MAD Leaders Podcast: workplace culture, employee health and wellbeing

In this episode, Ruth Jackson, Chief People Officer at The Gym Group, discusses workplace culture and how to engage frontline staff across 260 UK sites and over 2,000 employees - most of whom aren't desk based. She covers a raft of practical strategies such as centring on the employee life cycle, which is at the heart of the government's Keep Britain Working approach - of which the Gym Gro...

In this latest MAD Leaders Club Podcast, Nic Marshall, People Director, shares how Welcome Break has cultivated connection between employees - especially different generations, and made people feel valued and recognised. She also explains the importance of employees getting behind the values and purpose of the organisation and how she's done this.  And she covers why success depends heavily on...

In this episode, we discuss how family-friendly employers can encourage senior dads to be visible as parents with Elliott Rae, Founder of Parenting Out Loud, Equal Parenting Week and Working Dads Summit.  Rae argues senior leaders strongly shape workplace culture and dads’ willingness to take enhanced paternity leave or work flexibly, and explains how fear of judgement and presenteeism drives conc...

If you’re in any doubt that Reward & Benefits can transform culture, or how, and looking for creative inspiration to replicate BA’s success at your organisation, then this episode is a must-listen. Josephina Smith is Reward and Recognition Director at the airline and has boundless enthusiasm for this topic. A former CPO, she sees herself as not a “reward professional” but as a “reward change p...

New figures released on Parent Mental Health Day on January 30th confirmed the hunch that working parents are feeling the strain more than ever. (We wrote about the findings, here, on www.makeadifference.media ). But it can be tricky for employers to know how to support working parents, and how involved to get. Today's podcast guest is trailblazing HR professional Carly Stanley, Chief People O...

Our podcast guest today, Charles Alberts, Global Head of Wellbeing and People Experience at law firm Clifford Chance, tells us why his answer to this question is reverse mentoring. In this episode he explains, alongside his mentor Giulia, why reverse mentoring has been such a powerful experience for both of them, which has built their empathy and understanding of one another 'hugely'. In fact, it...

AI is the biggest workplace behaviour change since the industrial revolution, says this week’s guest, Helen Matthews, former CPO of creative hot houses Weber Shandwick and Ogilvy UK. She’s just completed a qualification in Generative AI in Business from the University of Cambridge and admits to being fascinated by the topic and voraciously consuming anything that mentions it. For her, the biggest...

There’s a lot of truth in the old adage ‘people don’t leave companies, they leave bad managers’.  Bad managers are terrible drains for business because they adversely affect employee engagement, productivity and wellbeing. Not only that, they can collectively impact the organisation’s entire workplace culture, regardless of what the C-suite says the company’s values are. So, how do you ensure you...

Of all the different specialisms, within the wider arena of workplace culture and employee health and wellbeing, DEI has arguably found itself in the eye of a cultural and/or media storm most. And that means the people leading on DEI, or with a remit that touches on inclusion, have often found themselves - very suddenly - the one in the organisation that everyone is looking at to ‘fix’ a cultural...

When your work involves employee health and wellbeing, and you're trying to change culture, you often meet resistance. Sarah Churchman has a wealth of experience facing down taboos, stigma, stereotypes and internal resistance - she worked in HR roles at PwC for 20 years, latterly as Chief Inclusion, Culture & Wellbeing Officer. In this podcast, she talks us through how she does it - taking...

It makes sense that engaged employees are happier and more productive at work but - in this episode - you’ll hear concrete evidence that you can use in your business case that proves this link.  Jo Moffatt, who is Advisory Board member for not-for-profit Engage For Success shares the findings of recent research which highlights the impact of Health and Wellbeing initiatives, and the benefits of li...

It used to be enough to ask a couple of questions about how employees were feeling about their wellbeing in an annual, or twice yearly, survey and that was enough to assess 'engagement'. But those days are over. With hybrid working, geopolitical uncertainty, increasing desire for purpose and a host of other factors, employee expectations have shifted. To talk us through tackling this chang...

