Future of Work expert Kim Seeling Smith is a master storyteller, trend translator, frequent media commentator and author that helps business leaders build and retain the right team to achieve their business goals – one of the biggest challenges in the Post Covid world.
Future of Work expert Kim Seeling Smith is a master storyteller, trend translator, frequent media commentator and author that helps business leaders build and retain the right team to achieve their business goals – one of the biggest challenges in the Post Covid world.
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Programs & Topics

The 8 Step Roadmap to a Future Fit Organization
How to navigate the new rules of work with an 8 Step Roadmap.
The 8 Step Roadmap to a Future Fit Organisation
This program is perfect for:
- Senior leaders
- Executive teams
- Boards of Directors
- HR Professionals
…whose success depends on understanding and navigating the new world of work.
The audience will leave with:
- Research, case studies and stories to help them understand the 3 disruptions that businesses are facing in the post-pandemic world and how these are affecting the workplace and workforce.
- A roadmap of best practices and specific action items to help them build and retain a future fit workforce.
- A list of practical steps to take to help them begin their journey to become match fit for the future.
Description:
Covid-19 will hopefully be the most significant disruption of this decade, but the futurists, demographers and economists amongst us will tell you it certainly won’t be the last.
Business leaders are also facing accelerating technology implementation, a changing geopolitical landscape, supply chain constraints, climate change and shifting consumer demands.
And this against a backdrop of a major skills shortage and the rise of the empowered workforce who are demanding change — and getting it.
These disruptions are all changing the rules of work.
This session will not only help you understand these new rules, but it will give you a strategic roadmap and several action items that will make an immediate impact on your ability to attract and retain a future fit workforce. A workforce that can not only help you survive the challenges of the new world but embrace the opportunities within it as well.
Join us for a highly engaging, thought provoking and thoroughly entertaining trip into the future that will leave the audience with a high level strategic framework along with specific practical actions to ensure they are able to attract and retain the staff they need to not only survive but thrive in our new, quickly changing world.
Comments from previous audience members:
- “This was packed with so much information – but delivered in a really engaging way.”
- “Never a dull moment with Kim Seeling Smith.”
- “I loved the stats that you used and how you tied them to the stories you told.”






9 Keys to Avoid the Great Resignation
Derived from over 5,000 exit interviews.
9 Keys to Avoid the Great Resignation
This program is perfect for:
Anyone who manages staff who yearns for a simple, practical way to increase employee engagement, wellbeing and profitability with their team.
The audience will leave with:
- An understanding of how you directly impact your team’s performance and what you can do about it.
- A proven framework to help hold your staff accountable for great performance (especially with a remote workforce).
- A practical model, based on over 5,000 exit interviews and updated to include the latest international research on the Great Resignation. This model will help you understand (and deliver on) everything your staff needs to be happy, productive and perform at their best. We take the guesswork out of employee motivation.
Description:
The Great Resignation is occurring because we are in a unique moment in time where a critical skills shortage – caused by an aging workforce, border closures and rapidly changing needs of employers – is running headlong into a newly empowered workforce.
A workforce who after 2 years of pandemic induced reflection has become very clear on what they want – and what they don’t want – and they’re willing to vote with their feet.
Experts are now predicting that companies – including some iconic brands – will fall over in the next few years because they cannot find and keep enough of the right people to kick their business goals.
But how do you know what they actually need to keep them from leaving?
Luckily, reverse engineering over 5,000 exit interviews gives us significant clues as to what workers really want and what employers need to deliver to hold onto their team through the Great Resignation and beyond.
This model, dubbed the 9 Currencies of Choice® was originally developed in 2010 and has recently been updated for the post-pandemic workforce. It has proven to be wildly successful in increasing employee retention, motivation, productivity and profitability.
If your success depends on your ability to inspire and retain a great team then this session is not to be missed.
Real results from clients include:
- The IT Department within a large heavy equipment distributor beat the company’s average employee engagement scores by 23 points.
- A financial services company decreased its employee turnover from 30% to 22% in 1 year.
- One division within an engineering consulting firm went from having the highest employee turnover and the lowest profitability per head to the highest profitability per head in just 6 months — while not losing another staff member for over 2 years.
- A manufacturing company negotiated a union contract with far less stress than had ever happened previously, according to one site manager.
Past speaking engagements for this topic:
- AMP Risk Retreat
- The Executive Connection
- TransUnion
- World Employment Conference – 2019






Reimagine Talent Acquisition
It’s time to update our strategies for the skills short market and newly empowered workforce.
Reimagine Talent Acquisition
This program is perfect for:
Hiring managers, HR professionals, and Talent Acquisition Specialists whose success requires them to hire the right person every time.
The audience will leave with:
- A step by step system to write a much more compelling position description and job ad – proven to magnetically attract the right candidates while repelling the wrong ones.
- The 3 keys to attract the right talent in a critically skills short market
- A practical framework to help you write a job ad that has the right candidates beating a path to your door
- An understanding of the latest innovative sourcing strategies
- Practical tips on increasing candidate experience and interview effectiveness.
Description:
Hiring the right people has never been more important than it is now. We need top talent to help us overcome the challenges and seize the opportunities of the post-pandemic world.
Unfortunately, it’s also never been more difficult.
We are in a unique moment in time where a critical skills shortage (caused by an aging workforce and the acceleration of automation and AI) is running headlong into the Great Resignation (caused by the critical skills shortage and 2 years of pandemic-induced reflection).
Our old recruitment strategies are falling woefully short. It’s time to reimagine recruitment.
Join us for an engaging, thought provoking and ultimately practical session with Kim Seeling Smith who has over 30 years of recruitment experience and a consistent 98% success rate.
Real results and client testimonials
“Kim is one of those very rare humans that can take something as complex and time consuming as recruiting the right people and make it really simple.” MIKE SAXTON, REGIONAL VICE PRESIDENT ANZ, OPENTEXT.
First Mortgage Systems reduced employee turnover from 45% to 30% per year after adopting Kim’s proprietary SPOT On Hiring System™
“In 25 years of owning the business, I have never seen the calibre of candidates we are attracting now.” MARK HUNTER, CEO, HUNDER EXPRESS


