2017 is fast upon us…
Do you know what our priorities are for the coming year? 
Do you know how to optimise your team to deliver?
Are you developing your team members to perform at their best?
The Talking Performance forum facilitates a strategic discussion about our performance over the last year, our priorities for 2017, and how meaningful performance management and development will help the public sector respond.

Why Attend?
Talking Performance is a unique opportunity to hear from key leaders in our Public Sector and a private sector organisation with challenges just like ours.

• Recognise the good work we have done for our state and the challenges that remain
• Hear the latest thinking on the direction and priorities of the South Australian Public Sector
• Acquire actionable insights for your department or team on how to lift performance
• Network with other public sector employees

MC
The Commissioner for Public Sector Employment, Erma Ranieri

Presenters
Our Premier, Jay Weatherill, shared his vision for a high performing public sector and why he has a renewed focus on performance management and development.

Chief Executive, Department of the Premier and Cabinet, Kym Winter Dewhirst reported on how the public sector has performed over the last 12 months and how it will rise to meet our challenges over the next year.

Panel Discussion – Talking Performance: How can we realise our potential?

Panellists
Eva Balan Vnuk – State Director, South Australia, Microsoft
David Reynolds – Chief Executive/Under Treasurer, Department of Treasury and Finance
Vickie Kaminski – Interim Chief Executive, SA Health South Australia

This edition of ‘Public Administration Today’ focused on the topic of ‘community and engagement, which included articles from influential figures across the public sector. Highlighted articles from this issue included…

• Indigenous engagement: greatest challenge, opportunity – from Terry Moran
• When ‘PR’ became ‘engagement: Rhodri Ellis-Jones explores the contribution of market research and public relations to community engagement
• Engaging youth in the top end paying dividends: Northern Territory’s Manager, Community Engagement, Department of the Chief Minister, Siobhan Okely, and the Coordinator of the Chief Minister’s Round Table of Young Territorians, Prue Jezierski, report the on-going success of this community engagement program specific to youth.
• Community engagement writ large!: Thomas Parkes,  reports that community engagement by the Department of Human Services is a massive, never-ending interaction.

To read the full edition please visit below…

In November 2012 we held one of our most successful forums (judging by the feedback received), Mental Health and the Workplace.  This forum attracted over 400 public sector employees and our feedback is saying we can’t stop there.  In collaboration with Beyondblue we are developing workshops that will address various topics under the banner of ‘Mental Health and the Workplace’.

Workshop 1 – Mental Health and the Workplace: Difficult Conversations

This workshop is designed not only to educated managers as to their responsibilities in managing mental health of their staff, but also how to go about having those difficult conversations with staff.

Many managers are not aware what ‘mental health issues’ actually means in behavioural terms. An aim of this workshop is to de-mystify the term ‘mental health issues’ into real world, understandable concepts with real life case studies and examples. This forms the basis of developing skills for difficult conversations: understanding the problem. We will discuss why these are difficult conversations referencing our general reluctance to “pry into other’s private business”. What happens if that ‘private business’ starts to impact work performance? We will look at guidelines and obligations upon employers and managers under WHS as well as the Public Sector Act. Prior to engaging more formal processes, we will look at communication skills for managers in how to approach staff and how to frame conversations around the intersection between mental health and performance.