A WORD FROM THE CEO

November has been a huge month for the team as we delivered our Women’s Network Conference, Economic Development Conference, Leadership Excellence Awards and Executive Leaders Program Information Sessions, three short courses, two Network Forums, and our Annual General Meeting (AGM), whilst also busily planning for an excitingly huge 2025.

At the AGM, we were pleased to announce the new LG Professionals SA Board. Congratulations to our newly elected Board Members Abby Dickson, Randy Graetz, Ben Keen and Whendee Young. We also congratulate Kristie Johnson and Thuyen Vi-Alternetti on their re-election.

November 2024
Edition 158

BUSINESS PERFORMANCE AND IMPROVEMENT NETWORK FORUM
Thursday 28 November 2024 - TOMORROW!

Join us for our last Forum of the year - the LG Professionals SA Business Performance and Improvement Network Forum: 360 Degree Feedback - Connecting Community Engagement, Performance, and Innovation!

Curated for local government professionals who are keen to improve business performance and learn from peers in the community engagement and business reporting realm, this Forum will be held in person at the City of Adelaide and via Zoom on Thursday 28 November 2024 from 1:00PM – 4:00PM, followed by networking drinks (pay your own way) at nearby Adina Treasury 1860 Courtyard and Bar.

Our speakers will present on community engagement and trends, including the intersection of AI and community engagement. Please join us to discover the emerging trends, tools and technology, and the grassroots conversations, leading to richer community outcomes.

LG PROFESSIONALS SA 2025 ANNUAL STATE CONFERENCE:
GROWTH UNLEASHED
Friday 21 March 2025

You're invited to the LG Professionals SA Annual State Conference!

The conference will begin with insights on enhancing work-life balance and performance through effective transitions between tasks and interactions. You will learn how to create supportive work environments that minimise stress and foster resilience, ensuring that individuals can thrive during periods of change.

With interactive sessions and networking opportunities, the LG Professionals SA Annual State Conference promises to be an enriching experience. Join us as we harness actionable strategies to unleash our potential, and collaborate to create a brighter future for our communities!

2025 SA LOCAL GOVERNMENT MANAGEMENT CHALLENGE
Register your team now!

Teams are challenged to respond to a series of tasks in a unique, fast-paced, "pressure cooker" environment. Some tasks may require written responses (such as a council report or recommendation document), whilst others may be more interactive and take the form of role plays or presentations – but the mix will be a surprise for the day! 

Key Dates

Early Bird Registrations Close 
Monday 27 January 2025
Registrations Close
Monday 17 February 2025
Challenge Day
Wednesday 9 April 2025

Venue

We are bringing the Local Government Management Challenge to a new venue in 2025! Challenge Day will take place on Wednesday 9 April 2025 at the Adelaide Showground on Goodwood Road, Wayville SA 5034.

Please save the date for the following LG Professionals SA events for 2025. If you are planning a local government event, we invite you to contact us to avoid date clashes. 

Friday 9 May 2025 - LG Professionals SA 24^th Annual Leadership Excellence Awards Gala Dinner

Friday 25 July 2025 - Community Development Network Conference

Nominations are starting to come in for the LG Professionals SA 24^th Annual Leadership Excellence Awards, and we are looking forward to seeing yours as we count down until the nomination deadline. If you are thinking of nominating your project or initiative, don't leave it to the last minute! Nominations close 5:00PM Wednesday 5 February 2025.

Have you or your colleagues demonstrated excellence within local government?

Our awards program includes 11 categories and is designed to recognise outstanding achievement and innovation within local government.

Council and Subsidiary Members are encouraged to prepare their nominations in the following categories:

• Emerging Leader of the Year
• Excellence in People and Culture
• Excellence in Diversity and Inclusion
• Excellence in Community Partnerships and Collaboration
• Excellence in Cross Council Collaboration
• Excellence in Local Economic Development
• Excellence in Customer Service or Experience
• Excellence in Community Services and Development
• Excellence in Environmental Leadership and Sustainability
• Excellence in Emergency Management / Disaster Recovery
• Excellence in Infrastructure Delivery 

Read our nominations brochure with category information, eligibility and guidelines.

We would love to see all Council and Subsidiary Members represented in the nomination process, so that we can celebrate the outcomes of your initiatives. No matter how small you might think your project is - we want to hear about it!

City of Charles Sturt won the 2024 Excellence in People and Culture Award for their 'Recognising Our Values' program. We spoke with Kristie Johnson, General Manager Engaged Community, to find out more.

You and your team won the Excellence in People and Culture Award at the
LG Professionals SA 23^rd Annual Leadership Excellence Awards earlier this year. Congratulations! Can you tell us about your project?

