It has been a while between newsletters, and we thought it would be timely to provide an update on what is happening within our team, introduce a couple of new faces, and share some insights into the services that are top of mind with our clients over recent months.

They say that time flies, and it is hard to believe that BRS has turned 15 already! Thank you to everyone who has supported BRS throughout the years as a client, industry advocate or as a team member, as we could not have achieved what we have without you. We have terrific team members like Erin and Heath who have been part of our team for most of those years. We have also had many other team members leave BRS and go onto achieve many other great things within their careers and we are very grateful to have been part of their journeys.  We also have our current team, who are great to work with and allow BRS to continue to do what we do best!

We have so many fond memories and have collated a few photos from over the years we thought you might enjoy.

Some of us haven’t aged at all! 😆

Sarah Sutter

We are thrilled to welcome Sarah Sutter to the BRS team. With an impressive background as a former elite athlete representing Australia in netball and a seasoned CEO, Sarah brings significant experience to our clients. With her international and national experience in senior positions, including her role as the Founder and CEO of the iconic South Australian not-for-profit Nature Play SA, Sarah brings a unique blend of strategic insight and leadership acumen to our team.

Sarah’s professional expertise is extensive and diverse. Her ability to cultivate strong, cohesive teams and foster a positive, high-performance culture is matched by her capacity for building meaningful stakeholder relationships. Sarah’s holistic approach ensures that wellbeing is integrated into every aspect of her work, driving personal and organisational success.

Sarah’s passion for wellbeing brings a new dimension to the BRS team as she facilitates wellbeing topics that provide practical strategies and coaches leaders to best support themselves and their teams.

Beyond the corporate world, Sarah is committed to giving back to the community. She continues to mentor and coach young girls in netball, sharing her knowledge and love for the game. In her leisure time, she enjoys fishing with her family and relaxing at her parent’s shack on the Yorke Peninsula, and she is pictured here fishing with her dad.

Steve Symonds

We are also very excited to have Steve Symonds join our BRS team. Steve has returned to South Australia after spending the past 5 years in Melbourne in a Head coaching role at Collingwood Football Club. Steve has spent the past 28+ years as a sports head coach and nearly 20 of those years working across the AFL and SANFL.

During this time, Steve has combined sports coaching and with management experience within the Steel (BHP) Mining (Western Mining), Newspaper (NewsCorp) & Logistics (Logisitco) Industries. Steve is currently a Director of his own Logistics business, which started as a 2 person operation and now engages a work force of over 100 employees.

Steve grew up in country South Australia and continues to maintain his connections to the country by coaching the South Australian Men’s State Country AFL team. He is a passionate supporter and mentor of both high performance and community coaches, athletes and small business owners. Steve also loves passing on his experience and knowledge to assist in the growth and development of others.

Steve is a devoted family man who loves the outdoors, travelling, family life and watching and following any sport. He is pictured here with his wife Trudi and two children Molly, Billy and their gorgeous dog Leo.

For more information on Sarah and Steve and the skills they bring to our team please go to our website.

Further to Sarah joining our team as outlined above, BRS is passionate about culture and wellbeing, fostering environments where leaders and all staff can thrive and be supported within their development. Based on her passion for wellbeing, Sarah facilitates wellbeing topics that provide practical strategies and coaching leaders to best support themselves and their teams. As a highly affiliative leadership coach, Sarah draws on her experience as a professional athlete and as a CEO in a corporate environment to offer invaluable insights on achieving optimal performance, whilst maintaining a balanced life.

Through Sarah and our team, BRS can assist you, your organisation and projects in the following wellbeing services:

• Wellbeing and engagement surveys which measure and capture feedback from all staff, allowing for open ended feedback and comments to drive proactive solutions to the wellbeing and culture of staff, organisation and projects;
• Wellbeing walks which are an interactive wellbeing walk in nature with a focus of recognising stress, the impact that it has personally and collectively as a team and practical tools to help; and
• Wellbeing workshops on a range of topics including sleep management, proactively managing stress, mindfulness, self-compassion, time management and organisational skills along with other relevant topics.

Please do not hesitate to get in contact with BRS to discuss further what you need to ensure your staff are supported to be their best in a sustainable manner.

With the current economic climate in both Australia and New Zealand, we are noticing that there is an increased focus on identifying and measuring value for money on current infrastructure projects that are being scope, procured and delivered.  From our perspective, this is an important shift in ensuring that the community gets the right outcomes from projects for the right price which includes cost and non-cost attributes associated with defining value for money.

To do this, infrastructure delivery agencies and project boards need to be clear on what value for money is in their context ideally up front, identify the key KPI’s/measures that align to their cost and non-cost value for money categories and then set up the appropriate reporting mechanisms to ensure they can track and report back to key stakeholders on how value for money is being delivered.

BRS has been working with several clients to set up value for money frameworks, value for money reporting and commercial training so that all their staff understand the importance of understanding value for money and then delivering on it. If you, your organisation or project would like to discuss how to set this up regardless of where you are at in the project life cycle, BRS would be very happy to assist.

To get some context on what you should be considering, BRS have written blogs on the topic of value for money or public value which you can find below:

Should Government Agencies change their approach to measuring Public Value rather than Value for Money?

What does value for money really mean for government organisations? 

We love sharing the success of our clients and the City of Tea Tree Gully recently became joint winners of the Local Government Professionals Australasian Management Challenge!

The annual challenge brings Council teams together from across Australia and New Zealand in a competitive, yet positive, fun and supportive development environment. Councils are invited to nominate teams of 6 (high potential individuals) to participate in knockout competitions at regional, state and ultimately national level.

Over one day, teams are challenged with tasks that stretch their knowledge of local government and their Council’s policies and procedures. All tasks are tailored specifically for councils, addressing realistic scenarios faced in the day-to-day management of council operations. The number, size, allocation and timing of tasks are shaped to create an atmosphere of perceived pressure and stress, to test participants under real world conditions.

BRS was engaged by the City of Tea Tree Gully as team coach to form, develop and prepare two teams to participate in the State Challenge competition. The team formation process has evolved from lessons learnt from previous BRS engagements and included a series of workshops and other activities to establish a high performing team.

Congratulations to the LeGully Blonde team, your mentors and supporters, and for allowing Rob McKay from BRS to be involved with you throughout this process!