Dr. Georgina Slaven

Dr. Georgina Slaven, Consultant

Georgina brings almost 30 years experience applying business psychology principles to the design of complex, critical systems and incident investigations across a broad range of industry challenges. She began her career conducting research into the selection, assessment and training of Offshore Installation Managers, following the Piper Alpha incident and subsequent inquiry. She then moved into critical incident training for the emergency services, before joining the Ministry of Defence to design complex systems for the Naval Service, then devised strategic personnel solutions for the British Army. Since 2006, Georgina has worked in private practice for a wide range of government departments and private sector clients, bringing a collaborative approach to the bespoke design and facilitation of selection, assessment and training solutions.

Georgina's client sector experience includes: Central Government departments, Finance, Retail, Transport, Energy, Education, Military, Prison Service, Emergency Services, Pharmaceuticals, Legal Services and Technology. She has co-authored a book, contributed book chapters to international publications, including a NATO report, and has presented extensively to international academic, industry, and military audiences.

ABSTRACT
Securing Stakeholder Engagement for Change -  Lessons Learned from Selection Assessment and Training Design

This paper aims to enlighten the audience as to the importance of stakeholder engagement in the design, implementation and review of initiatives to improve the organisation's resilience for emergency command. The author will share examples of pitfalls to avoid from their own extensive selection assessment and training experience within a wide range of public and private sector organisations. Through brief case studies, the author aims to explain how easy it is to forget the importance of securing buy-in from all relevant stakeholders, and the resulting barriers to successful change implementation that can result. Case studies will comprise examples from safety critical roles in industry and the public sector. Examples will highlight how a variety of selection and training initiatives can be de-railed covering:

• Selection assessment design;
• Selection assessment implementation for safety related roles;
• Safety reviews of communication;
• The design of complex information systems for emergency command;
• New competency based selection tools for senior leadership roles.