HR Most Influential Podcast

What defines great leadership? And how can HR support the leaders of the future? Business leaders are facing rising pressure to take on a growing list of responsibilities, and employees’ expectations of people in leadership roles are rapidly evolving. To help navigate these changes, and outline how organisations can best equip the leaders of tomorrow, we spoke to Danny Harmer, chief people officer...

Does flexible working actually work? Or are today’s ways of working stuck in the past?  Alex Hirst and Lizzie Penny, who jointly ranked at #4 in our HR Most Influential thinkers list 2025, call for a radical rethink of our approach to work, to better meet employee and business needs in the digital age. Hirst and Penny – business partners, authors and changemakers – co-founded the consultancy Hoxby...

Are employers doing enough to support the nearly three million people in the UK who juggle unpaid care and work? Natalie Quilter, HR magazine’s #4 HR Most Influential Practitioner 2025, addresses this question and more, drawing from both her personal and professional experience.   Quilter – currently head of reward, wellbeing and benefits for housing provider The Hyde Group – is a passionate advoc...

Tim Pointer, HR magazine's #1 Most Influential HR practitioner for 2025, focuses on the transformational power of agility in business, offering tips on how to adapt to succeed. Pointer, who is portfolio chief people officer and operating partner for the asset management business Three Hills, argues that, to stay ahead of the curve, HR must supercharge transformation and become even better at...

Chief people officer Jacky Simmonds shares how Experian has fostered a thriving culture of innovation throughout the business, offering tips that other businesses can learn from. Since Simmonds joined the global data and technology company Experian, in 2020, Experian has celebrated a fourth consecutive year on the UK’s Best Workplaces™ list and was recognised as a World’s Best Workplace™ for the f...

Episode six of the HR Focus podcast features insights from Anna Oliver, HR director (UK) for biopharmaceutical company AbbVie, who shares what she’s learned from the organisation’s cultural transformation journey. AbbVie has spent 11 of its 12-year existence on Great Place to Work UK's Best Workplaces™ List, so Oliver is well-placed to deliver top tips and best practice: from how to cultivate...

As HR professionals face ever-increasing scrutiny for delivering high performance in the age of AI, it’s never been more important to talk about shaking up performance management. And who better to discuss this topic than David Liddle, CEO of the global consultancy TCM Group and founder of the People and Culture Association?!  This episode was recorded before David nabbed the number one spot in HR...

As the health of our natural environment declines, employers are under increasing pressure to look after the health and wellbeing of employees, and to take meaningful actions, rather than greenwashing – paying lip service to environmental commitments. To help HR professionals align these priorities, we gathered insights from two leaders of the healthcare and insurance provider Bupa: Rebecca Pearso...

In the latest episode of our HR Focus podcast, our editor speaks to Lorna Connelly, Admiral’s UK director of people, to find out the secrets to success of this 25-year incumbent on the UK’s Best Workplace list. The financial services company Admiral is a recognised champion of great leadership and exceptional workplace culture. For each of the last 25 years, the firm has achieved the UK’s Best Wor...

Of all the components in the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEIB) umbrella, inclusion is rapidly gaining a prominence of its own. But why favour one above the rest? And why are people so excited about inclusion's potential for business? To answer these questions, we invited Aggie Mutuma, CEO and lead consulting director of Mahogany Inclusion Partners onto the podcast. Ranking fif...

UK national newspapers have called HR a "parasite," "bloated" and a "shadow empire" – and the vitriol keeps coming. The criticism has been enough to drive the CIPD’s chief executive, Peter Cheese, to defend the profession's work in an open letter. But do the ‘HR haters’ have a point? Or is the profession simply getting caught in the culture war crossfire? We invi...

As an internal-facing function, HR professionals are often shy to shout about their own successes in public. Georgina Kelly, our 2024 2nd HR Most Influential Thinker, has seen first hand how this can limit senior HR professionals' careers. As founder of GK HR Networks and the Women In HR Network, Georgina knows this applies particularly to women, who are less prone to self-publicise. In the p...

