We are honoured to have been be recognised for our deep partnerships and their collective impact on people, place, and planet.
The Australian Institute of Training and Development (AITD) Excellence Awards recognise the very best of learning and organisational development with nominees coming from not-for-profits, government bodies, small businesses and large multinationals, spanning all industries.
The Best Learning Culture in an Organisation Award is presented to an organisation that has implemented a culture of learning in a workplace to enhance organisational performance and support employee learning.
We were delighted to win this award together with our long-term client partners, BIG W.
Continuing to this very day to support an ecosystem for BIG W’s growth, Optimum has created a culture of learning that enables the organisation to adapt, thrive, and support customers and communities, even through the most challenging times. Optimum remains a key component in BIG W’s next horizon as the purpose-led team continues to make a real difference for families.
This Best Leadership Development Program Award is presented to an organisation that has implemented a leadership development program to enhance individual or team performance and contribute to positive organisational performance.
Our partnership with Logan City Council and our 12th iteration of their Leadership Development Program (LDP) was unique for its focus on distributed leadership, open to any member in the organisation who wanted to build their skills and capabilities as a leader rather than just those in formal leadership positions. The LDP brought together a range of learning initiatives and elements into a holistic pathway designed to create a truly immersive experience for participants – one that irrevocably changed their relationship to their workplace.
Centred around four learning intensives on leadership topics, the program also incorporated LSI assessments and debriefs, coaching sessions, an innovation and design thinking project initiative, mentor/mentee relationships and a “graduation” event. Participants graduated from the program as champions for leadership in all its facets and ready to effect positive change using the tools they had acquired and the mindsets they had cultivated.
Our partnership with the Woolworths Food Company (WFC), a business unit of the broader Woolworths Group, saw the co-creation and delivery of a Leadership Development Pathway (LDP) to its senior leaders during 2022. This initiative grew out of a need to equip leaders with the key capabilities necessary to thrive in the volatile climate of the pandemic years and whatever would come next. Designed to enable their leaders to become trusted coaches and facilitators and heighten their influence on the whole system through deepening levels of partnering, the LDP incorporated a range of mutually reinforcing elements, including a leadership retreat, learning intensives, and executive coaching.
Impact reporting conducted at the beginning and end of the pathway through surveys administered to participants and their direct reports demonstrated an across-the-board improvement in a range of key metrics, including purpose-led leadership, characteristics of psychological safety, conflict resolution, and recognition and appreciation of teams.
Our strong partnership with Logan City Council also saw us reach the finals for our 2019 iteration of their flagship leadership development program (LDP). Leaders underwent a rigorous application process to determine suitability and commitment to the learning, as LCC was committed to the highest results.
Participants were chosen for a nine-month program that sought to equip leaders with a horizontal leadership skillset, with the aim to increase team connectivity and more effectively solve real business issues within the council. The program was designed around the belief that exceptional leaders are exceptional people, and that people transform from the inside out. It was a program focused on personal transformation, not simply leadership competence.
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