UTS students offer the winning solutions to challenging workplace problems

In a contest that explored new solutions to a range of 21st-century business challenges, the competition gave around 400 undergraduate business and management students a chance to build first-hand leadership skills as they developed strategies around workforce challenges identified by icare.

The students worked in small groups to develop new and innovative solutions to an industry-wide challenge relating to the management of hybrid teams, in particular, returning our teams to the office. The groups then presented them to three senior leaders from icare.

Awards recognising the best ideas were then presented to the winning teams across four categories of inclusion, innovation, leadership and compassion.

Eesha Divi, a winner in the inclusion category, said she enjoyed the experience of sharing her team's ideas around inclusive workplaces with a large, people-focused employer.

"I am inspired by what icare is willing to do, taking feedback from students. I am motivated to work even harder based on what I just learnt, and to implement that in the future, and I am excited to see what the future holds."

Student insights can help us support icare's people

Amanda-Lea Smith, icare's Group Executive People and Culture, said the winning groups have helped icare identify future workforce needs. She said all the winners successfully prioritised the wellbeing of icare's workforce bringing new ideas to enhance recruitment, engagement, and workplace culture.

"Maintaining the flexibility we have gained through the past few years; and returning the workforce to the office for collaboration, connection and learning is the issue of the day," said Ms Smith.

"The winning entries all offered post-Covid solutions for building culture, career pathways, learning and delivering new staff access to mentors. I loved seeing the passion of undergraduate students trying to road map positive futures," she said.

The catalyst for the partnership between icare and the Business School was Dr Isabelle Phillips.

"I have worked with icare on culture and leadership effectiveness since 2015. icare delivers incredibly important services to Australian workers." 

"Their aspirations for healthy work environments and flourishing workplace cultures for their own workers and for all employers in NSW is intrinsically linked to their core business of ensuring worker safety. Through this partnership project, icare has gifted business transparency to our students."

"The students of the subject Management Skills have experienced excellent engagement working on this real case. Thank you, icare, for this contribution to student learning at UTS," she said.

Practical experience with icare will spark real-world change

Professor Carmel Foley, an internationally recognised business educator, said the students now feel more empowered to drive thoughtful change as they take their learnings from icare into the business world.

"It's really important for our students to work with real-life clients and make a difference. When you are actually working with a real-life client and in the real world, it makes learning much more authentic and meaningful."

"By meeting and presenting to leaders from a large employer, you get a sense of what is waiting for you in the workplace and the community," said Professor Foley.

Dr Rosemary Sainty, who is responsible for the delivery of the subject, said the students were excited to be able to apply what they are learning in the classroom to the challenges of a large organisation such as icare.

"Based on concepts of cultivating individual and organisational flourishing and optimal functioning drawn from positive psychology theories, student groups applied topics such as organisational compassion, workplace wellbeing, resilience and optimism to the challenge," said Dr Sainty.

A special presentation was held on Tuesday 16th May, in the famous Chau Chak Wing building in Sydney, the home of UTS Business School.

The following teams were declared overall winners from an impressive field of finalists.

The four categories of awards are based on four key workplace values that drive icare and other large organisations.

Full list of winners

Inclusion:

• Olivia Freeman-Pinhorn
• Eesha Divi
• Varun Upadhyay
• Riley Brayshaw
• Judith Tran

Compassion:

• Amanie Chahrouk
• Bryanna Tadrous
• Linn-Mari Eide
• Noah Conyer
• Sofia Tamer

Innovation:

• Zachary Firj
• Edward Bell
• Ghada Elarnaout
• Haaiqa Salik
• Massimo Rotondo

Leadership:

• Charlie Hennessy
• Shiven Kumar
• Sophie Litchfield
• Samuel Parkinson
• Andrew Phillips