Work and the Future

Anxiety is everywhere, including in the workplace – but can it be used in a positive way? Better yet, are there ways that leaders and organizations can create an environment where anxiety is reduced if not eliminated? To talk about that Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Morra Aarons-Melly,  author of the book The Anxious Achiever: Turn Your Biggest Fears into Your Leadership Superp...

On this 100 th episode of the podcast, Linda Nazareth is joined by Carolyn Byer, Human Resources Lead at Microsoft Canada who was one of the guests early in the pandemic lockdowns. More than two years later, Linda and Carolyn reflect on how organizations had to deal with some new realities, what has been learned over this period of disruption and what has changed particularly for women and for you...

In the future will we all wear headsets and communicate through avatars with our work colleagues? The metaverse is changing much of how we communicate and that has huge implications for the world of work. To talk about the implications Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Mark Purdy, an independent economics and technology advisor based in London who works with companies to get ready for th...

If you have a job and you have kids, you know that one impacts the other.  Logistics is part of it, but there is more as well. Our work impacts our life outside work, and our families, perhaps  more than we think. To discuss the relationship between work and families,  Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by  Maureeen Perry-Jenkins, Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, A...

Getting worker communication right is difficult, but it is at the crux of running an effective organization and the technology that is supposed to help sometimes seems to make things worse. To talk about effective ways to use technology to improve communication, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Nicole Alvino, Founder and CEO  at workforce communications platform Firstup. Guest: Nicole A...

We all know what ‘ imposter syndrome’ is as it relates to the workplace – the idea that you do not really belong, but are faking it as you are surrounded by people more competent than you. Then again, maybe that’s a generational thing and maybe Gen Z will be the first generation that does not feel that way. That is the view of Corey Seemiller, a Gen Z expert and Professor at Wrig...

We all want to be productive, get more done, accomplish more – but it is kind of ironic that the more we think about those things the more anxious we get and the less productive we get. If we want to be productive, we probably should focus on being calm but that is easier said than done. To talk about how we can manage that, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Chris Bailey,  author of the...

Workers are dealing with all kinds of traumas at present, both in their personal and in their professional lives. To talk about that, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by by Katharine Manning, author of  The Empathetic Workplace: Five Steps to a Compassionate, Calm and Competent Response to Trauma on the Job .  They talk about  what can be done to help workers, and more importantly, why it...

A different episode this week as Work and the Future Host Linda Nazareth is interviewed about her just-released book Working it Out: Getting Ready for the Redesigned World of Work.   Special guest Bridgett Anderson, President and CEO of the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, talks to Linda about the forces that are changing the economy and the ways that they are shifting the future of work. Guest:...

Working and making decisions go hand in hand.  Every day we make dozens of decisions some thoughtful and good but others perhaps clouded by emotions or by haste. They are not all wise decisions – but maybe they could be, or maybe more of them could be. To talk about how to make better decisions, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Dr. Jim Loehr and Dr. Sheila Ohlsson Walker,  authors of th...

If we are going to work effectively and have any kind of balance we need to set boundaries, but how we can we do that? In a world where work demands seem to constantly be rising, saying ‘no’ to anything sometimes seems impossible.  To talk about how to set boundaries at work, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Dr. Tracy Brower, a sociologist and the author of  The Secrets to H...

Should organizations force workers to take vacations? With  workers increasing reporting that they are suffering from burnout, it might help if people took time off even if they are forced to do so. To talk about the issues around that, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Joe Alim, VP of product and operations at Compt. He is a believer in mandating vacations, for the good of both workers...

Hybrid work has become the norm in many organizations but it is an uneasy norm, with many details to be worked out. From how many days workers should be at the office to how managers can best connect with workers, many key details are still being worked out, and there are many changes to come. To talk about what is going on and  what might come next, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Col...

If no one is in the office, how can you create a culture? On this episode Linda Nazareth talks to Ken Babcock, CEO and co-founder of Tango, a browser and desktop application that automatically generates how-to guides. Ken leads a fully remote team of 30 people s and he has come up with some strategies and best practices to build connection and culture, and he shares what works and what practices o...

We know that partnerships and teams matter to all organizations but movies are a little different. When you get a team together to make a movie, you are bringing together a lot of creative people and as well a lot of people with competing priorities.  To discuss what makes a good creative partnership, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Angelo Tomaselli,  assistant professor of entrepreneu...

Just about everyone – even if they work independently or remotely –  has to collaborate with other people on occasion. Not everyone likes to do that and not everyone does it well, but when collaboration fails there are real business costs. To talk about how organizations can encourage better collaboration and how people can do it better Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Dr. D...

After work usually comes  retirement, except that the line between the two is not quite what it used to be. With people living longer and with investments not always working out, there are a lot of people aged over 65 who make their way back into the labour force, sometimes by plan by often because after leaving their jobs they realize that they are not yet done with work.  To talk about how this...

Despite the  inroads women have made in the workforce over the past decades, the progress may not be as good as it looks particularly when it comes to the C-Suite. On this episode Monika Hamori, Associate Professor at the IE Business School in Madrid joins Linda Nazareth to take about a study she co-authored looking at 40 years of data on executives in the largest U.S. corporations and what it rev...

The workplace is in a state of flux, and that includes the physical workplace.  It used to be the place we went to because that is where we could work – that was where the computers were and we had to sit in board rooms to meet with each other but that has changed.  To discuss how to create new physical workspaces to go with the hybrid world, Linda Nazareth is joined on this episode by Doug Shapir...

Is it time to deconstruct jobs and how do we do that? On this episode Linda Nazareth is joined by Ravin Jesuthasan, co-author of the Wall Street Journal bestseller Work Without Jobs How to Reboot Your Organization’s Work Operating System.  They talk about why it may be time for a radically new way of looking at work and why the  systems we have now around work are out-dated. Going forward, we may...

Resilience has become a kind of buzzword when it comes to business and when it comes to our lives. We are told to be resilient and to bounce back from setbacks, and we also hear about the need for resilient organizations, especially in the wake of the turmoil in the world. But what to leaders need to understand about resilience and what are they getting wrong about it? To discuss that, Linda Nazar...

The finance sector has been one of the economic leaders over the past few years, with companies seemingly hiring as many workers as they can. And it isn’t just the finance sector…workers with skills in financial analysis have been in hot demand in all kinds of sectors and even if the economy slows a little over the next few years it does not seem like that will change. Then again, technology is di...

This year has been a tough one for a lot of organizations. They have needed workers, sometimes needed them desperately, and it has not been easy to find them and they have been continuously losing them as we go through this thing called the Great Resingnation.   Now there have been a lot of things that companies have tried in terms of attracting and retaining workers, like money and bonuses a...

As we move to new models of work we have sometimes wondered whether remote workers are too isolated but are hybrid workers also isolated – and maybe even lonely? And if that is true, as some evidence suggests, what should organizations be doing to help workers with that isolation? On this episode Linda Nazareth is joined by Dr. Caroline Knight, Research Fellow at the Future of Work Institute...

What do concerns about ESG mean for the future of work? The pandemic aside though, we have a building awareness of what is going on in terms of environmental change in general, and a building awareness of ESG Investing. ESG-of course being the acronym for  E nvironmental,  S ocial, and (Corporate)  G overnance, the three broad categories, or areas, of interest for what is termed “socially responsi...