World Changers: Exploring the future of work

Extreme weather events around the globe this year have hammered home the real impacts of climate change. But that means some people have only just woken up to what the rest of us have been banging on about for decades. Companies that don’t address sustainability – and bring their employees along on the journey – invite risk.  It’s a privilege to be environmentally conscious and broadly speaking, c...

World Changers: Exploring the future of work  What happens when striving for a better work-life balance has the unintended consequence of complacency? Managers need to have difficult conversations – without drifting back to the bad old days of grind and hustle culture.    Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum says that the pandemic gave us a “rare but narrow oppo...

Ep.8 Keeping me sweet The talent vacuum is real. Too many clever folk are leaving work for countless reasons – many beyond anyone’s circle of control. But one thing businesses can influence is culture. Companies that resist leaning into this will feel the pain – and cost – of employees leaving in droves. So how do we draw in new talent and hang on to the amazing people we already have? With a clea...

When almost everything is in the cloud, and the amount of data we’re storing is reaching hundreds of zettabytes each year and growing, what happens when the servers crash? Crisis aside, what happens when our cloud storage becomes full? How do we organise information and make sure that institutional knowledge isn’t lost and that our people have what they need to work collaboratively?   In the lates...

Don’t @me  World Changers: Exploring the future of work  Episode description:  The digital working revolution has excited and inspired a generation of workers, who demand the benefits of remote working with digital connection. It’s a way of working that isn’t just feasible, it’s desirable too. But now that many of us are connected with everyone, everywhere, all the time, that sense of community is...

World Changers: Exploring the future of work   Your diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts have bought you progress, but what if it’s time to take a stronger approach? What if, to bring about real organisational change, it’s time to employ the proverbial stick and take a harder stance on calling out and identifying unacceptable behaviours?  Your people and your prospective employees look to you...

Episode description:   Making audiences care is one of the fundamentals of employee engagement. But why is that so difficult? Well, it has a lot to do with trust. If we don’t trust what we hear, we shut off. And in the world of work, it can have further ramifications: we start to distrust authoritative sources, hear negative tales about our employees and frankly, get tired of the noise. So, who wo...

Mind your manners: the new office etiquette  World Changers: Exploring the future of work  Episode description:   An increasingly large number of people are back in the office, while others continue to collaborate virtually. So, what virtual-first lessons can we adopt for hybrid working? You might be surprised: it starts with etiquette.  Everyone knows not to heat up fish in the office microwave o...

It’s time to dig deep – again. With a long and ugly recession predicted for 2023, employers and employees are going to have to tap into new wells of strengths to survive and thrive. In many cases, that strength is depleted from the chaos and uncertainty of the last three years. So, now’s the time to shore up our internal defences and come together as teammates to weather this latest storm. Togethe...

Welcome to World Changers, a podcast exploring the trends making an enduring mark on our world of work; and how business leaders, HR teams and internal communicators can stay one step ahead. First came the Great Resignation. Then, the Great Re-evaluation. If we’re facing into or living through a Great Recession, what comes next – a Great Rebellion? Naming workplace shifts in people dynamics has be...

The business world is full of terms like ESG and sustainability right now but ambiguity about what they mean, too much talk and not enough action, and decades long time scales that feel out of reach mean it can be hard for businesses and people to take meaningful actions towards sustainability goals savvy companies will seize collective awareness and energy- and use it as a force for good. One of...

Are the bots taking over? Frankly, no. They’ll never be able to do the tasks that humans can perform with such, well, humanity. But businesses need to embrace AI to free up people to do more meaningful work. And humans need to be able to trust AI to work ethically so they can stop resenting it and start co-operating with it. Dr Alex Gapud chose this theme as his World Changer for our 2022 report....

There's no such thing as a job for life anymore. But you'll certainly remember what it was like to work for your former employer long after you've left.  Now, will you look back with fond nostaligia? Or shudder at the toxic culture you endured?  Alumni networks offer a rich seam of advocacy when companies get the employee experience right.  Lisa Hawksworth chose this theme as her Wo...