The City of Charles Sturt (CCS) has four key internal values; passionate, courageous, caring and progressive. These values inspire our employees to deliver exceptional service for our community every single day.

The ‘Recognising Our Values’ program was created during the height of COVID to connect our employees with our values, and to highlight the ways CCS teams were providing service to our community.

The strength of the program is about promoting a culture of celebrating others, deepening the connection with each of CCS’ values, and ultimately improving outcomes for the community. This program has continued to gather momentum each year, with the 2023 iteration attracting unprecedented levels of employee participation and engagement.

It is an employee-driven initiative, with individuals asked to nominate, and then vote for other teams around the Council who have delivered exceptional work in line with our values. When the results are in, we all come together for an end of year presentation where the recipients in each category are awarded by CEO, Paul Sutton and our General Managers.

What does winning this award mean to you, your council, and your community?

It truly means the world. We are incredibly passionate not only about our community and representation of diversity in our City, but also our people experience, and ensuring our people enjoy coming to work every single day with purpose and are happy and motivated.

Our community would not experience the high level of service delivery they do without driven and passionate staff, so recognition like this lets them know we are working together with purpose to support them.

What advice would you give someone considering nominating for an award in the future?

Go for it! It’s not so much about winning as it is about delivering fresh, ground-breaking initiatives for our communities, and so it is equally important to share our experience with our council colleagues to continue the great work we do. We value collaboration and the opportunity to connect and network as a ‘finalist’ has proven to be invaluable to us.

Whilst you might not know whether your project or work would be something others are interested in, it’s likely your ideas could benefit another council – this is a way to share with each other and celebrate, so please share your work too! 

Are you interested in nominating for an Award? Nominations for the 24^th Annual Leadership Excellence Awards are now open. Nominate today!

City of Charles Sturt Team (Pictured L-R): Media, Marketing and Communications Coordinator Max Phillips, CEO Paul Sutton, General Manager Engaged Community Kristie Johnson, retired General Manager Corporate Services Donna Dunbar, and Communications Advisor Adam Trombetta.

We caught up with one of this year's Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) participants, Craig Pearson, Information Technology Coordinator, Coorong District Council, and module organiser, Laura Morgan, Manager Property, Mount Barker District Council, to find out more about their experiences with the ELP.

Having recently joined the local government sector, my director asked if I would be interested in the program. Eager to broaden my knowledge across different areas of local government, I recognised this as an excellent opportunity. The program’s prospectus promised substantial personal and professional growth, as well as the chance to network with colleagues from other councils.

To date, the program has exceeded expectations, offering a diverse range of topics and a fantastic range of tutors and guest speakers. While it has pushed me beyond my comfort zone - an aspect I had not fully anticipated - this challenge has proven to be the most rewarding part of the experience.

A recent module focused on Media and Engagement – what were some of your takeaways from this module? 

Media and Engagement aren't really areas that I would be involved with on a day-to-day basis so I went into the module with an open mind as to what I could learn from the day. The group who organised the module did a fantastic job, with a wide range of views on strategies for managing media,

engagement and community consultation. Having Kate O’Neill take us on her career journey gave great insight and inspiration into taking risks and not letting others tell your story. It has been a continued theme from guest speakers, to embrace the unknown and say yes to new challenges.

The 45 minute ‘express masterclass’ by Brett Manuel was highly entertaining, and participants were able to see the value in which having real experience and expertise in engagement is favourable within local government.

What are you most looking forward to as the program comes to close? 

Witnessing the growth of all Program participants. Collectively you can see the level of confidence increase, so I am excited to see the results of this in the final presentations. Having worked on our group project for around six months now, I am looking forward to the opportunity to present the final report to local government colleagues, executives and the other ELP participants.

Craig Pearson
Information Technology Coordinator
Coorong District Council

Hi Laura, you were part of the organising group for the Media and Engagement module. What did you want the cohort to get out of the module? 

The module that we delivered was based on Media and Engagement, and during the planning stage, our focus was to deliver something relevant, interesting, educational and fun! To achieve this, we ran a short master class in IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum (facilitated by Brett Manuel), which focused on the importance of understanding people and their values during engagement processes, so that we (as council staff) can respectfully dig deeper into stakeholder analysis and facilitate transparent decision making that meets the needs of our community.

The 2024 LG Professionals SA Emerging Leaders Program has a broad mix of participants with varying degrees of local government experience, so it was also important for us that this module also focused on leadership and the experiences of our invited guests. With participation from Kate O’Neill, General Manager Organisational & Community Development, City of Mitcham and
LG Professionals SA President, Mayor Moira Were, City of Onkaparinga, Alison Hancock, Executive Manager, Mount Barker District Council, and Julie Lamond, Manager Engagement and Governance, City of Mitcham, the Emerging Leader participants learnt firsthand how the media can influence certain outcomes in a local government setting. 

