Associates
Our team of dedicated Associates have extensive backgrounds and track records in consulting and advisory work.
In most cases, our Associates work in small teams and as a member of your team; showcasing our Firm's commitment to:
- be passionate in what we do, and the benefits it brings you
- contribute fresh perspectives to shift prevailing norms
- help you navigate complexity, points of conflict, and your own learning
- judge success by how well you improve your capability and performance
- act professionally and operate with integrity at all times
- engage in a “hands-on” approach as partners to deliver sustainable results.
Associate Profiles
Chris Ralph
Chris is the firm's owner who brings to our team an extensive background in workforce behaviour, organisation reform, and industrial relations.
Chris' experience is a unique blend of strategy and implementation work; it's a track record that includes many key sectors, international assignments, long-term client retainers, major transformations, and innovative high performance models and technologies.
Prior to establishing Workforce Advantage in 2011, Chris held leadership roles at Schneider Consulting (MD for 8 years) and at Corrs Chambers Westgarth (Workplace Relations Partner for 6 years).
Michelle Jones
Michelle Jones has 20 plus years’ experience working in the public sector in both regional sites and national offices. Her roles have included customer service, leadership, office management, Human Resources, Enterprise Agreement bargaining, HR policy development and project management.
Since joining Workforce Advantage, Michelle has provided a range of advice and expertise to both large and small public sector agencies in HR policy development, compliance, and enterprise bargaining. She also contributed heavily to the ongoing development of our suite of organisation assessments.
Carl Baverstock
Carl is an experienced consultant, coach, facilitator and project manager and brings over 25 years personal experience to the team.
Carl has consulted to major organisations in Australia, New Zealand, Africa and the UK with a strong focus on organisational design, restructuring, process improvement, quality systems, strategy development and performance improvement.
Away from his consulting work, Carl has also worked in the education and executive search industries. He has held senior management roles in international organisations as well as part-owning and running a rapidly-grown information technology business.
Greg Holland-King
Greg’s experience comprises over 30 years working both as a Human Resources/Organisation Development executive and an external consultant.
Greg has worked throughout the Asia Pacific basin for multi nationals and multi site organisations. His experience spans different sectors including entertainment, hospitality, education, government, manufacturing, retail, metals and mining, containers and packaging, oil and gas, and Information technology.
Greg is known for his ability to align various stakeholders as strategic partners to achieve challenging goals by building a strong and collegiate leadership base across organisations and mentoring/coaching of employees at all levels.
Phil Carter
Phil Carter has been active in the fields of Industrial Relations, Adult Learning and Organisational Improvement and Process Facilitation for over 40 years.
Phil’s experience as a consultant and facilitator involves break through work in the areas of planning, learning, mediation and facilitation, industrial relations and organisational development. Phil’s approach is based on the principles of partnership, participation, mutual support and group ownership of the process and outcomes.
In addition to his consulting work, Phil has also undertaken roles of director, manager, advisor and project leader with in trade unions, government, private industry and the educational sector. He was chairman of the Local Government Industry Training Council and Director of ASU training.
Duean White
Duean is a highly experienced career development professional, mediator, trainer and consultant who has worked for corporate, government and not-for-profit clients. She has assisted thousands of individuals with career advice and guidance, outplacement, training and general consultancy services.
As a Biripai woman (NSW), Duean enjoys assisting her Indigenous clients to build and preserve their confidence to thrive in the workplace. She has provided mentoring, coaching, training, conflict management and general workplace support services for Indigenous staff across all levels.
Duean is also a qualified and nationally registered Mediator with the Mediation Standards Board drawing on her background in law and its focus on alternative dispute resolution.
Andrew Jones
Andrew Jones is a leadership development consultant and accredited coach with a wealth of experience designing and facilitating development programs at every organisational levels.
For over twenty years Andrew has dedicated himself to improving the self-awareness, performance and ongoing effectiveness of leaders, teams and organisations in Australia and internationally. This passion has taken Andrew to Asia, India and Africa in various leadership development and empowerment roles.
Andrew is a gregarious and perceptive facilitator and well recognised for achieving real solutions to genuine felt needs.
Charles Cody
Charles brings an extensive background in workplace Relations, and was appointed by the Law Institute of Victoria as inaugural member of Workplace Relations Specialist Committee.
Charles' specific areas of interest and contributions at Workforce Advantage are in the areas of workplace investigations , mediation and workplace risk management training.
In addition to his consulting work at Workforce Advantage, Charles also maintains a small group of employer clients for whom he provides employment advice on a regular basis and has done so since 1996.
Alliance Partners
As specialists, it is not surprising that we see the potential value in related areas of expertise, so it is here we intentionally maintain a small set of strategic alliances with like-minded organisations who can extend our reach and capabilities in ways that benefit our and their clients. In most cases, these Alliances involve active forms of collaboration and sharing of intellectual capabilities and resourcing, so for us it's a case of whatever makes most sense in terms of delivering benefits to our clients.
Current Alliances
Converge International (CVI) is a wholly Australian-owned company; one of the country’s largest providers of Employee Assistance Programs (EAP), consulting and training in the country.
CVI was the first provider in Australia to deliver EAP services and has been operating since 1960. CVI's service offering includes EAP, Critical Incident Debriefing, Organisational Development Consultancy, OHS Psychological Risk and Team Assessments, Career Transition and Outplacement Support, Conflict Resolution and Mediation which are all aimed at maximising psychological health in the workplace.
Established in 1990 Options Consulting Group is a client driven firm providing a full recruitment service and support across a number of industry sectors locally, nationally and internationally.
OCG's service offering has evolved into a diverse Management Consultancy advising and delivering – People Strategy, Permanent and Interim Recruitment, Consulting, Leadership Development and Career Transition - reflecting the firm's mission to assist businesses realise their full potential and facilitate growth.
OCG believes a sustainable, competitive business advantage derives from the quality and talent of employees and its consultative approach enables it to be a trusted long-term partner of business through delivering processes and outcomes to address the needs of all stakeholders.
We are proud to be a member of the Actionable Consultant Partner (ACP) network.
The ACP Network comprises boutique consulting firms across the US, Canada, Australia and Europe aligned in a single mission that helps employees transform new information into lasting behaviour change; change that benefits the individual, and their organization.
Actionable's tools and technologies reflect the best in behaviour science, and facilitate habit building on an enterprise wide basis or scale.
Leadership Journey is a niche provider of leadership solutions and brings a focal point on improving organisational productivity through facilitating an understanding of often times complex cultural dynamics.
Cultural intelligence (CQ) is a critical part of setting yourself apart in today’s globalised world of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and innovation. It’s the ability to relate and work effectively with people from different cultural backgrounds and it goes beyond existing notions of cultural sensitivity and awareness.
Based on more than twenty years of research across over 100 countries, CQ builds the four critical capabilities that need to be developed in order to relate and work effectively with people from different backgrounds.