Did HR miss its chance to win real recognition after the pandemic? Possibly. Can HR win that acclaim anyway? Absolutely. As automated HR technology becomes ever-more sophisticated, HR practitioners are being given a golden chance to do away with time-consuming transactional work and get stuck into real strategic people issues. But what's stopping them? All too often, it's HR themselves....

Once, HR professionals could walk around the office or factory floor and see employees' mood for themselves. Now, the workforce is more separated than ever. So how can HR rebuild connections within its organisation, whether for hybrid office workers, or far-off franchisees? The task that now faces HR is to rebuild its ability to 'take the pulse' of its organisation. It is a task tha...

No matter where you are in your career, it's important to get on with your boss. But for an HR leader, it's vital – and not just for selfish reasons. In episode 5 of series 3, we dive into why CPOs and HRDs are uniquely positioned to support their chief executive , and how a healthy partnership between the two delivers long-term success for both parties' objectives. To explore how t...

You've seen the headines: "DEI must die," "Progressive diktat," "A lightning rod for controversy." It is no secret that diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives are taking flak in the court of public opinion. But beyond the media spats, like Elon Musk's "DEI must die" quip, HR leaders across the western world are seeing real cuts to their...

The UK is in the grip of a mental health crisis. Some 20-30% of UK working adults showing signs of emotional exhaustion, and burnout has been stuck firmly on HR's agenda for the past four years. And while HR is well adapted to support employees' mental wellbeing – does the responsibility really lie fully on HR? In the latest episode of the HR Most Influential Podcast, Rachel Lewis, multi...

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform HR. But just like any tool, it needs direction. After all the hype of 2023, it's fair to say that we're all quite excited – or worried – about AI. But how many of us actually know how to start introducing it to our jobs in a useful way, beyond asking ChatGPT a few questions and getting bored? In the third episode of HR Focus, we...

Change – the only constant of the past few years – is notoriously difficult to navigate. And for every successful change initiative dreamed up by HR strategists, there are several more that never survived contact with reality. In episode two of series three, Pam Parkes , executive director at Essex County Council for people, service transformation and technology services, shares from her long expe...

The skills needed by employees have evolved rapidly over the past few decades, with employees racing to keep up with time. But with just 30% of CEOs confident that their business has the skills it needs, why do talent teams so often find themselves fighting a losing battle? Jo sits down with experts Dominic Holmes (Cornerstone) and Suki Kaur (Avask Group) to find out exactly how to supercharge a s...

 Does your phone ever show you adverts for things you hadn't even realised you wanted? Hyper-personalisation may not be new to customer experience teams, but has only recently broken onto the people profession scene. To explore the phenomenon, we kick off season three with Bertie Tonks , chief people officer of Collinson Group, and 2023's #1 HR Most Influential practitioner . Tonks delve...

In the war for talent, how can David beat Goliath? In the first episode of our brand-new podcast, HR Focus, we zoom in on the difficulties facing SMEs in finding, retaining, and developing talent. HR magazine editor Jo Gallacher first speaks to Luke Hicks, of HR software company Cornerstone, before turning to Grace Mansah-Owusu, organisational psychologist and talent specialist, for answers to the...

Employee experience has become a defining feature of modern HR practice. Weaving together the threads of wellbeing, reward, development, organisational design... and, well, just about all of HR, it has become a crucial lens through which HR leaders take strategic decisions . In our latest episode, HR director of BBC Studios, Jabbar Sardar, invites HR magazine editor Jo Gallacher in to learn just h...

When so many companies accept ESG as a fact of life – why do so few commit to the 'S', societal good? HR director of FTSE-100 water company Severn Trent, and two-time HR Most Influential listee Neil Morrison is a passionate proponent of organisations' need to serve the communities they draw on. HR magazine Jo Gallacher sat down with Neil to discuss how companies can build a 'ci...

HR Most Influential Thinker Gemma Dale has literally written the book on hybrid and flexible working –  twice over. A lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, author, consultant, and previous HR Director, Dale uses her practical experience and vast knowledge of work to investigate why flexible working is getting results for some, and not for others . HR magazine editor Jo Gallacher speaks to...