How did you find organising the module with your group? 

The module group that I was assigned to

have been simply amazing to work with! We all have different skills and experiences, and it was great to share different tasks amongst us to get the job done. I would certainly say that through the LG Professionals SA Emerging Leaders Program, we have made lifelong connections and friendships that will benefit local government as an industry.

What was your biggest takeaway from the module? 

• Planning, organising and communication are key to delivering any project
• Understanding community values is at the core of any community engagement process
• Media can be used for good and the not so good, so focus on the positives
• Everyone’s leadership journey is different
• You should always have a professional headshot photo ready to go.

Laura Morgan
Manager Property
Mount Barker District Council

WORKFORCE AND GENDER EQUALITY IN LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROJECT

Subconscious bias can influence the way we undertake recruitment processes and the way that position descriptions and job advertisements are described can influence who will be motivated to apply. Most organisations are aiming to increase diversity and inclusion and to attract the best people for the job.

Were you aware that words can be considered male-coded and female-coded? Job Advertisements and Position Descriptions which have more male-coded words could deter women from applying. The same is true if more female-coded words are used, this may discourage men from considering the role.

There are online tools available that can help to identify subconscious gender bias in documents and this can assist in deciding whether there are alternative ways to describe the skills or traits that are sought in recruiting for a role.

Tools to assist in analysing writing:

• Decoding gender bias in job adverts
• Gender Decoder: find subtle bias in job ads

It is important to remember that these tools are not designed to determine whether words are good or bad, or right or wrong. They provide useful prompts to help become more aware of subconscious bias and to think about making different word choices to attract a diverse field of applicants.

This project has been supported by the Local Government Research and Development Scheme administered by LGA South Australia.

STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT PROGRAM
Registrations close this Friday 29 November 2024
Program commences Thursday 6 February 2025

A leadership program designed to help more experienced managers build high-level leadership, management and technical skills.

Developed in partnership with the University of South Australia and local government experts, the Strategic Management Program will help you build high-level leadership and management skills within a local government context, and learn the technical skills required to manage business functions and enhance innovation, strategic thinking, business acumen and operational excellence.

2025 IGNITE PROGRAM
Registrations close Friday 6 December 2024
Program commences Thursday 6 February 2025

Ignite your career as a new leader and learn to develop the competencies required to be successful in your role.

While leaders are often technically competent, many have had limited opportunity to develop new or extend the existing, critical skills needed for leading and managing people. The importance of developing these qualities for people in these roles is critical and cannot be underestimated.

Graduates of the Ignite Program will be awarded the Certificate IV in Leadership and Management.

EXECUTIVE LEADERS PROGRAM

Registrations close Friday 13 December 2024
Program commences Wednesday 29 January 2025

The Executive Leaders Program is suited for those in leadership roles looking to expand their leadership impact, spans 3 months and is spread over 2 intensive 3-day blocks, plus several short live virtual classroom sessions, equating to just 6 days out of the office.

The program has been developed to:

• Enhance complex and adaptive thinking capabilities of senior leaders and executives in the local government sector to best navigate the future
• Increase capabilities to generate solutions to complex problems in an agile way
• Challenge assumptions and perspectives
• Equip senior leaders to navigate rapidly changing and evolving environments.

EMERGING LEADERS PROGRAM
Registrations open Wednesday 15 January 2025
Program commences May 2025

Our extremely popular Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) is heading into its 20th year. Each year a cohort of 28 emerging leaders across the sector undertake a 7-month experiential learning program, consisting of 8 modules plus a group project. 

The ELP aims to provide participants with the following:

• A greater level of comprehension and understanding of local government
  
• Increased understanding of leadership concepts and practices and how to integrate the learnings into the workplace
  
• Increased confidence
  
• Enhanced self-awareness
  
• An appreciation of and an ability to work with different personality types
  
• The opportunity to challenge their assumptions.

This experiential leadership learning program is suitable for emerging leaders Coordinators, Team Leaders, and people with high potential.

Are you interested in our Emerging Leaders Program, or seeking to find out if the program is right for you?

Join LG Professionals SA and Sarah McGregor, Partner Relationship Manager, University of South Australia for a virtual information session where we will provide a program overview and hear from past participants on their experiences. You will also have the opportunity to ask any questions about the program.

Want to find out more? Join us at our virtual information session, Tuesday 3 December 2024, 1:30PM - 2:30PM hosted via Zoom.

