Women's Development Program

Applying for Academic promotion (Focus on Applying for Levels B & C)

Facilitator: Justene Knight
Target group: Academic women (Levels A – B)
Date: Thursday 2 May
Time: 1.30pm – 3.30pm
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street

This workshop is designed to support women applying for academic promotion to Levels B and C. This two-hour information session will provide an opportunity to ask practical questions about applying for promotion and to hear tips from colleagues who have been successful at navigating the application process.

 REGISTER HERE

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Applying for Senior Academic promotion (Focus on Applying for Levels D & E)

Facilitator: Justene Knight
Target group: Academic women (Levels C – D)
Date: Thursday 9 May
Time: 9.30am – 11.30am
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street

This workshop is designed to support women applying for senior academic promotion to Levels D and E. This two-hour information session will provide an opportunity to ask practical questions about applying for promotion and to hear tips from colleagues who have been successful at navigating the application process.

 REGISTER HERE

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Career Strategies - pave your own way

Facilitator: Hayley Lokan
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 7+ & Levels A-C)
Date: Wednesday 15 May
Time: 9.30am – 12.30pm
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street 

In this highly interactive session, we will explore the career planning process as a strategic exercise. You will be given the tools to identify available opportunities as well as understand in greater detail your own skills, strengths and areas for development.

We will discuss the importance of setting career goals as well as some of the common challenges that women face in their career journeys. We will explore the steps involved in consolidating your brand, building connections and shaping a tangible plan for your career. Join us to sharpen your focus and develop your own career strategy. 

About Hayley
Hayley Lokan is an Organisational Psychologist, with over 15 years' experience gained from a combination of psychology, human resources and recruitment. Hayley works with individuals, teams and organisations as a whole to improve engagement, performance and focus - helping businesses and the people therein to operate to their potential. She applies the principles of psychology within the business context, delivering tangible and valuable tools in her advice and service provision. Hayley has experience within the university sector, having previously been employed as a lecturer and course coordinator within the University of Adelaide.

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Your Leading Edge

Session is fully booked

Facilitator: Nicola Lipscombe
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 8+ & Levels B-E)
Date: Thursday 20 June
Time: 9.00am – 4.30pm
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street 

In this exciting new workshop for women in leadership roles, Nicola draws on evidence-based research and philosophy from positive psychology, neuroscience and professional speaking coupled with personal storytelling and experience to unearth Your Leading Edge.

Participants will:

• uncover their top Signature Strengths*
• develop practical ways to "lean in and lead" from their strengths
• cultivate a powerful, authentic leadership presence
• speak with greater confidence and authority for enhanced influence and positive impact.

*A (free) validated international online VIA Strengths Survey to be completed prior to workshop attendance

 REGISTER HERE 

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Strategic Thinkers 2025

Facilitator: Tracy Maxted
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 7+ & Levels B-C) by manager nomination
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street
Time: All sessions run 9:30 - 4:30, except Session 3 on Thursday 22 August: 9:30 - 1:00pm

Dates
Session 1    Thursday 27 June 
Session 2    Wednesday 24 July 
Session 3    Thursday 22 August
Session 4    Thursday 19 September 
Session 5    Thursday 17 October 

Head to the Strategic Thinkers 2025 page for full details and nomination process.

Personal Growth Through Productive Discomfort

Session is fully booked

Facilitator: Sarah Ventress & Dianne Adamo
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 7+ & Levels A-E)
Date: Wednesday 7 August
Time: 9.00am – 1.00pm
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street 

Great ideas and new ways can often arise out of conflict and uncomfortable situations. Conflict is quite often viewed in a negative light - but when it is managed well the opportunities could be endless. Topics will include:

• understanding what your predominant style is when it comes to uncomfortable situations
• diagnose the nature and causes of conflict
• explore effective skills, tools and techniques to navigate conflict effectively and successfully
• apply practical problem-solving skills for personal effectiveness when dealing with conflict.

About Sarah: 
Sarah Ventress has a passion for unlocking the potential of others. She combines her experience of leadership roles in the private and public sector with her practical focus to deliver insightful and fresh thinking. 

Sarah has an Honours Degree in Business Administration. She is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of  Personnel and Development, a qualified coach and NLP and MBTI practitioner. She is also a member of the Coaching Circle.

About Dianne:
Dianne Adamo has over 25 years of extensive business experience and combines this with a passion for people to produce outstanding results. An experienced organisational development consultant, coach and facilitator, Dianne's interest and passion in assisting and challenging individuals and organisations to change and grow.

Her expertise includes organisational culture and change, leadership development, relationship management and communication, coaching, project management and strategic thinking and planning. In her consulting role, Dianne is continuously problem solving in one-on-one and group contexts and designing and delivering strategies or programs to address client needs.

 REGISTER HERE

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Strategies for Busy People

session is fully booked

Facilitator: Maria Gardiner
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 6+ & Levels A-C)
Date: Thursday 8 August
Time: 9.30am - 12.30pm
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street

For women in universities it can be difficult to navigate a path that achieves high levels of success at work, without compromising a life outside work. With high workloads, competing demands and an ever-changing political landscape, women can often struggle with the balance between the day to day crises/demands and having the time and headspace for getting the important things done in their job. This workshop is designed to provide skills and strategies to decide how to spend time on high priority, high quality work. Based on the latest research and practice on maximising productivity, this evidence-based will focus on:

• how daily work can often take precedence over vision
• what makes women prone to "over-conscientiousness" when it comes to getting their work done
• how to set your own agenda and run it, rather than have it hijacked by others
• how to ensure you spend time on high quality work, rather than busy work
• how to improve the quality of decisions and outputs
• knowing when enough is enough
• managing competing demands
• staying motivated
• all of this and still having a life!

About Maria:
Dr Maria Gardiner is a psychologist who works as a leading coach and researcher specialising in the psychology of high performance. She works with leading research groups at universities around Australia, as well as coaching many academic and medical leaders. Maria's passion is understanding what characteristics and attitudes create the highest possible performance and then translating this into practical, useable strategies. Maria has also worked for many years assisting women to hone their personal leadership skills and in particular to navigate their own agendas in an environment where it is often difficult to do so.
She is a respected researcher, holding a Research Associate position in the School of Psychology at Flinders University. She has published a highly cited article on women and mentoring in academia and has co-authored five books which are in high demand both in Australia and internationally. Her co-authored work has also featured in the journal Nature in a series of invited commentaries.

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Strengthening Your Resilience

session is fully booked

Facilitator: Michelle Mills & Megan de Lacy
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (all levels)
Date: Tuesday 13 August 2019
Time: 9.30 – 11.00am
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street

This 90-minute workshop will use the Resilience @ Work® toolkit to give you an understanding of personal resilience facilitated by the People Team's very own Michelle Mills and Megan de Lacy. It will strengthen personal resilience but also provide an insight for how to work with your team's resilience, whether you lead one or not!

You will have the opportunity to complete the R@W® assessment after the workshop and will be guided through the results by one of our facilitators in a one-on-one that's convenient for you.

 REGISTER HERE

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Powerful Presentations

Facilitator: Tricia Karp
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 7+ & Levels A-E)
Date: Wednesday 4 September
Time: 9.00am – 4.00pm
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street 

This interactive workshop will cover:

• strategies for owning the stage and developing credibility from the moment you walk in
• developing your confidence – managing your internal voice
• tailoring your presentation to the audience and structuring them effectively
• making it persuasive
• mastering the delivery - working with fear, stress and anxiety
• the qualities of great speakers and discovering your personal presence
• answering questions and thinking on your feet.

Participants will present for 2-3 minutes at the end of the session with real time feedback to put their learning into practice in a supportive environment.

 REGISTER HERE

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Working with EQ to Your AdvantEDGE - a Women's Development networking event

session is fully booked

Facilitator: Michelle Mills, Sarah Hardy and a panel of internal and external guests
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (all levels)
Date: Wednesday 6 November
Time: 9.30am - 12.00pm 
Location: Pridham Hall, Level 2 Mezzanine Function Rooms, City West Campus 

Have you ever thought about how to become more influential with others? What about lessening frustration with those around you when 'they' just don't get it? Are the best decisions made with rationale and devoid of emotion? Effectively using your emotional intelligence may begin to answer these burning questions.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is the ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions in current circumstances in an effective and positive way. Thus, developing EQ can greatly influence your personal and professional success.