The Unified Theory of Everything: People™
Your holistic model to build and retain a disruption proof workforce.
The Unified Theory of Everything: People™ – Your holistic model to build and retain a disruption proof workforce
Format:
45-60 minute breakout or half-day workshop, on stage or online delivery. One of the highest-rated sessions at the 2020 Atlassian Remote Summit.
This program is perfect for:
Business leaders and HR Practitioners who want to hire better people – and keep them once they have them.
Anyone interested in the latest strategies to hire and retain staff in the post-pandemic world and through the “Decade of Disruption.”
At the end of this presentation, you will:
- Think differently about how you recruit, engage and retain top talent
- Feel more confident about how to win at the Future of Work
- Know specifically what to Do to compete for and keep top talent in the coming decade
Description:
COVID-19 was the first (and hopefully most significant) disruption of this decade, but it will certainly not be the last.
To seize opportunities and overcome challenges presented by the inevitable disruptions that technology and the tension between globalization and localization will bring over the next few years, we must rethink how we hire and manage people because our current practices were designed for a different age and a different workforce.
Good enough will not be good enough in the future. We must be agile, flexible, innovative and resilient.
The Unified Theory of Everything People is a holistic, practical model.
It is based on two decades of extensive research and will help organizations and people leaders with practical solutions they can use immediately to build and retain the workforce they will need to survive this “Decade of Disruption.”
Real results from clients include:
- A financial services company decreased its employee turnover from 45% down to 22% in 18 months by applying this entire model.
- A logistics company stopped the revolving door within their sales department by applying this model’s hiring piece.
- The IT Department, within a large, heavy equipment distributor beat the company’s average employee engagement scores by 23 points by applying the retention piece of this model.
Previous Speaking Engagements for this topic:
- Atlassian Summit 2020 (one of the few non-technical sessions to be included when the pandemic forced the summit to go virtual) and received some of the conference’s highest marks.
- Edutech World eLearning Conference 2020






Is Drinking Your Own Kool-Aid Poisoning Your Business?
Disruptor or disrupted, you choose.
Is Drinking Your Own Kool-Aid Poisoning Your Business?
Format:
Format: 45-90 minute keynote or breakout, on stage or online delivery.
This program is perfect for:
Senior leaders
Executive teams
Boards of Directors
…whose success depends on fending off disruption from their competitors. This disruption could include anything from product innovation, market share or your ability to attract and retain top talent.
The audience will leave with:
- A greater appreciation of the hidden – but equally deadly – types of disruption
- A steadfast understanding of how the stories we tell ourselves as a business can cause us to be disrupted
- A 3 step framework to help you honestly and thoroughly examine the stories you tell yourself as a business to look at – and fix – areas of vulnerability
Description:
Being disruptive is sexy. But let’s face it, not every leader or organization can be disruptive.
Unfortunately every leader – and every organization can be disrupted – and most never see it coming – although they should. Disruption doesn’t happen because a better product or service comes along.
Disruption happens because companies – or industries – drink their own Kool-Aid. They lull themselves into complacency believing the stories they tell themselves about their products, customers and staff.
Stories that are just plain wrong – but are so entrenched they don’t challenge their validity.
Sony never saw the rise of the iPhone – despite the fact that they had the technology long before Apple.
Kodak wasn’t disrupted because of the rise of digital photography. They invented the first digital camera and spent millions on R&D. Kodak was disrupted because they didn’t understand changing consumer preferences in how their people want to view the photos they took – regardless of how they were taken.
This thought-provoking and extremely entertaining presentation will help you identify and examine the stories you tell yourself.
Through this 3 step process, you will be able to identify where you or your organization is vulnerable and begin to develop an action plan to fend off your competitors where you may be the most vulnerable.
Comments from previous audience members:
- “This was packed with so much information – but delivered in a really engaging way.”
- “Never a dull moment with Kim Seeling Smith.”
- “I loved the stats that you used and how you tied them to the stories you told.”






Kim Seeling Smith as your MC/Host
Kim is a highly engaging MC who dedicates herself fully to your event and makes you shine.
Kim Seeling Smith as your MC/Host – BOOK NOW!
Format:
On stage or online delivery.
This program is perfect for:
Any business audience who needs a credible, thoughtful and highly engaging MC to weave the speaker’s’ presentations into the theme of the conference, helping the audience connect the dots and experience the organiser’s desired outcomes.
At the end of this event, your audience will:
- Think more deeply and clearly about the conference theme and speakers’ presentation topics
- Feel as though time out of the office was not only well spent — but highly enjoyable
- Know how the speakers relate to each other and to the conference theme
Description:
Kim was born to MC. Highly engaging and energetic, naturally curious with exceptional pattern recognition skills, she is extremely adept at creating a flow and managing the energy of the audience throughout your event — whether it lasts 4 hours or 2 days.
Kim’s work as an MC runs the gamut. She can simply show up on the day to introduce speakers, provide the glue between sessions and manage the energy of the audience. Or she can take a much more active approach in helping you develop a theme, shape the event and strategise on speakers.
Comments from previous conference organizers:
- “Kim was one of the best Chairs I have worked with and she was instrumental in ensuring the smooth running of the event.”
- “Your energy just never ran out — at the end of day 2 you were going like it was the beginning of day 1.”