Working It

We’ve heard a lot about diversity and inclusion in workplaces, but one group is often left behind: people with disabilities, visible and invisible. Given that millions of people were allowed to work flexibly during the pandemic, how can we extend that mindset shift to make permanent improvements for staff with disabilities?   In this episode Isabel Berwick talks to campaigner Caroline Casey,...

In the first of a two-part series on the end of work as we know it, Isabel talks to two of the FT’s experts on employment and work trends - Sarah O’Connor in London and Taylor Nicole Rogers in New York. As record numbers of people quit their jobs, refuse to return to offices, or simply put a brake on their time-sucking ‘greedy jobs’ like corporate law and investment banking, this post-pandemic mom...

This week we delve into perhaps the workplace's most divisive issue: should you bring your dog to the office? Isabel (a cat person) talks to Lindsay Bumps (dog person), from Ben & Jerry’s ‘K9 culture committee’. The ice-cream maker has had dogs in its offices since the 1970s, so it knows how to get the balance right for everyone: the animals, their owners and even the 10 to 20 per cent of the...

Michele Romanow and Andrew D’Souza are the co-founders of Clearco, a $2bn lender to ecommerce start-ups - and they shared a romance before sharing assets. They’ve now split up as a couple, and in this episode, they go public with what happened - and why they think they still make a good team.   Then Isabel talks to FT colleague and Working It regular Emma Jacobs about the different ways organ...

A new generation of young professionals are becoming online stars in their own right through their social media channels. But what happens when personal brands meet the old-fashioned big corporate workplace? In this week’s episode of Working It, Isabel talks to Eve Cornwell, an English ‘lawfluencer’ who has been online for the past five years, blogging about her journey to becoming a young lawyer...

In a tight global labour market, older women are having a moment. Employers are offering more leadership and promotion opportunities, as well as practical policies to help manage the hormonal upheavals that hit half the population in their forties and fifties.  In this episode Isabel talks to Navene Alim and Landy Slattery from the UK’s Channel 4 television network, who pioneered the workplac...

It’s traditionally been mothers who have had to take time off work to look after children. But in the past two years, the pandemic has accelerated a huge shift towards many more fathers wanting to play an active role in family life. In this episode of Working It, we look at the fast-moving changes in workplace parental leave trends - and what that means for mothers, fathers - and the co-workers wh...

The last two years have made us all experts in digital communications at work - or so we think. In fact, many of us are unwittingly upsetting colleagues, or even jinxing our own careers, by not practising good email etiquette and Zoom hygiene.  In this episode Isabel talks to Erica Dhawan, who really is an expert on digital communication, about the common pitfalls and generational differences...

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the worldwide social justice protests that followed, businesses acted swiftly to pledge change for their BAME workers. Nearly everyone wanted to post a black square on their corporate Instagram feed - but what real action has been taken? And is there anything you can do to speed up change in your own workplace?  In this episode Isabel talks to Tayl...

Who wouldn’t want to have a regular paid day off to go surfing, take a long walk - or to care for family members?  During the pandemic a growing number of companies have been experimenting with four-day weeks and in this episode Isabel talks to Andrew Barnes, founder of 4 Day Week Global, a non-profit organisation that helps companies switch to a more flexible working week.  Andrew first...

This week on Working It we take a step back from day-to-day workplace life and explore the issue of whistleblowing. What drives people to speak up against their employers - and what happens to those staff? Does it necessarily end your career in that company?  Isabel talks to Siri Nelson, executive director of the US National Whistleblower Center. Siri has devoted her professional life to prot...

This week, Working It is a bit different. It turns out our most read stories so far this year have been about hybrid working, a term that describes working weeks split between the office and working from home. Not only do readers binge on the topic, they also have very strong views, so we thought we’d open up the debate here, too. Isabel talks to FT experts Camilla Cavendish and Pilita Clark, who...

This week, we are stepping outside the 9 to 5. Side hustles, second jobs, crafting and more have boomed as millions of workers embraced working from home during the pandemic. Isabel talks to Tim Fung, co-founder of Airtasker, a platform for buying and selling services and skills, used by many as a way to earn extra cash. How does he cope with his own staff’s side hustles? Taylor Nicole Rogers, the...

