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About Gina Brooks

Gina Brooks is the Director of Training x Design and has been helping people to Think more, Do more & Feel more for over 20 years. She speaks and writes about leadership, emotional intelligence, culture and how to stimulate creativity and innovation at work through learning.
22 11, 2018

What amazing impact does Optimism have on your profit-margin?

Building optimism in your workplace isn't just good for you and your team. It's good for your profits. Ask any business leader if he or she would like to build an optimistic culture, and of course they will say yes. It's a no-brainer. You don't need facts and figures to know that it's simply more pleasant [...]

7 11, 2018

Resilience by Any Other Name: Creating flexible, adaptive workplaces

All around the world, stress levels in the workplace are increasing. And the causes of stress—they keep mounting, too. It's not just heavy workloads and unrealistic deadlines any more. No, the workers of today have to contend with such heady issues as climate change and political tumult as well. Stats show that highly stressed-out employees take, on average, two more sick days [...]

11 10, 2018

From Pessimism to Optimism: An ORANGES Case Study for Wellbeing Month

You can feel it the second you set foot in any office space or corporate headquarters. In every place of business, there is that intangible atmosphere; an inescapable, all-encompassing emotion, better described as the corporate culture, that permeates all aspects of life within the organisation. The question facing business leaders at every turn is this: [...]

9 10, 2018

This is why resilience is needed in Australian workplaces

What does resilience mean to you and why do we need it in Australian workplaces? I want you to put yourself in a scenario before we get started. Our scenario starts on Sunday evening. Sitting back to relax with Netflix, you find yourself unable properly to follow the story. You can feel Monday stealing your [...]

28 08, 2018

4 Things you can do to make your training stick

Making your training stick is what will help you maximise your return on investment. In this article, you will learn four (4) ways you can make your training stick. Think about all the time you spend training new employees in the skills they’ll need to their best work. It seems endless at times, doesn’t it? One [...]

31 07, 2018

Why it’s OK to be made uncomfortable by training

It’s a busy week at work, and you, like everyone else on the floor, is only just keeping up. Tired, thinking about that chocolate bar in your desk drawer, you’re wishing you could go home. At this point, an email telling you about a round of employee training hits your inbox. It’s a follow-up to [...]

31 05, 2018

How to create an effective training program, and why emotion is so important

If you were to reflect on the training you’ve done in your life, chances are you would realise a universal truth: We only learn new things once we are uncomfortable with existing circumstances. And if I were to ask you to reflect on the best leaders you’ve ever had, chances are you’d also realise a [...]

26 04, 2018

The CEO’s Guide to the Business of Training. Part 4: Outcomes

Outcomes are what you really want to see, as the Chief Executive of an organisation. You are accountable for achieving the targets set in your strategy, which includes achieving a good ROI on activities like training. When it comes down to the wire, the only thing that matters is the outcome. This is why you don’t want training. [...]

20 03, 2018

The CEO’s Guide to the Business of Training. 3: Evaluation

The CEO’s Guide to the Business of Training, Part 3 helps you to understand the role of evaluation, and how you can use it as a proactive tool. Did you know that evaluation is bigger than the training? Evaluation is something that, like strategy, affects your entire business. In the first article in this series we shone [...]

22 02, 2018

The CEO’s Guide to the Business of Training. 2: Return on Investment

The CEO’s Guide to the Business of Training, Part 2 asks what you already know is the most difficult question to answer. What return on investment (ROI) is your training giving you? You may recall that in our last article in this series, we asked you to consider the alignment of your people’s skills with the [...]