Advice & Strategy · Employee Listening
Independent, trauma-informed employee listening for Australian organisations — focus groups, listening circles and confidential interviews on respect, safety and inclusion, producing robust insights to inform governance, strengthen culture and guide targeted risk controls.
“This morning we got sign-off from the Secretary to publish the report that we built out of your amazing focus group work. It’s ended up as a really strong and impactful piece of work which I am immensely proud of, and will put us in a very strong position to drive change.”
Why employee listening is critical
Boards and executives need a clear understanding of how culture, safety and respect are experienced across the organisation. Low engagement scores can signal a concern without establishing its nature or underlying causes. A low score on psychological safety or leadership may reflect workload, bullying, role conflict, leadership practices or barriers to reporting. Employee listening adds the context and depth needed to interpret survey results, understand systemic drivers and identify appropriate action.
Incident and complaint data alone can provide an incomplete picture of risk. Employees may not report concerns because they fear retaliation or career consequences, doubt that action will follow, or lack confidence in the confidentiality and fairness of the process. Power imbalances and close working relationships can compound these barriers. Low reporting volumes should therefore not be interpreted as evidence of low risk, or of an isolated issue.
Well-designed employee listening brings these experiences into the evidence base. It explores how leadership, work design, power dynamics and reporting systems influence everyday experience. Systematic thematic analysis, triangulated with workforce data, policies and reporting records, gives leaders a more nuanced diagnosis and a sound basis for prioritising change.
Independence is critical to this work. Employees are far less likely to disclose harm, name a leader, or describe a systemic pattern to someone inside their own reporting line or HR function. An external facilitator brings the objectivity, expertise and safeguards needed to surface what internal processes often miss.
Worker consultation is central to WHS psychosocial risk management, while employee voice informs prevention under the Positive Duty in the Sex Discrimination Act. When it is not undertaken with care, listening can itself cause harm — re-activating trauma, increasing exposure to retaliation or eroding trust. Our trauma-informed approach combines participant safeguards with the analytical rigour leaders need to make informed culture and risk decisions.
Risks to effective employee listening
Reporting relationships and perceived conflicts of interest can limit candour and leave significant experiences unexamined.
Introducing sensitive topics without preparation, choice and appropriate support can increase distress and inhibit participation.
Some employees may not feel able to contribute in a group. Confidential alternatives help ensure their perspectives are considered.
A lack of visible response can undermine trust, reduce future participation and weaken confidence in leadership.
Definitions
Employee listening encompasses several complementary methods. Focus groups, listening circles and individual interviews offer different ways to explore experience. We select and combine them according to the purpose of the engagement, the workforce context and participant needs.
Reform-grade Respect at Work, delivered at the heart of government.
NSW Parliament
Culture Plus Consulting was engaged by NSW Parliament to design and deliver Respect at Work and Trauma Informed Response training across its workforce — a flagship reform initiative responding to the Broderick Review of bullying, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct in NSW parliamentary workplaces. This engagement represents a proud achievement in delivering reform-grade Respect at Work training in high-scrutiny environments.
NSW Premier's Department
In an ongoing engagement, Culture Plus Consulting delivers Respect at Work training to the Premier, Ministers and Ministerial staff — a key recommendation of the Goward Review aimed at building respectful, safe and accountable workplaces at the heart of government.
The service
We manage the engagement from scoping and consultation design through to facilitation, thematic analysis, reporting and employee communications. Clear responsibilities and agreed safeguards support your internal team while preserving the independence of the listening process.
An independently designed and facilitated employee listening program — focus groups, one-to-one interviews and confidential written channels — exploring respect, safety, inclusion and psychosocial risk, and converting what we hear into a defensible evidence base and a prioritised plan.
Our method
Five stages, each designed to protect participants and to strengthen the integrity of what you learn.
Featured evidence
The Royal Australian Institute of Architects engaged Culture Plus to move the profession beyond anecdote to a credible, evidence-based understanding of systemic inclusion barriers. We designed a national diversity and inclusion survey and ran trauma-informed virtual focus groups across member cohorts — women, culturally and linguistically diverse members, carers, First Nations members, LGBTIQA+ members and people with disability.
The findings were published in the Institute's Diversity and Inclusion Survey Report — a transparent, profession-wide evidence base that now underpins its reform agenda. It is what rigorous employee listening looks like when the client is prepared to act on the results.
What the programme involved
From listening to action
Session records are systematically coded to identify themes, underlying drivers and differences in experience. We triangulate findings across groups, interviews, workforce data, policies and reporting records, distinguishing recurring patterns from emerging concerns and divergent perspectives.
The report makes the evidence base and its limitations explicit; a serious concern is not discounted simply because it is raised once. Findings inform psychosocial risk assessment and Positive Duty prevention, with prioritised recommendations, proposed owners and dependencies.
Board or executive briefings and employee communications support accountable follow-through, so the listening process closes the loop rather than adding to employee cynicism.
What rigorous analysis looks like
Themes are coded across every session and channel, not cherry-picked.
Findings are checked across groups, interviews, workforce data, policies and reporting records, distinguishing recurring patterns from emerging concerns and divergent perspectives.
Differences by identity, level, site and role are reported, not averaged away — with care taken not to identify individuals or small cohorts.
Limitations and divergent views are stated explicitly.
Concerns are rated against WHS psychosocial hazard categories, AHRC Positive Duty standards and other cultural risks.
Recommendations are prioritised with owners, dependencies and sequencing.
Confidentiality by design
No participant can be identified in the report. We do not quote by name, role or team, and cohorts are sized so no single voice is attributable.
Any detail that could identify an individual or small group is removed or aggregated before findings are written. Where direct quotes are used, they are de-identified and checked against cohort size and context to ensure they cannot be traced back.
