Conference Program

KEYNOTE ADDRESS: THE SERIOUS BUSINESS OF DEPRESSION AND MENTAL ILLNESS

MIKE KING, internationally-recognised NZ comedy icon & mental health educator

Award-winning host of ‘The Nutters Club’, Mike King is on a personal crusade to create positive awareness of mental health issues. Mike’s inspirational talk will help you identify individuals in your organisation or circle of friends that could need a helping hand – and give you the tools you need to deal with them. Hear him discuss his own battles with depression and addiction, how he is casting light on New Zealand’s growing suicide problem, plus:

• Overcoming the stigma around mental health and creating a culture of openness
• How to evaluate an organisation’s mental wellbeing policy
• Empowering staff to seek solutions to their own challenges – and ask for help
• The best ways to support those suffering from mental health issues in the workplace
• How to promote healthy habits throughout your organisation

INDUSTRY CASE STUDY: CREATING REAL IMPACT FROM YOUR WELLBEING PROGRAM

GAYNOR PARKIN, CEO and founder of Umbrella, and clinical psychologist

A truly successful wellbeing strategy and culture requires engagement from everyone within the company. Whether you sit at board level or on the front line, your need to feel safe and supported at work is paramount, not simply a ‘nice to have’. While there are a range of tools to measure physical health and workforce engagement, measuring employee wellbeing and mental health is relatively new in New Zealand.

To secure this cross-company ownership for wellbeing, stakeholders need be able to see that wellbeing initiatives are making a difference and have a meaningful impact on both performance and wellbeing. In this case study, CEO and Founder of Umbrella, Clinical Psychologist Gaynor Parkin will discuss a best practice approach to demonstrate this difference and illustrate some of the benefits obtained by AMP New Zealand.

You will learn to:

• Obtain a baseline measure of employee wellbeing
• Identify work challenges and non-work stressors that impact wellbeing and performance
• Highlight the main challenges for employees and therefore what might be the most targeted and effective interventions
• Measure the capacity of staff to handle stress, i.e. their resilience
• Implement interventions and conversations
• Consistently provide feedback to stakeholders, to show ROI and improvements across the organisation

THE MISSING LINK IN WORKPLACE WELLBEING

HANNAH MCQUEEN, Founder and Managing Director of enableMe, authorised financial advisor and author

Workplace wellbeing programmes include everything from gym discounts to Fitbit challenges and yoga in the boardroom – but that’s only addressing the physical side of the story. The impact of financial stress on not only individual employee wellbeing, but also on company finances, is something that is often overlooked. Hannah McQueen presents a dynamic talk, full of humour and personal anecdotes, where she will address:

• The growing issue of financial stress and its impact on wellbeing and the workplace
• Why being financially fit – whatever your income – is so important, and how to make it happen
• How employers should tackle this tricky and sometimes taboo topic
• What employers can do to reduce workers’ financial stress

CREATING A SAFE AND RESPECTFUL WORKPLACE FOR ALL 

DION JENSEN, International expert in Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), author and corporate trainer

Dion’s New Zealand police and military background, coupled with his extensive experience in leadership and management roles in the corporate space, has equipped him well to help us spot and deal with the ongoing problem of workplace bullying – which, in the worst-case scenario, can lead to people taking their own lives. Hear him talk about:

• Why bullying is so harmful and what can be done to tackle it
• Positive solutions to address and manage issues, before they escalate
• The options open to management, bystanders, human resources and to those who are bullied or accused of non-inclusive or negative behaviours
• What organisations can do to reduce bullying and create safe, respectful and more productive workplaces

ESSENTIAL PERFORMANCE FOR LEADERS AND INFLUENCERS OF WELLBEING PROGRAMS AND POLICY 

SHANNAH KENNEDY and LYNDALL MITCHELL, the Essentialists

Shannah and Lyndall have been operating in the wellness space for over three decades, working with Australasia’s blue-chip companies, Olympians and Elite athletes. In this energetic and hands-on session, the ‘Thelma and Louise of Wellbeing’ will help you master the skills required for sustained high performance. Their keynote isn’t just about getting more things done, it’s about getting more things done right. They deal with:

• Addressing your individual and company core values, as drivers for your wellbeing policy
• Reassessing career and life plans
• Why time management beliefs need to be challenged
• Creating new pathways for career longevity
• Who you are and the choices you make – to understand a deeper sense of purpose

SUPPORTING OURSELVES AND OUR TEAMS IN THE ‘ALWAYS-ON’ ERA

DR LIBBY WEAVER, Internationally-acclaimed nutritional biochemist, author and speaker

With 24-hour connectivity, never has the line between work and life been so blurred. It’s vital that we all take time to work out how we can achieve that elusive work/life balance for ourselves and our teams in this always-on world. Dr Libby will share with you easy-to-implement tips to help on your own wellbeing journey, and practical advice that you can share with your colleagues, teams and leaders, including:

• The impact of always being switched on, for productivity, staff morale and wellbeing
• How to create a culture and policies that respect an individual’s down time, while still meeting the needs of the company
• The importance of sleep hygiene, rest breaks and down time
• How to avoid career burnout and overwhelm
• How to encourage and improve the healthy eating habits and physical activity levels of the workforce

WELLBEING PROGRAM CASE STUDY: LION’S MENTAL AND EMOTIONAL WELLBEING PROGRAM (BEST M.E.)

ROBIN DAVIES, People & Culture Director, Lion

Lion NZ has won a number of awards recently for their work around culture and wellbeing including the Work-Life Balance category at the Diversity Works NZ Awards 2017, and Outstanding Workplace at the NZ HR Awards 2018. In addition they were a finalist in the Wellbeing category at the NZ Workplace Health & Safety Awards 2018 for their work on mental health.

Lion work hard to ensure all staff enjoy all the benefits of their core purpose of “championing sociability and living well” by achieving social, psychological and physical balance in their lives. This is embodied in their People Value Proposition: for their people to best the best they can be, really make a difference and have a great time doing it.

In May 2017 Lion launched Best M.E. The initiative was intentionally given a title related to positive wellness so it could apply to everyone and to signify that even if people are experiencing challenges, there is a positive way forward. Best M.E aims to support wellbeing, and specifically to remove the stigma around mental health at Lion.

Best M.E. is very much focused on the positive, and using positive terminology and language. 90% of the focus is on positive measures like mindfulness and gratitude, rather than reacting to problems as they occur.

Robin will share with you the learnings, the wins and the challenges. She’ll share the evidence produced so far, as well as touch on sensitive subjects such as suicide prevention and how they approached this. Robin’s presentation will be full of practical hints and tips and real-life examples.

INSPIRATIONAL KEYNOTE ADDRESS: MAKING MENTAL STRENGTH YOURS – AND YOUR TEAM’S – GREATEST SKILL

GILBERT ENOKA

Gilbert Enoka has a long history of success as a mental skills coach with New Zealand’s corporate and sporting elite. He is internationally renowned for his 16-year history with the All Blacks, first as their mental skills coach and now as manager. He has been with the All Blacks for over 200 tests and during that time the team has won back-to-back Rugby World Cups, one Laureus Award (for the best team in the world), 13 Bledisloe Cups, three Grand Slams, seven Tri Nations and four Rugby Championships. In this presentation, Gilbert will share with you some of his key strategies to create mentally resilient, high performing teams, including:

• The importance of ownership, and responsibility for, your own direction
• Developing the ability to control the many variables that inhibit optimal performance
• Celebrating gratitude over ego, and allowing vulnerability to form part of your team’s culture
• Strategies for thinking clearly under pressure so you have capacity help others who may also be struggling
• Allowing yourself and your team to thrive outside of your comfort zone
• Developing resilience through balancing waves of stress with waves of recovery