WOMEN'S CAREER CATALYST PROGRAM
Program commences Thursday 20 February 2025

Unlock your potential and transform your leadership journey with the
LG Professionals SA Career Catalyst Program - where female leaders build lasting legacies without sacrificing their values or wellbeing.

Designed to be highly interactive with an emphasis on peer learning, the Women's Career Catalyst Program is made up of a virtual orientation session, a two-day in-person workshop and three virtual implementation sessions, which provide ongoing accountability, the opportunity to troubleshoot, experiment, celebrate successes and share insights and support with co-participants.

WOMEN'S CAREER NAVIGATOR PROGRAM
Program commences Wednesday 19 March 2025

The LG Professionals SA Career Navigator Program supports women to develop a strong, authentic professional identity and approach their career and work with positivity and proactivity.

The program equips participants with the knowledge, skills and confidence to:

• Build their professional presence and profile
• Maintain their cool in stressful and challenging situations
• Understand and navigate organisational politics and team dynamics with integrity
• Apply a Growth Mindset to personal and professional challenges to build resilience and wellbeing
• Set and pursue personal and professional goals.

Designed to be highly interactive, with an emphasis on peer learning, the Career Navigator Program will equip you with skills and tools to dial down your inner critic, build your career courage and take charge of your life and career.

This program is suitable for aspiring leaders, women with high potential, women who may not wish to move into more senior roles, but who want to build their professional profile and cultivate greater influence and impact in the workplace.

YOUR NEEDS, YOUR MEMBERSHIP

1. CONNECT WITH THE BEST

Our members are the leaders of today and tomorrow. You will make crucial connections to people and ideas to take your career to the next level.

Learn more about what your LG Professionals SA Membership offers you. 

NEW MEMBERS

Welcome to our 45 new members! Click here to see the list.

We look forward to providing support and professional development and networking
opportunities through every stage of your local government career.

This month we spoke with David Waters, Director Environment and Infrastructure, Adelaide Hills Council, about his career journey, his participation in the Executive Leaders Program the same year he was Acting CEO, his key takeaways from the General Managers and Directors Network Forum, and his picks for when you're in the hills.

What is your role and how long have you been in local government?

I've been in local government for 20 years (never, ever did I think I'd be saying that!) and have led a range of functions from community development to economic development and parks management to infrastructure planning. I'm currently Director Environment and Infrastructure at Adelaide Hills Council following 10 years as Director Community Capacity. Read more...

David Waters

Director Environment and Infrastructure
Adelaide Hills Council

REFLECTIONS FROM THE LG PROFESSIONALS SA WOMEN'S NETWORK CONFERENCE: THE POWER OF BELONGING
By Danielle Somerville, Women's Network Committee Vice Chair,
Learning and Development Partner, City of Playford 

The LG Professionals SA Women’s Network Conference 2024, The Power of Belonging, brought together more than 230 attendees at the Morphettville Event Centre. The atmosphere in the room was electric, with energy and enthusiasm setting the stage for a day filled with inspiration, insight, and empowerment for women in local government. Focused on inclusion, visibility, and wellbeing, the conference celebrated the power of belonging as a vital element in creating thriving workplaces and communities.

This year’s conference exemplified that “The Power of Belonging” is about more than a sense of place, it’s a commitment to fostering inclusive, supportive environments where everyone feels valued and empowered to contribute. Through storytelling, practical tools, and actionable insights, attendees left ready to bring a renewed sense of belonging into their workplaces and communities.

LG PROFESSIONALS SA SPONSORSHIP AND CORPORATE PARTNERSHIP

Do you work for or know an organisation who would be interested in gaining exposure to local government professionals through sponsorship with LG Professionals SA? 

As a not-for-profit association, LG Professionals SA rely on the support of sponsors to be able to continue to deliver the range of high quality events and professional development programs that we are known for.

Partnering with sponsors also creates opportunities for our members to learn, build
relationships and receive best value.

ABOUT LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROFESSIONALS AUSTRALIA, SA

LG Professionals SA is a not-for-profit member based association representing professionals working in local government in South Australia. 

We have the ability to link and connect people from different councils who may not otherwise form relationships or share. 

Our high quality professional development programs and networking events are uniquely local government – reflective of the culture of the sector and sensitive to the needs of its
professionals. 

The content of our events and programs are informed by our members and people who
genuinely care about the sector. 

We provide a safe and supportive environment in which to grow and learn while creating
opportunities to make time away from the office to work on the business or on self. 

We award and acknowledge achievements of excellence.

LG Professionals SA | 148 Frome Street, Adelaide SA 5000 | Phone: 08 8224 2080
www.lgprofessionalssa.org.au

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