Working It

When companies lay off thousands of workers at a time, how much do they think about those left behind? Sudden job cuts can sever the bond of trust between employers and their remaining workers. Host Isabel Berwick asks Sandra Sucher from Harvard Business School whether that trust can be repaired, and the FT’s management editor Anjli Raval talks about research into the effects of mass lay-offs. Plu...

Lay-offs in some sectors of the US economy have reached levels not seen since the height of the pandemic. Tech and banking sectors have been hit hard and the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank is bringing more uncertainty. But if headcount has to be cut, how should managers decide who to lay off ? Host Isabel Berwick hears from the FT’s US Financial Editor Brooke Masters on how companies ar...

There's shareholder pressure not to allow directors to take on too many board seats at once, something that’s been called ‘overboarding’. Non-executive directors can now find themselves voted off a board by investors if they believe a director is spreading themselves too thinly to do a good job. So how many board positions is too many? Host Isabel Berwick hears from the FT’s management editor Anjl...

Experts say more and more countries are inching towards greater pay transparency as a tool to address unfairness and inequity, such as the gender pay gap. Host Isabel Berwick hears from the FT’s Nordic correspondent Richard Milne about Norway’s experience of radical pay transparency and discusses the pros and cons of ending salary secrecy with the FT’s US labour and equality correspondent, Taylor...

Many of us see our work colleagues just as much, if not more, than friends and family – or at least, that was the case before March 2020 and the Covid lockdowns that followed. So how crucial are these workplace friendships in luring employees back to the office after several years of working from home? And is there an inevitable trade-off between climbing the corporate ladder and keeping up your w...

Host Isabel Berwick describes herself as an extrovert but she has introverts in her team. So what should she bear in mind to ensure they perform at their best? Isabel gets advice from self-described ambitious, anxious introvert Morra Aarons-Mele, who hosts The Anxious Achiever podcast and is the author of an eponymous upcoming book, and hears from colleague Kesewa Hennessy, the FT’s head of audien...

There are a lot of stereotypes about millennials - meaning anyone born between 1981 and 1996 - but perhaps the biggest one is that they have an overwhelming sense of entitlement. Host Isabel Berwick unpicks some of the tropes with Emily Bowen and Shelley Johnson, workplace experts and hosts of the popular Australian podcast My Millennial Career, while the FT’s US labour and equality correspondent,...

Research shows more than half of women in the UK are thinking of leaving their job, or have left their job, because of a lack of workplace flexibility. Host Isabel Berwick speaks to Janine Chamberlin, UK country manager at the social platform LinkedIn, and to Sarah O’Connor, the FT’s employment columnist, about the enduring workplace stigma around pregnancy and return from maternity leave and asks...

How do you move on from professional failure, from missing out on the job you coveted or messing up in your role? Host Isabel Berwick hears from Farrah Storr, head of writer partnerships for Substack UK and previously the editor of the UK edition of Elle, Cosmopolitan and Women's Health, about what went on behind the scenes in her very successful career, while Brooke Masters, the FT's US financial...

2022 was the year of hybrid and flexible working, side hustles and talent wars, but will any of these trends stick in 2023? Host Isabel Berwick looks at what’s in store for the workplace in the year ahead with FT colleagues Taylor Nicole Rogers, the US labour and employment correspondent, and Sophia Smith, Working It newsletter editor. FT subscriber? Sign up for the weekly Working It newsletter wi...

Why do so many workplaces spend so much money to put on a Christmas party? And how do you face your colleagues if you think you may have embarrassed yourself at one? Host Isabel Berwick sources advice from Jo Hemmings, a behavioural psychologist, while Jo Ellison, editor of the FT’s luxury lifestyle magazine HTSI, argues the case for making the most of the office Christmas party. Plus, Timothy Dow...

The Financial Times Business Book of the Year prize was set up in 2005 with the simple mission of finding and rewarding each year’s most “compelling and enjoyable” read. Earlier this month, the £30,000 award went to Chris Miller’s Chip Wars , a book that reads like a thriller about the battle for dominance in the semiconductor industry. Host Isabel Berwick is joined by Andrew Hill, the FT’s s...

It has been billed as the biggest overhaul of the working week since the carmaker Henry Ford introduced the five day week in his factories almost a century ago. A number of UK companies have signed up to trial a four-day week, with no loss in pay for employees. In the last of this four-part series about the trial, host Isabel Berwick speaks to the FT’s Emma Jacobs who tracked four companies taking...

A host of UK companies have been taking part in a six-month trial aimed at overhauling the traditional five-day working week. They’ve structured their businesses to work on a four-day week instead, with no loss in pay for employees. In the third episode of this four-part series about the trial, host Isabel Berwick hears from the FT’s Emma Jacobs who has been speaking to consultants and academics a...

It’s billed as the biggest overhaul of the working week since the carmaker Henry Ford introduced the five-day week in his factories, almost a century ago. A number of UK companies have signed up to trial a four-day week, with no loss in pay for employees. In the second episode of this four-part series about the trial, host Isabel Berwick hears from the FT’s Emma Jacobs who’s been speaking to emplo...

A host of UK companies have been taking part in a 6-month trial aimed at overhauling the traditional five-day working week. They’ve structured their businesses to work on a four day week instead, with no loss in pay for employees. The trail is being coordinated by 4 Day Week Global in partnership with the UK think tank Autonomy, the 4 Day Week UK Campaign and researchers at Cambridge University, B...

A recent survey in the US found that four in 10 employees had left a job because they felt their values were stigmatised, but how does that sit with a growing number of companies and chief executives making public commitments to diversity and inclusion? Host Isabel Berwick hears from Octavius Black, CEO and co-founder of Mind Gym, which uses behavioural science techniques to improve culture and pe...

HR has an image problem. For some managers, the phrase “human resources” has become synonymous with the idea of needless corporate policies that get in the way of growth. From the employee's perspective, there is often doubt on whether HR is there to protect them - or the company. Host Isabel Berwick speaks with Jamie Fiore Higgins, an author and executive coach who spent 18 years at Goldman Sachs...

Businesses are competing to attract the people they consider the most skilled workers, but if hiring challenges can be described as a war, then the past two years have been one long battle. Host Isabel Berwick hears from Tyler Cowen, an economist and co-author of a new book called ‘Talent’, about how to spot and retain the skilled recruits, and from FT management editor, Anjli Raval, about how ski...

Tens of millions of people worldwide are believed to be suffering from long Covid, experiencing symptoms lasting for more than four weeks after they had Covid-19. Host Isabel Berwick speaks to Jana Javornik, associate professor of employment relations at the University of Leeds, about how she’s juggling her workload with long Covid symptoms, and Sarah Neville, the FT’s global health editor, explai...

A workplace without bosses sounds... idyllic. In this episode, Isabel explores the topic of flat hierarchies with Alexis Gonzales-Black, an expert in organisational design. A few years ago, Alexis helped Zappos, the Amazon-owned online shoe business, to bring in ‘Holacracy’. The experiment wasn’t a total success, as we hear, but Alexis talks about how leaders can step back and make the most of emp...

We’ve probably all had one: a boss whose traits include a grandiose sense of self-importance, a need for excessive admiration, a lack of empathy and a sense of entitlement. They’re all traits of a narcissist. Psychologist Dr Ramani Durvasula, an expert in the subject, tells host Isabel Berwick, the FT’s work and careers editor, why so many narcissists end up in positions of leadership, and how to...

The Harvard Business Review once published a damning report about middle managers, saying that the very title “evokes mediocrity”. Was that fair? And what does it take to be a good middle manager? Host Isabel Berwick, the FT’s work and careers editor, discusses with Andrew Hill, the FT’s senior business writer and former management editor.  Want more? Andrew Hill on why being a manager matter...

Fans of business and work podcasts won’t need any introduction to Steven Bartlett ( Diary of a CEO ), Bruce Daisley ( Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat ), Jenna Kutcher ( The Goal Digger Podcast ) and Emma Gannon ( Ctrl Alt Delete ). All of them host successful podcasts about our working lives. Working It host Isabel Berwick hears about what they see as the big workplace issues for the next year, touching...

We’ve all come across them in the workplace: the tyrannical boss, the person who puts you down in order to build themselves up, the passive aggressive co-worker. Taylor Nicole Rogers, the FT’s US labour and equality correspondent, stands in for Working It host Isabel Berwick, to source tips on managing difficult colleagues. She hears from author and podcaster Amy Gallo, an expert in conflict, comm...