The Human Factor Podcast

It has been over one hundred years since the job interview was started by the inventor of the alkaline storage battery, movie camera and the lightbulb – that person was Thomas Edison. In 1921, Edison was a genius and frustrated with the university graduates who would ask him for a job, and so he developed a general knowledge test. The questions were a mix of literature, history, geography, with so...

By 2025 27% of the working population will come from the GenZ population. When we look at the changing demographic, the age profile is shifting quite significantly. There is a greater influx of younger talent moving into the workplace and in years to come will be the future leaders of those respective organisations. One of the greatest gifts and challenges however when working with young talent is...

Paying people for services delivered has been around for millenia. In the early days, the currency of pay was commodities such as food, salt, grain, clothes, land grants, shelter and even beer. But payroll as a term started to gather pace in the 17 th century and Payroll as a term can be traced back to around the middle of the 18 th Century. Payroll itself being an amagulation of two words to indi...

At some point, we have all likely set goals for ourselves. Whether they are new years resolutions, goals for work, or personal goals the process we went through may have been different. Goals to give up smoking, take the dog for more walks, or losing weight may feature in our home life, and at work, goals such as securing a volume of sales, or increasing customer satisfaction could be set to measu...

Throughout our careers, many of us will fondly recall successful teams we were a part of with a smile and a glint in our eyes. We will reminisce about the bonds and connections made and the mutual success achieved. There will have been something about the team which made it special – the key question – what was it? What specifically made that team successful and a pleasure to be part of. On...

Guests: Mark Brooks Lewis, Founder & CEO of LavaSource HR, and Tom Holmes, Co-Founder and Director of Veran Performance During our podcast series, the role of HR has been central to many of our conversations. As the custodian for people, HR arguably has a more important role than ever in charting a course into the next phase of the world of work. Over the last 50 years, HR as a function has be...

Guest: Caroline Goyder, Global Voice Coach, Author and TedX Speaker When I was very young – the thought of public speaking was the most terrifying thought. My parents would often encourage me to compete in the Eisteddfod – a welsh festival of the arts where people would compete against other schools in singing competitions or recitals – I would take par...

Guests:  Helen Adams, Senior Director of Global HR Transformations at Walgreens Boots Alliance, and Ann Hawkins, Transformational Lead at Walgreens Boots Alliance Change is constant and all around us. Some change only affects us, and as such, is easier to stay in control of. But organisati...

Guest Speaker: Caitlynn Sendra The world of work is changing, and our series of podcasts has been touching on different aspects of these changes. One area we haven’t yet covered is the topic of user experience and adoption. A badly designed technology solution can kill a project very quickly. But we are seeing an explosion of technology solutions now in our daily lives – internet ba...

Guest: Russell Martin, Head Coach, Swansea City Football Club A question – What do people want from their place of work? A fair answer – they want to enjoy it. I think that is a fair assumption. There are often other contributing factors too – People want to perform at their best, they want to achieve something, they want to grow, they want to feel app...

Guest: David Hieatt, Co-Founder of Hiut Denim and Co-Founder The DO Lectures Our brand is a commitment. It is a commitment to our customers and to the people who work with us. It signifies something, it means something. It connects people, creates communities and it can inspire. Many brands bring with them a philosophy – a desire to do somethi...

Guest: Jason Averbook, CEO of Leapgen For the last 18 months, we have talked about nothing but the impact of Covid and the pandemic and what it means to the world of work. We have debated at length where we will work, how we will work, the role of HR in facilitating these changes and what the implications are for organisations that don’t reimagine and evolve. In this episo...

Guest:  Dr Adriana Marais, Theoretical Physicist, Technologist & Founder of Proudly Human For many of us that are considering a new role, we look at the usual items such as pay scale, location, what is the manager like, what skills do we need and so on. But what if there is no baseline? What if that new role is to create something ent...

Guest Speakers: John Amaechi OBE, Organisational Psychologist and Founder APS Intelligence and Michiel Verhoeven, UKI Managing Director at SAP.  As we continue to adapt to the changing conditions created by the pandemic, a raging debate is taking place on what the world of work should look like. Is it virtual...

Guest Speakers: Nicola Johnson, Director of Centre of Excellence at Bentley Motors and Jane Harrington, HR Digital Transformation Manager at Bentley Motors. The disruptive nature of the world we live in today is forcing us to change. Adapt or don’t exist is a comment that we have spoken about on the...

Guest Speaker:  David Williams, Founder & CEO Impact International The old adage has always been “that people leave bosses/leaders and not organisations”. It is a common tail. No matter how much truth there is in that statement, it is clear that at all levels of an organisation from a first line manager to a senior executive, a leader can have a mat...

Guest Speaker:  Professor Damian Hughes – The Liquid Thinker For many years, there have been countless studies to understand what constitutes “performance” It is something that we all marvel at, whether it be on the stage in the west end, or a musician at a concert or your favourite sports player performing at the top of their game. It can take our brea...

Guest Speaker:  Mark Cunningham, CEO, Anchorstone Consulting We have never gathered as much data as we do today. This is also true for HR within an organisation. Gone are the days of personnel files held in dusty file cabinets. The challenge is what to do with it. Keep it, discard it, mine it, trust it, share it, etc. With the advent of GDPR we also need to be ve...

Guests:  Meg Bear, Chief Product Officer, SAP SuccessFactors and Marc Havercroft, Chief Customer Officer, SAP SuccessFactors   For the last 20 years, we have talked about, creating an experience based on self-service. There was this drive to enable people to own their data, performance, career and be in contr...

Guest : Harriet Green OBE, Global Business Leader | Executive Chair, Mission Beyond | Board Member | Influencer and Mentor | Diversity & Inclusion Activist As we continue to operate and work in highly disruptive and changing times, having absolute clarity on your vision and p...

Guest Speaker:  Vikas Shah MBE DLEntrepreneur | Non-Executive Director | Investor Over the last 5 years, as we have moved into the “era of experiences”, we have become much more mindful of the experiences that we create for our people. We hear statements such as “being human centric”, “creating a great employee experience”, “treating colleague...

Guest Speakers: Elaine Bergin, Director of Colleague Experience Delivery, BT and Leila Romane, Head of HXM for SAP SuccessFactors, SAP We have often remarked that without the required capability, it is impossible to change/transform, but just because you have the capability, it doesn’t mean you will. In essence, choosing a solution or technology is often the easy bit, but actually getting an organ...

Guest Speakers: Steve Johnson, MD  & Lisa Johnson, Projects Director, Dynamic Business Services and Donald Ross, Head of Learning and Development Solutions, SAP EMEA North The topic of learning and content has arguably come into more of a sharper focus in recent times. The sh...

Guest Speaker: Gethin Nadin, Multi-award-winning Psychologist • HR Author • Inspiring Leader 2021 • 2x Top Global EX Influencer • 4x HR Influencer • Chief Innovation Officer at Benefex/Zellis • Wellbeing & Employee Experience Expert • FRSA • The topic of employee well-being and employee experience have become somewhat intertwined in recent times. There is no doubt, that organisations are placi...