Electra Digital Director, Austin McKenzie was a speaker at the recent cHeRries Business Breakfast. Focusing on the theme of ‘Respectful Culture in the Workplace’, Austin shares his personal summary of the event.
Very recently I did my very first piece of public speaking which was a great new experience that took me by surprise. I had this expectation that it would be very stressful and, on the run up, be nervous for the moment to come when I would be on the stage with hundreds of people staring at me, looking and listening for something sensible to be said.
Well, it was fantastic! There were nearly no nerves except for the 15 seconds when your name is being called to come to the stage. I thoroughly enjoyed my time on the stage speaking about ‘Fostering a respectful culture in the workplace’. This topic is something that we take seriously at Electra and possibly the reason why I found it easy to speak about as it was something that I could talk about from the head, rather than a script.
The Electra values of Teamwork, Passion, Quality and Sustainability are part of our eco system, they are spoken about in our induction, are in artwork around the office and they are integral to our staff development programs.
We spoke about many things such as trying to create an open and positive approach to Learning and Development in the workplace and why it is important to look after and respect the people we work with. Sometimes individuals see it as being a one-way street where people should look up with respect, but it is highly important that it goes in the other direction too. Within Electra our team have the same values and are the heart of our company.
It was an incredibly positive experience and one that we certainly hope to repeat for future cHeRries events.
You can learn more about the participants and see how Austin represented the values within Electra in the article below: