Amanda, a mental health ambassador, trauma-informed practitioner, and lived experience advocate who empowers individuals to navigate adversity and build well-being. Her role in L’Occitane’s mental health initiatives, coupled with her personal journey through trauma, fuels her uniquely empathetic understanding of workplace pressures and personal healing. With 20+ years of expertise in NLP, Amanda offers a multifaceted perspective marked by unparalleled empathy and authenticity. Her core message: Adversity doesn’t have to break you; it can make you.
We are delighted that Amanda will be speaking in Sydney as part of our Australia summit. We caught up with her to see how she’s feeling in the runup to the event.
Hi Amanda, we are thrilled that you will be speaking at the Wellbeing at Work Australia Summit in November. Our first and most important question is, how are you doing today?
I’m good! Proud of the work I get to do. 😊
As a leader based in the region, what are the main challenges you are facing when it comes to employee wellbeing and mental health?
In my opinion, we’re often aiming at the wrong target. We talk about burnout like it’s the disease – but I believe it’s the symptom. The real issue is self-abandonment. People shutting themselves down for too long, ignoring their limits until they crash. We don’t need more surface-level “awareness” or slogans pulled from the back of a cereal box. We need people who can actually understand mental health, who can read the room, spot the nuances, and see the quiet signs before someone starts waving a flag.
What strategies have you seen developing over the past 6 months, both internally and externally, that are moving the dial on wellbeing in the workplace?
Storytelling. Real, unfiltered, lived experience. When people hear something human, they stop pretending. They relate. And that connection is what changes culture. I’ve seen more organisations inviting honest conversations in around adversity, grief, and identity. People have had enough of the empty questions – what matters is what’s needed in the moment.
Why is employee wellbeing so important to you personally?
Because too many people don’t realise they’re in charge. Their role, their boundaries, their coping mechanisms – these aren’t fixed. If we keep letting our jobs become a slow bleed (a death by a thousand cuts so to speak), we can’t blame the knife forever. Change starts with us. If individuals get clear, take ownership and make different choices – the system has no choice but to shift too.
What impact is AI having in your organization and how are you managing that?
AI’s great at cleaning up mistakes – but in the process, it wipes out the messy, real human stuff that sparks the best ideas. It tidies up the professionalism… and sometimes it just erases the person behind it. There’s no EQ in a bot (that I’m aware of). Our edge is in being human.
Other than AI, are there any challenges that you are seeing for the first time and how are you addressing them?
Leaders are spread too thin. They’re already juggling financials, targets, productivity metrics – and now we’re telling them to be trauma-informed psychologists too! That’s a lot to ask. And most of them were never trained in this space. So they freeze – or worse, they fake it. We’re focusing on equipping them with practical, human-first tools so they don’t crack under the weight of wearing too many hats. You can’t pour from an empty cup.
What areas do you think employers should be focused on over the next 12 months?
Cultural change – not corporate comms. We don’t need another webinar. We need people to understand mental health, not just be aware of it. We need workplaces that treat employees like human beings with unique brains, bodies, and boundaries – not just headcount. We need to design jobs around people, not process. That’s how we build workplaces worth staying in.
Do you feel that investment in employee wellbeing in the region is increasing or decreasing and is that a direct reflection on HR leaders’ increasing ability to demonstrate effective returns of their strategies to leadership?
It’s increasing, slowly. Mostly because HR’s finally got the floor and the data to prove it. But the payoff isn’t just in numbers or profits. It’s in culture, trust, and people sticking around because they actually feel safe and seen. It’s the stuff that doesn’t show up on any quarterly report but totally makes the difference in the long run.
How has your organisation been leading the way?
We met people where they really are – in the warehouse, the boardroom, behind a counter at 9pm with a difficult customer. It’s not perfect, and we’re not pretending it is. But we’ve baked mental health into our safety plans, training and culture – not just our policies. The way I see it is that the system protects the products, and it’s on us to protect the people.
Amanda will be speaking in Sydney at the Wellbeing at Work Summit Australia.
Further details and tickets for the Sydney Summit can be found here.
Further details and tickets for the Melbourne Summit can be found here.
