh stuff because the first book is called ‘F!sh’ the second one is called ‘F!sh sticks’ and sticks as a good play on words, it is about how you make it stick.  What is it that continues this after the euphoria is worn off after a short period of time.

And finally, this is really about the boss, because you can’t delegate this, if you give this to somebody else, what does that say to everybody well it is not that important.  The boss has to lead this one and cannot possibly delegate and it comes, for me, it brings me to my last slide.

This is the one I shared with our year six student leaders yesterday. They are all in the process of writing speeches, year fives at the moment actually because they want to become a faction captain or a head boy or a head girl next year.  So we’ve got 92 year sixers next year, that is the smallest cohort in our school, the following year we have got 161 kids coming into year six, so they are big numbers. We have got sixteen of them will become faction captains and two of them can be head boy and a head girl so that is eighteen kids.  So what does that say to all the other kids who aspire to become a leader and want to learn all those leadership skills.  Well in our school there is never ever been differentiation we buy and we train and we give responsibility to everyone of those, we buy them all a badge everyone of those year sixes has a badge which says ‘Student leader’. They might not be a faction captain, they might not be head boy or head girl but they all have a responsibility to lead, they all get to work and rotate through important tasks and we train them.  This is week and the weeks done process of what the good qualities of  leadership are.  We ask them to pledge and the same that I use and it goes with the last thing ‘The leader has to lead and don’t delegate his job’ is this, that everything a leader does, matters!  You can never be off, you have to be on 24/7. You can’t not say hi to someone as you coming in because you have had a bad morning, you cannot just be a little bit grumpy and lead, you just can’t because you are giving permission for everybody else, first of all to do that whenever they feel like it and maybe more often they you’d like.  You are also are sending them a message the whole thing is (word undistinguishable). So as I say to year sixes, I say it to my own staff and I live this myself, you can’t just be a leader when it is time to stand up in front of an assembly and do a speech and say here’s the faction (word (word undistinguishable), here’s the graduation prizes that is the easy part of the job, the hard part is when you are playing sport and there is a dispute and at lunchtime over who is right or wrong your acting like a leader or acting like someone who is not a leader.  So for me I walked out from one of my last lectures earlier this year, the most amazing experiences of my life going to Harvard and that was the message they left us with, that Everything a leader does matters, whether it is incidental or deliberate, whether it is formal or informal, someone somewhere has eyes on you, and it is going to count. 

Thank you very much