Issue: The Australian Army, like many organisations has a compelling need to ensure that opportunities are provided for individuals and teams to perform at their best. In an operational context, these outcomes can be literally a matter of life or death. Due to an increase in requests for training that focus on enhancing human performance, it has been critical that the training is not only relevant to the personnel in their operational environments, but is conducted efficiently using up-to-date evidence-based methods.

Approach: A critical assessment of the way in which training has been provided by the Australian Army’s 1st Psychology Unit was undertaken. This assessment included identification and analysis of: existing training packages, their structure and content; history of training requests; and evidence-based models of learning, training, and development (LTD) to guide formulation of a sustainable training framework suitable for the military environment.
The critical assessment and the subsequent formulation of modules on skills, e.g., communication and conflict resolution for soldiers, were conducted by the first author who is a full-time senior psychology officer, concurrently enrolled in the AHPRA Registrar Program for Organisational Psychology endorsement, and the second author who is a reservist officer with extensive academic experience in LTD.
These officers provided the expertise needed to explore, develop, and evaluate the training framework with the professional consideration and understanding that can otherwise be lost in a time-pressured environment.

Key Findings: The critical assessment indicated that the current training modules could be enhanced by shifting away from an emphasis on a highly instructor-centred presentation of declarative knowledge to a four-stage process aimed at initiating active, procedural learning. These stages included: (1) Skill Identification, in which worked examples allowed participants to compare and contrast behaviours applied to varying situations in the military environment; (2) Education, in which the knowledge and skills for managing different environments are outlined based on a facilitated discussion of the worked examples to reinforce capabilities already in place and to bridge the gap in knowledge and skills where learning is required; (3) Rehearsal, in which the participants are given a brief opportunity to practice and consolidate the knowledge and skills identified in Stages 1 and 2; (4) Review, in which the participants further consolidated the lessons learned in Stages 1, 2, and 3 by facilitated reflection as both a group and individuals, leading to development of learning plans to support their ongoing professional development.
This four-stage framework has proved to be flexible and adaptable in developing brief training modules suitable for the varying populations, operational tempo and performance focus of diverse Australian Army workgroups.

Implications: The framework provides consistent direction on the process, implementation and training content which will support the ongoing skill development of participants. In particular the integrity of the framework is maintained across the various learning topics that can be applied to meet the performance psychology training requests that 1st Psychology Unit fulfils. This is a key benefit in an environment where multiple practitioners will be asked to present training across different domains and groups at any one time.

Conclusion: This case study outlines the HP4 framework, the particular learning areas, and how it is applied. The benefit that organisational psychology understanding and expertise has brought to ensure the integrity and sustainability of the framework is highlighted.

The symposium presents a body of work conducted in Navy since 2015 that aimed to identify the predictive factors of organisational deviance in Navy. The purpose of this research is to determine what critical indicators an individual leader within Navy might need to have knowledge of, so as to monitor, guide and correct group behaviour/s. It is considered that knowing cultural, structural and / or systems related factors of organisational deviance would focus the vigilance of Navy members and improve the collective mindfulness of potential deviations in group behaviours. Subsequently, Navy is more likely to achieve status as a high-reliability organisation. We hypothesise that irrespective of the outcomes from organisational deviance, the pre-conditions describing culture factors and organisational factors such as structures and systems will be the same; and that early and proactive intervention by leaders to correct and monitor pre-conditions may avert or mitigate against negative outcomes arising from organisational deviance and also improve the culture within the workplace. The first paper, a multiple case study analysis, identifies the common pre-conditions from three significant negative Navy organisational events and three cases of high-level unit performance. It also identifies mechanisms between these pre-conditions and the potential for transgression or organisational deviance. The second paper, investigates one case study in particular to document the impacts of organisational decisions in the past to contemporary culture, climate, decision-making and performance. The third paper identifies the common predictive factors to Navy sub-groups based on culture data through statistical modelling, and provides a guide as to what leaders should monitor and how they might improve the culture of the teams that they lead. The final paper identifies the relationships between Navy culture and safety climate and performance. It makes argument for the development of constructive workplace culture.