For NT employers
A free workforce burnout check for NT employers
Your leaders hold this place together. Checking how they are travelling is just good management, the same way you check anything else the operation depends on. I run a free workforce burnout check for NT organisations. If the data says your leaders could use backing, we talk about coaching. If your workforce is in good shape, I say so, you keep the evidence and you owe me nothing.
The cost, said plainly
The case for backing leaders early
When a good leader starts running low, it shows up quietly first. Slower calls. Hard conversations put off. A team that feels something before anyone can name it. That quiet start is actually the good news, because it means a long window where a modest investment changes the whole trajectory. Burnout caught early responds. Nobody has to break.
There is a very Territory version of this. People move on, and the person who was best at the job steps up and holds the team together. That takes real capability. What most of them never got is the training that usually comes with the title, like how to sit down with a mate who is struggling and actually have that conversation. Backing that person finishes the investment the organisation started the day it handed them the team.
Developing the leader you already have is the best recruitment decision you never have to make. The only hard part is knowing where your people actually sit, and that is what the free check is for.
The free workforce check
How the free check works
Here is how I work with an organisation. We run a workforce burnout check together, at no cost to you. A proper survey across your people, built on the NT burnout data I already hold, deployed fresh for your workforce. Then I report it straight. Some organisations commission it purely as due diligence. Fair enough. It is a sensible thing to know.
If the check shows your leaders would benefit from support, we talk about coaching them through it. If it shows your workforce is in good shape, I tell you that plainly, hand you the evidence and walk away from the sale. There is no consolation offer and no talking you into it anyway for prevention. Either way you end up with something valuable: credible, NT-specific evidence about your own workforce, which very few organisations up here hold.
I can make that offer because my evidence is good and I would rather be the person who told you the truth than the one who sold you something you did not need.
How it stays clean. This check is a separate, commissioned survey for your organisation. It is not the free public audit, and no individual's public audit response is ever attached to an employer. It reports at the group level. I will never claim to identify which of your specific people are struggling.
What we do about it
If the check shows strain, here is the work
One-to-one coaching for a leader worth keeping at their best
A defined program for a manager or senior person you want steady for the long haul. We build the skills nobody taught them, like holding the hard conversation with someone on their team who is not coping, and we work on how they carry the role so it stays sustainable. Not therapy. Where clinical help is needed, I say so and refer.
Workshops that build your managers' confidence
Short, practical sessions that give your managers the skills and confidence to notice early signs in their teams and step in well. A low-friction way to lift the capability of the whole management layer at once.
Most organisations start with one and grow into both.
Why me
I know this work from both sides
I have spent years in frontline community services and homelessness, in the parts of the sector where people are stretched past what is reasonable and expected to hold it anyway. I have watched good leaders burn down to nothing.
I also know it from the inside. I did what a lot of us do and did not stop, so my body stopped me. Stress put an ulcer in my stomach. Eight straight weeks in hospital, four surgeries, then two years of recovery before I was properly back. That is the origin of this work, not a line in a brochure.
I built a free burnout audit that NT workers actually use, and it gives this work its evidence. I am writing a book about loneliness in Australian men. And I coach leaders one to one, because leaders doing demanding work get more from someone who has been there and will be honest with them than from another laminated poster.
Who this is for
The sectors carrying the heaviest load
Organisations doing the Territory's most demanding and most meaningful work: community services, health, government, not-for-profits, the purpose-driven and under-resourced. If your leaders care about the mission and carry a lot to deliver it, this is built for exactly that.
It is also built for the leader who stepped up. The one who never chose the title, was simply the best at the job when the last manager left, and has been holding a team together ever since on capability alone. That person deserves the development that usually comes with the role. I know, because it happened to me.
If that is your organisation, the first call is free and the conversation is honest. I will tell you straight if I am not the right fit.
How it works
A defined piece of work, agreed up front
It starts with a free 30-minute call. We work out what is actually going on and whether the workforce check, coaching, a workshop or a mix is the right move. No pitch, no obligation.
The coaching itself is a structured six-session block called Leading on a Full Tank. Session one maps where the operation depends on one person with no backup, a picture most directors have never seen for their own business, and you get that map whether or not the work continues. The block finishes with a plan built to hold on a hard week and a scheduled check-in that makes it stick. It runs one to one for a key leader, or as a cohort of six to eight leaders who build a shared language across your bench.
Either way you will know the shape, the timeframe and the cost before anything starts. There is no hourly meter and no open tab.
Questions
Asked and answered
Is this therapy?
No. It is coaching. We work on leadership, work and load. Where clinical help is needed, I say so and refer.
We are not in crisis. Is this still worth it?
Yes. This works best before anything is wrong on paper, while a leader is still performing and the changes are small and cheap to make. Early is exactly when it does the most good.
What does it cost?
The workforce check is free. The six-session coaching block is priced per leader, quoted on the first call and agreed up front before anything starts. Nothing is invoiced until the shape, the timeframe and the cost are all on paper.
How do you handle confidentiality with a leader we refer?
What is said in coaching stays in coaching. The organisation gets that its person is being supported, not a report on what they disclosed. That boundary is what makes the coaching work.
Is the free workforce check connected to the public audit?
No. The workforce check is a separate, commissioned survey for your organisation, reported at the group level. No individual's public audit response is ever attached to an employer.
Do you work remotely or in person?
Both. I am based in Darwin and work across the Territory, face to face where it makes sense and by video where distance decides. For workshops outside Darwin, travel is built into the quote.
Six months from now the leader you rely on can be steady and still in the chair
Acting early is what makes that likely, and it starts small. When you are ready, the first call is free.