Placement Onboarding · Welcome to the team!
Welcome to your placement! Everything you need to know before you start, while you're with us, and while you settle into the team.
Getting here, housekeeping, local recommendations
Tech setup, staying connected, supervision, invoicing
Your placement project, placement timeline
Contact details
Our team, our services, our work
Finding our office, getting here, and parking nearby.
Level 1, 189 Glenferrie Rd, Malvern VIC 3144 — look for the Opposite office space. Enter through the door, walk up the stairs, and our office is the door to the right. Ginger Tree has left and is now a Tony & Guy Hairdressers.
Parking can be a bit tricky — most spots are limited to 2 hours and inspectors are active in the area. If you're driving, come early to allow time to find a park.
Our dress code is smart casual — suit pants with sneakers are perfectly fine.
There's a small kitchen with a fridge, microwave, kettle and coffee machine in the office — plus plenty of cafes nearby.
With Opposite's location on Glenferrie Road, you'll have lots of food and coffee options right at your doorstep. Some of our team's favourites:
Nick will set you up with an Opposite email address to use for the duration of your placement.
Once you have your Opposite email, add the days you're on placement to your calendar — and add the calendars of all our team members.
We work in the office Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, and from home on Monday and Friday.
We meet every Monday at 10:00am. The meeting starts with project updates from project leads, followed by a roundtable where each team member shares their priorities and capacity for the week.
Before the team meeting, we hold a 15-minute Innovation Sprint from 9:45–10:00am. Each week, one team member shares a new idea, tests a different approach, or presents a solution to a problem. At the end of the sprint, they nominate the next team member to lead the following week's session.
When you start, you'll be added to the Opposite Live space, where the team shares what they're working on and their capacity.
On the days you're working, post a morning update outlining what you plan to work on that day and what you'll be focusing on.
If you have capacity, let the team know so someone can reach out if they need support.
For every client project, we create a dedicated Google Space for discussion, updates and tasks. If you're on a project but not in its space, let us know — we may have missed adding you.
Within project spaces, we use Tasks to track work. Anything assigned to you appears in your Tasks section on your Gmail homepage. You can also create your own private tasks.
Organising supervision meetings is initiated by the student. If you'd like to schedule time with Nick, send him a calendar invite — his schedule can get very busy.
Your Initial Placement Meeting, Mid-Placement Review and Final Placement Meeting are also to be initiated by you. Set calendar reminders for when they're due — the dates can sneak up quickly.
We really encourage questions—if you're unsure about anything, please ask. Nick and the team are always happy to help, even if we're busy. If we don't hear from you, we'll assume everything is on track, so it's always better to check in if you're unsure. At Opposite, there are no silly questions!
You can update your logbook throughout the day or at the end of the day, whichever works best for you.
Opposite has an internal intranet page: oppositeportal.com
It's a great way to see what projects are happening across Opposite — you'll see us use it during our Monday morning catch-up, where project leads share updates. If a project interests you, let Nick know and we'll do our best to get you involved.
The dashboard also has an Opposite AI slide deck generator!
If you're being paid for this placement, you'll need to send an invoice to Opposite at the end of your placement. To do this, you'll need an Australian Business Number (ABN). If you don't have one, you can find out more here.
The amount includes superannuation, and tax won't be taken out of your payment, so you'll just need to make sure you manage your own tax obligations.
While you'll be helping with client work, you'll also have background tasks to work on while waiting for additional work or feedback.
As part of your placement, you'll complete two key projects that contribute to both our internal capability and external resources.
Create an engaging, interactive HTML resource that aligns with one of Opposite's service areas (Human Experience, Human Enablement, Human Factors, or Human-Centred Design) or one of Coachling's service areas (Coaching, Career Support, or Coaching + Mental Health Support). This resource should be suitable for sharing on LinkedIn and provide practical value to professionals.
Your interactive resource could include:
Before you begin, review examples of previous interactive HTML resources and discuss your proposed idea with your supervisor to ensure it aligns with our services and audience.
Examples of previous interactive HTML resources:
Develop a 20-minute workshop and facilitate it with the wider Opposite team. This is an opportunity to build your facilitation skills while sharing evidence-based knowledge in an engaging way.
Topics of Interest for Your Workshop — you're welcome to choose a topic that interests you. Some ideas include:
If you have another idea, feel free to discuss it with Nick or your supervisor to see if it's a good fit.
A rough outline of your placement activities.
If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out to either Nick or Joie.
Opposite was created from a simple but powerful idea: if we want genuinely different results, sometimes we may just need to do the exact opposite.
Founded by Dr Nicholas Duck in 2015, Opposite blends expertise in human factors, organisational psychology and human-centred design — with a healthy dose of curiosity, motivation and creative thinking.
We've grown into a team since then. What ties it all together is one belief: the best solutions start by putting humans first. We don't just think outside the box — we ask why the box was there in the first place.
Applying psychology to improve employee and customer experience, and increase attraction, engagement and productivity.
Preparing workplaces and working environments for digital and other technological transformations.
Enabling the potential of people, teams and organisations to achieve their goals through engaging development programs and targeted work system interventions.
Helping to design workplaces, systems and environments to be safe, reliable and productive.
Opposite's team brings together deep expertise in organisational psychology, human factors, clinical psychology and human-centred design. Based in Melbourne, we've been delivering a diverse range of projects for a decade.
Think you've tried everything? Try the Opposite.