Prior to founding Working Smarter in 2017, Sarah had a long and productive career in workplace relations and human resources, including in executive roles in the higher education and not-for-profit sectors.

Sarah has broad and deep experience in all aspects of workforce effectiveness but particularly in:

• strategy development and execution,

• policy and process design,

• performance and capability uplift initiatives,

• conflict resolution,

• culture defining and building, and

• diversity and inclusion.

Having worked with small, medium and large complex organisations, Sarah has a keen understanding of the myriad challenges facing contemporary workplaces today, and has directly contributed to many innovative, bespoke solutions.

Sarah takes a creative yet practical approach to solution design. She is particularly adept at synthesising complex issues into simple, elegant solutions. She understands that designing solutions involves fostering a deep understanding of context and the organisation’s strategic drivers. She believes that the best solutions are simple, streamlined and strategy-aligned. Sarah understands intimately the challenges associated with implementing and sustaining change initiatives and is always mindful of designing pragmatic, useful and relevant solutions – that work!

She also understands that people work at their best in respectful, harmonious and inclusive working environments. Sarah has in-depth experience in resolving interpersonal conflict between work colleagues. She is adept at advising clients on the most effective means for resolving conflict and, as a trained CINERGY conflict management coach and accredited mediator, can assist in facilitating a solution.

She lives and breathes the popular saying which inspired Working Smarter’s name. She designs solutions which ensure your workforce will “work smarter, not harder”.

Some of Sarah’s key successes include:

• Designing frameworks for promoting respectful workplace behaviours through prevention and early intervention initiatives

• Reviewing workplaces to diagnose systemic and pervasive cultural issues and make remedial recommendations

• Designing diversity and inclusion initiatives

• Structural and cultural transformations of organisations

• Designing performance development and capability uplift frameworks

• Reviewing, developing and implementing many and varied policy and process improvements

• Successfully resolving workplace conflict by focusing on early resolution and respectful outcomes

Since founding Working Smarter, Sarah has worked with a broad range of clients from large tertiary education providers and TAFEs to Victorian public sector departments and agencies, local government Councils and small boutique start-ups.

She is a member of many associations including the Resolution Institute and the Australian Human Resources Institute.

Prior to joining Working Smarter in 2020, Justine held senior human rights roles, including Director of Human Rights and Social Impact at KPMG and Director of Education and Engagement at the Victorian Equal Opportunity and Human Rights Commission. In her (much) younger years she was a journalist, writing predominantly about travel and human rights.

Justine is particularly experienced in:

• Diversity & Inclusion, gender equality, sexual harassment and human rights diagnostics and action planning

• Community engagement and co-design

• Organisational culture reviews and change initiatives

• Leadership and capability building

• Policy and system review and reform

With qualifications in community development, law and an Executive MBA, Justine brings astute business and legal acumen to her work, alongside an empathetic approach to design and systems thinking. She is adept at delivering stakeholder consultation, engagement and co-design, using IAP2 (International Association for Public Participation) methodology. She has designed and implemented culture and behavioural change programs from within large organisations and in a consulting capacity.

Examples of Justine’s work include:

• Designing leading practice sexual harassment prevention and response frameworks for clients across the public and private sectors, including VPS departments and ASX-listed multinational corporations.

• Leading whole-of-organisation culture reviews and developing tailored Diversity and Inclusion strategies and action plans for Victorian regulators, local government councils and national sporting clubs.

• Conducting community engagement and capacity building with targeted multicultural and multi-faith communities who experience significant vilification and discrimination to understand and exercise their rights, and increase their access to education, employment and goods and services.

• Designing bespoke capability programs to improve positive and inclusive workplace behaviour.

• Reviewing, developing and implementing workplace policy and process improvements.

• Applying an UX approach and design thinking methodology to enhance workplace process and systems efficiency

An experienced change agent, Justine partners with clients to develop tailored policies, strategies and initiatives that create more safe, fair and inclusive cultures .She is particularly passionate about using a strength-based approach to find innovative and curated opportunities for organisations to build more respectful and diverse cultures.