Many of us work with - and manage - people 30 years older or younger than we are. And sometimes it can feel like there's a bit of dissonance between the "wisdom and experience" that Gen X and Boomers can bring, and the "innovative energy" of those in their twenties and thirties. So what, and how, can both learn from each other?   Isabel (Gen X) explores how reverse mentoring programmes are br...

Team building sessions and awaydays have always been a part of office culture. But in a post-pandemic world, where we meet our colleagues IRL, or even in the virtual metaverse, will the awayday survive?  Isabel explores the appeal of the awayday with Ed Mumm, who owns Dig This, a ‘super sized sandbox’ for adults in Las Vegas. Driving Ed’s giant diggers is a popular team day out, giving staff...

Empathy has been one of the buzzwords of the pandemic, with managers under pressure to listen to employees’ woes and understand what they are going through. But what do we mean by empathy at work, and how much is too much when it comes to caring? Isabel talks to Belinda Parmar, founder of consultancy The Empathy Business, about small changes that can make a workplace more empathetic, and why that’...

Spreading your working hours over five, six or seven days is now an option for thousands of employees at Arup, a global design and engineering company, based in London. In this episode, Isabel talks to Diane Thornhill, Arup's director of people for UK, India, Middle East and Africa, about the company’s “Work Unbound” seven-day work week experiment in Australia and the UK. Diane talks abo...

Using social media for work is blurring the boundaries between our professional and personal lives. Do employers really want us to bring ‘our whole selves’ to a job or is there a chance that being very open in public might impact on our careers?  When Jonathan Frostick had a heart attack, he posted his thoughts about how he planned to change his life on LinkedIn. That post went viral - ...

A workplace without bosses sounds... idyllic. In this episode, Isabel explores the topic of flat hierarchies with Alexis Gonzales-Black, an expert in organisational design. A few years ago, Alexis helped Zappos, the Amazon-owned online shoe business, to bring in ‘Holacracy’ - a way of sidelining bosses and shifting decision-making down to individual teams so they have autonomy. The experiment wasn...

Chances are, not even your best friend knows how much you earn at work. In this episode, Isabel tries to work out what we are worried about - surely salary secrecy only helps our bosses? She talks to Joel Gascoigne, chief executive of social media business Buffer, which publishes its employees’ salaries on its website - including that of Joel himself [$290k]. He thinks radical transparency helps w...

Almost two years into the pandemic, we’ve become used to hybrid working but it’s often hit and miss in terms of how well it works. In this episode, Isabel talks to Sacha Labourey, co-founder and chief strategy officer of all-remote tech company CloudBees, about what keeps his staff engaged and happy. One tip for managers is that overcommunicating with your team is the key to making things bet...

Trusting your staff to take as much time off as they need to rest and avoid burnout sounds like the ultimate post-pandemic workplace reset, but what would it be like in reality? In this episode, Isabel talks to Amy Cowpe of Charlie HR, a human resources software company based in the UK, about its radical unlimited vacation experiment. What happens when you give people the freedom to make their own...

Puppy party anyone? That’s what one employer is offering its staff to lure them back into work. Perks have always been a part of employment packages but, during the pandemic, employers have become a lot more imaginative in a bid to keep their people engaged remotely - and then get them back in the office. What is the point of these perks, do they work - and what do managers need to know to offer s...

The wellness industry is a trillion-dollar business, and the pandemic has turbo-charged it. One of the biggest trends has been the rise in employers buying their staff access to meditation and fitness apps. But does this ‘quick fix’ approach work? And are there better ways to boost wellbeing? Isabel talks to Lorna Borenstein, chief executive of Grokker, a corporate wellness app about the reasons w...

Welcome to Working It, the new show from the Financial Times. Every Wednesday, from October 27, join host Isabel Berwick for expert analysis and watercooler chat about ahead-of-the-curve workplace trends, the big ideas shaping work today - and the old habits we need to leave behind. Whether you’re the boss, the deputy or on your way up, we’re shaking up the way the world works. This is the podcast...