Raw notes and recordings are stored securely and destroyed once analysis is complete. Only the de-identified thematic findings remain.
Trauma-informed safeguards
Trauma may be directly experienced or witnessed, and workplace listening can re-activate harm that occurred inside or outside work. Participant choice, cultural safety and appropriate support are integral to both ethical consultation and the quality of the evidence.
People opt in, and can leave at any point without explanation or consequence.
Advance notice before sensitive material, so participants can prepare or step out.
One-to-one interviews and confidential written submissions for anyone who will not, or should not, speak in a group.
We explore systems and patterns, not individual incidents. Personal disclosure is never required.
EAP and external support details shared before, during and after every session.
General before specific — respect and what good looks like, before harm.
Regular participant check-ins, with breaks and pauses responsive to individual and group needs.
Emotion is acknowledged and normalised. Participants are never pathologised in the record.
Design and facilitation account for historical, intergenerational and cultural trauma, and for intersecting identities.
Structured debriefing and supervision to support facilitator wellbeing and manage the risk of vicarious trauma.
Themes, not incidents. No participant is identifiable in the report; see how this is achieved in the analysis section below.
We check in afterwards, and tell participants what happens next.
“Felicity, you are always excellent and have such a lovely way of running the workshops. You are the clear authority in the room and yet never make anyone feel wrong/uninformed — it’s great to watch the way you manage the content and people.”
Designed for difference
Harassment, discrimination and psychosocial risk are not experienced uniformly. We design group composition and question guides to understand how gender, race, disability, sexuality, age, caring responsibilities and cultural background shape experience.
This means dedicated sessions for groups at elevated risk, questions that surface how different identities intersect, and analysis that reports differences rather than averaging them away.
Including the interaction of gender with leadership, caring responsibilities and career stage.
Including culturally and linguistically diverse employees and First Nations employees.
Including visible, invisible, physical and psychological disability, and the experience of adjustments.
Including LGBTQIA+ employees and the experience of inclusion or exclusion in team and site culture.
Including early-career, frontline and senior employees, and intergenerational team dynamics.
Including parents, carers and those juggling work with unpaid care outside work hours.
What you receive
Group architecture, sampling logic, question guides, invitation and consent materials, and the risk controls applied to the process itself — documented so your consultation can be evidenced.
Focus groups, one-to-one interviews and confidential written channels, facilitated independently across sites, shifts and work types.
Systematic thematic analysis setting out recurring patterns, differences in experience and significant concerns. Findings are triangulated with workforce data, policies and reporting records, with the strength and limitations of the evidence clearly explained and identifying details protected.
Findings mapped to WHS psychosocial hazards and Positive Duty expectations, ready for your risk register.
Sequenced actions with owners, dependencies and the measures that will show whether they worked.
A structured briefing on key findings, implications, risk priorities and recommended decisions.
Clear employee communications on what was heard, the agreed response and how progress will be shared.
What changes
Independent insight into whether concerns reflect localised issues or systemic patterns. Evidence-based findings support informed oversight, constructive challenge and clear accountability for the response.
Listening work in practice
Trusted partners
Felicity Menzies has been a valued long-term partner to CAANZ, delivering outstanding work across diagnostic, capability building, and strategy. As a complex organisation wearing multiple hats — employer, educator, member-based organisation, and professional standards body — we needed someone who could grasp that complexity. Felicity did exactly that, customising every engagement to reflect our unique context across Australia and New Zealand. Her deep facilitation skills rate highly among our leaders and staff, and her advisory support is trusted and practical. We highly recommend her.
Our methodology
Our evidence-based methodology connects diagnostic insight with practical implementation, capability and evaluation.
Your facilitator
CEO, Author and Principal Consultant
Listening programmes are designed and facilitated by Felicity Menzies, whose expertise in psychology and behavioural science informs an empathetic, considered approach to emotion, group dynamics and sensitive disclosures. Combined with senior executive and cross-sector consulting experience, this enables Felicity to connect lived experience with the organisational systems, leadership practices and governance decisions that shape it. The focus is diagnostic rather than investigative: understanding patterns and informing prevention, with care for the people contributing.
Endorsed capability partner
Culture Plus Consulting is proud to design and deliver flagship DEI programmes for the Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI) — Australia's peak HR professional body — supporting HR leaders and practitioners to build capability for inclusive leadership and organisational change.
Connect with us to explore how evidence-based DEI training can help your organisation build capability, strengthen culture, and deliver meaningful, measurable change.
Build internal capability
Many organisations engage us to facilitate the first round independently, then build internal capability so listening continues. Our trauma-informed focus group training equips HR, WHS, DEI and organisational development professionals to design, facilitate and follow up sensitive sessions with appropriate care and safeguards.
Trauma-Informed Focus Group TrainingFrequently asked questions
Contact us to discuss your workforce context, consultation priorities and the scope of a suitable engagement.
Employee focus groups are small, structured group conversations — usually six to ten people, 60 to 90 minutes — facilitated to understand how work is actually experienced. They add context to survey findings by exploring the behaviours, systems and working conditions that shape employee experience. On sensitive topics such as sexual harassment, bullying, discrimination or psychosocial risk, they must be designed and facilitated using trauma-informed methods so that participation does not itself cause harm.
Still have questions?
Talk to FelicityWhile you're here
Independent, evidence-based reviews of workplace culture, conduct and risk.
Culture Reviews →Identify, assess and control psychosocial hazards with defensible, WHS-aligned evidence.
Psychosocial Risk Assessment →Surface lived experience safely — without re-traumatising participants or biasing findings.
Trauma-Informed Focus Groups →Independent insight. Considered action.
Discuss the culture or risk questions your organisation needs to address. We will help define the appropriate listening methods, participant safeguards and deliverables to support informed decisions.
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