All hail digital, the saviour of remote working. When the world turned upside down, we embraced digital fast, too fast! Many organisations didn't deliver it well. And now digital has a real image problem. But if we look at digital as an experience, instead of just another set of channels, it has the potential to revolutionise how we network and collaborate at work. Or head of digital Tony Stewart...

Ever looked at your job and felt like it wasn’t enough? That you want  more? As more of us take time after the pandemic to reconsider the kind  of work we do – almost half in fact, according to McKinsey – it raises  the question: What if corporate decision-making could embrace the  possibilities and realise the benefits of the side hustle? Our marketing manager Kate Went chose...

In the past year, video has become the most influential global communication medium, thanks in no small part to the meteoric rise of TikTok. Leaders and brands that relied on carefully copywritten statements and artfully curated PR stunts are being challenged to show a more authentic voice, on camera, to prove they really practice what they preach. So, what does this mean for communication teams?...

It’s not about more information. It’s about better. The news should be there to serve democracy and help people make informed, rational decisions. But nothing grabs our attention more than sensationalised news and emotionally charged political opinions. The problem is that when political language seeps into the stories and opinions we consume, we’re driven to ignore the facts and believe what we w...

Delving in to our World Changer on flexible working, our podcast host Elle Bradley-Cox explores part time pioneers What does your working day look like now? I’ll bet you a breakroom  brew and a biscuit that it’s quite different to your pre-pandemic  schedule. For many of us, the office-based 9-5, as we knew it, is well and  truly a thing of the past. As hybrid working ushers in the...

Delving in to our World Changer on neurodiversity, our podcast host Elle Bradley-Cox explores some Beautiful Minds Whether it’s driven by the business case or the moral case,  neurodivergent people are finally beginning to be valued by the  mainstream, as several high-profile corporate announcements in 2021  show. But, to make sure this isn’t just a token moment, we need to  di...

Welcome back to season two of the World Changers podcast, a companion to our 2022 report. If you haven't read it yet, dive in here: https://scarlettabbott.co.uk/world-changers-2022 *** War. Famine. Plagues. Natural disasters. Humanity has had its fair share of tumultuous times and disruptive events. How can we harness the lessons of the past so that we’re not doomed to repeat them? If 2020 was the...

Hello World Changers fans.  Those of you who've been tuning in for a while now may be wondering what's happened. Rest assured, dear listeners, we have not replaced our beloved Elle Bradley-Cox. Rather, we've turned the mic around to chat with our velveteen voiced host as we reach the end of this year's series.  As we wrap up the year, and look ahead to what's on the horizon for 2022, mar...

For too long, the perception of ‘getting the job done’ was tied to visibility. If an employee was in their seat, then they must be doing their job, right? We can debate the rights and wrongs of presenteeism, what we can’t deny is that it’s rife in business. Or it was, pre-pandemic. Now, the challenge facing employers is a different one. Alarmingly it resulted in a sales boom of monitoring software...

18 months of Covid-19 related anxiety, a looming threat of climate devastation, political fractions, and the rumblings of war. Never have we all felt so vulnerable at the same time. It’s an existential crisis on a global scale – and a fascinating anthropological study. So, what does a chronic feeling of vulnerability do to us? Recognising our response to risk, and helping people address it, can gi...

Zoom fatigue, long days spent alone in spare rooms, the absence of the watercooler. The face-to-face famine that lockdown gave us definitely impacted our wellbeing. But what about our cultures? Without those spontaneous moments of connection, our lives become more regimented and, for some, the cultural cornerstones found in the office felt very far away. Many reported a feeling of disconnection af...

We don’t need no education. Or do we? The current education system has long been based on a narrow and linear learning structure, assessed by arbitrary markers. At school we work towards grades that, on paper, indicate a level of competence. But when we move from learning to earning, we’re often ill prepared to meet our employers’ expectations. It can be quite the culture shock. And what about tho...