Respectful & Safe Workplaces
Whether you're planning employee listening sessions on equity, inclusion, or other sensitive workplace issues, reviewing organisational culture, or conducting consultations related to psychosocial risk or WGEA obligations, this program equips facilitators to conduct focus groups safely, ethically, and effectively.
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Behaviour-first. Evidence-based. Built to last.
Psychological safety and ethical facilitation
Employee focus groups are powerful tools for understanding workplace culture and employee experience. When well-designed and facilitated using trauma-informed principles, they reveal insights beyond surveys, uncovering systemic barriers and lived experiences that affect inclusion, wellbeing, risk, and engagement.
Traditional focus groups designed for market research, however, may unintentionally cause distress or fail to generate meaningful insights when addressing sensitive topics such as workplace harm, trauma, or power dynamics. Here are some honest questions from practitioners facing this challenge:
"How do we create a safe environment for people to speak candidly?"
"How do we run focus groups on sensitive topics without causing distress?"
"Our facilitators aren't psychologists — how do they manage distress and protect themselves from secondary trauma?"
Programme snapshot
Without trauma-informed design, listening can cause harm. Discussing or reliving workplace harms can trigger re-traumatisation. Power imbalances and fear of speaking up lead to guarded responses rather than honest insights. And under Australian WHS laws, poorly designed focus groups are themselves psychosocial hazards — making facilitator training not just good practice, but a compliance imperative.
HR and People & Culture professionals, WHS and psychosocial risk specialists, DEI practitioners, organisational development teams, and internal and external researchers coordinating, sponsoring, or facilitating employee focus groups or listening circles.
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.
What this training covers
You know psychological safety is important. This training shows what to do at each step — from design and recruitment through facilitation, distress management, data handling, and follow-up action. Facilitators gain practical tools to prevent harm and generate genuine, credible insights from sensitive workplace listening.
What changes after this training
Gain confidence in designing and leading trauma-informed focus groups, with practical tools to manage distress, power dynamics, and sensitive disclosures. Move from uncertainty to confidently preventing harm, while reducing burnout risk through effective facilitator self-care. Facilitators leave better equipped to lead listening processes that protect participant and facilitator wellbeing.
Selected work
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
Every Culture Plus programme is built on the same evidence-based methodology. Hover any step for detail:
Your facilitator
CEO, Author and Principal Consultant
Every Culture Plus engagement is delivered with behavioural rigour and practical relevance by Felicity Menzies — organisational psychologist, author, and specialist facilitator.
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.
From the book
Culture is the sum of behaviours leaders permit, model, and reward.A World of Difference — Felicity Menzies →
Free guide
This guide outlines the essential conditions for effective training that builds lasting capability — moving beyond awareness to practical skills that create safer, more inclusive workplaces.
Download the guideFrequently asked questions
If you have a question we haven't covered, write to us — a real human responds within one working day.
A trauma-informed focus group is a structured group conversation designed to gather genuine employee insight on sensitive topics while minimising the risk of re-traumatisation, psychological harm, or distorted data. It is not therapy. It embeds safety, choice, and empowerment into every stage of the listening process, supporting trauma-informed care principles.
Still have questions?
Talk to FelicityWhile you're here
Independent, evidence-based reviews of workplace culture, conduct and risk.
Culture Reviews →Rigorous, procedurally fair investigations that minimise harm to all parties.
Trauma-Informed Investigations →Identify, assess and control psychosocial hazards at work — aligned with WHS regulator expectations.
Psychosocial Hazards Consulting & Risk Assessment →Develop the skills to listen safely
It's about building real skills to listen safely, gather honest insights, and take informed action — while protecting participant and facilitator wellbeing and producing data your organisation can trust.
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