With neurodiversity talked about so much more today in the media than ever before, many employees are diagnosing, not only themselves, but their family members too. This, coupled with the long NHS waiting lists for formal diagnoses, means employees are increasingly looking to employers to bridge the gap. But what should they do? And is it reasonable to cover employees' family members too? This...

Today is a very special episode because, for the first time, we have two brilliant guests answering this question not just one - both of them specialise in the legal industry, which is a hot bed for this scenario where managers are under pressure to perform and so, at times, deprioritise people and, even, can lack humanity as well as endangering their own wellbeing. One is Sam Jardine, Partner at...

Have you ever found yourself drawn into that trendy narrative that young people today are SO flaky, needy, impatient, demanding, challenging, obsessed with their mental health and not dedicated enough to their work? Or maybe the line managers you work with have said this to you? Well, this is definitely the episode for you as our guest Alex Smith, Global Lead for Lifestyle, Leisure, and Wellbeing...

Getting the best out of tech suppliers when you are juggling both legacy suppliers you've been with for ages, and the newer, agile tech start ups entering wellbeing, is no easy task. Karen Sancto, Microsoft's EMEA Benefits Consultant brings the benefit of her expertise here to this podcast, exploring this intricate process. She gives us practical, instantly useable advice and, in an increa...

Matt Wilson, the UK Wellbeing Lead for Computacenter, talks candidly about the crisis of confidence he overcame working in the wellbeing industry. Not only because he felt, at times, insecure because he didn’t come from a traditional HR background, but also because he suffered a severe stammer.  He talks with refreshing honesty about his experiences and gives practical advice to anyone else experi...

Balancing high performance with health and sustainability is a huge topic in workplaces currently, especially when the economy is under such pressure.  Dr Monika Misra, who is Group Head of Employee Health and Wellbeing at Mars knows this conundrum very well - so well, she’s even (co) written a book on it! It’s called ‘Healthy High Performance: unlocking business success through employee wellbeing...

It's great when employees are passionate and enthusiastic about spreading the Health and Wellbeing message. But - what do you do if they're not quite the right people you want driving the agenda? What if you need more influential people, especially those not working in Wellbeing or those who are personally invested to drive it? Today's brilliant guest Dr Sabrina Robinson, Chartered Psy...

We know the theory: difference leads to innovation and, ultimately, profitability. But, in practice, working in multigenerational teams can be really challenging and lead to a lot of tension. Patrick Dunne OBE has seen this situation numerous times in his vast experience of business and boards - he's also just co-written a book called 'Five generations at work; how we win together for good...

We've chosen Dr Lia Ali, neuropsychiatrist and digital health innovation strategist for the NHS, as a launch interviewee because of her immense knowledge of being able to pinpoint what actually works - and what WILL work - based on the evidence. She's faced this question numerous times, and talks us through how she tackled it - and her favourite model - the biopsychosocial one. You'll...

Stella Gavinho is Group Head of Wellbeing at Entain and we chose her as one of the launch interviewees for her honesty and warmth, as well as the energy and resilience she applies to problem solving. She talks us through dealing with a significant drop in employee engagement in employee health and wellbeing, with lots of practical and strategic insight. If you like this episode, please like and su...

Our launch guest today - Claire Farrow - founded the Make A Difference Media Leaders Club. In her role as Global Content Director at MAD, she gets to hear leaders from all different sectors and industries open up to her about their biggest challenges. So, she has huge industry-spanning knowledge of what's going on and where the future of work is headed. Today she shares the struggles she hears...

Workplace culture and employee health & wellbeing have never been more important — but leadership in the world of workplace wellbeing can feel lonely, messy and uncertain. On the Leaders Podcast, you’ll hear candid conversations with workplace pioneers, who are shaping the future of work. Here they'll pick apart the real problems they’ve faced, and the lessons they’ve learned - warts and a...