This year, the Women's Development Program will be running a networking event focusing on Emotional Intelligence entitled - Working with EQ to your AdvantEDGE. The event will be hosted by Michelle Mills and Sarah Hardy from the Talent and Organisational Development Team and will comprise of:

• Clarifying what Emotional Intelligence is, dispelling the myths
• Outlining EQ's application in the workplace
• Q&A with a panel of three female leaders' adept in using their EQ who will share their experiences, the good, the bad and the ugly
• A networking activity encouraging the growth of connections across the University
• An informal close to the event with drinks and nibbles

 A little bit about our panellists: 

Michelle Tuckey, Associate Dean: Research Education at UniSA 

Michelle joined UniSA in 2005. Through her research, she is interested in understanding the connection between work and well-being, focussed on occupational stress, workplace bullying, and mindfulness at work. In addition, in her current role she supports high quality research training, inspired by real world challenges, across the Division of Education, Arts and Social Sciences.

Angela Giacoumis, Co-founder and CEO of Emotous 

Angela is the CEO of Emotous Pty Ltd. in Australia and brings over 30 years' experience in human resource consulting and people management to Emotous. Angela's unique combination of business experience and deep understanding of emotional intelligence enables her to assist organisations and leaders to navigate the accelerating speed of change, their most valuable asset, their people.

Dorothy Nycz, Chief Operating Officer at ECH 

Dorothy is ECH’s inaugural Chief Operating Officer and brings 15 years’ experience from the traditionally male dominated engineering and building sector to support operational and project teams successfully navigate organisational transformation. She is a strong strategic thinker and UniSA alumni, skilled in using emotional intelligence to lead major organisational transformations, complex contracts, and sustainable service operations within risk, quality and financial frameworks. 

 REGISTER HERE

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Advanced Negotiation Skills for Senior Women

session is fully booked

Facilitator: Ruchi Sinha
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 8+ & Levels B-E)
Date: Friday 15 November & Monday 18 November *commitment to both days is essential
Time: 10.00am – 2.00pm
Location: Council Room, H5-26, Level 5 Hawke Building, City West Campus 

We negotiate every day. We negotiate with our co-authors, colleagues, students, industry partners, line managers, service providers, parents, spouses, and even our children. However, most of us know very little about the strategy and psychology of effective negotiations. Why do we sometimes get our way whereas other times we walk away feeling frustrated by our inability to obtain the agreement we desire?

In this two-part workshop led by our very own Ruchi Sinha, and aimed at our senior women, participants will learn by doing. You will engage in realistically designed negotiation role plays and reflect on your strengths and shortcomings. Over the two days, you will understand the scientific theory behind the discussed strategies as well as the practical steps for implementing them in real-life negotiations.

Topics include:

• strategic planning for negotiations
• identifying objectives and underlying interests in negotiations
• traps to avoid – winner's curse and settling for too little
• how to deal in packages when in multi-issue negotiations
• building trust, status and strong relationships through negotiations
• how to persuade and influence others
• understanding power dynamics in negotiations
• identifying and developing your personal negotiation styles

Please note; a pre-workshop survey will be emailed prior and a 1 hour reflection will be important in between sessions.

About Ruchi:
Dr. Sinha has a strong background in both Psychology and Organizational Behaviour with a Ph.D. from Michigan State University, USA. She has held research-focused academic positions in India and Australia and is highly regarded as an expert teacher in the area of Negotiation and Conflict Management and Leading teams. She has been the recipient of the Top Teacher - TEACHING AND LEARNING EXCELLENCE AWARD in the BUE division. Ruchi is currently the Research Education Portfolio Leader and is also a member of the Senior Executive Committee in the School of Management at UniSA.

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Enhance Your Influence

session is fully booked

Facilitator: Gemma Munro, Inkling Group
Target group: Academic and Professional Women (HEO 7+ & Levels A-C)
Date: Thursday 21 November
Time: 9.00am - 12.30pm 
Location: AU2-02 Training Room, 101 Currie Street

This impactful workshop will empower you to influence others to achieve outstanding outcomes and become an invaluable leading voice within the University.

Through the Enhance Your Influence workshop you will boost your ability to:

• Identify and move past personal barriers that impede your ability to speak up with ease, effectiveness and authenticity.
• Influence others with impact to promote yourself, your team and our organisation with authenticity. Learn to inspire action in others and communicate with influence and assertiveness.
• Negotiate with success to significantly improve the quality and results of conversations.
• Manage your roadblocks effectively to improve organisational outcomes.

We will discuss how to put your skills to best effect, how to navigate the roadblocks and make the most of opportunities that arise.

 REGISTER HERE

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