World Changers: Exploring the future of work

Extreme weather events around the globe this year have hammered home the real impacts of climate change. But that means some people have only just woken up to what the rest of us have been banging on about for decades. Companies that don’t address sustainability – and bring their employees along on the journey – invite risk.

It’s a privilege to be environmentally conscious and broadly speaking, climate engagement tends to increase with education and income. But the emergency we’re facing needs more people at the table. Just as diversity supercharges business performance, addressing our impact on the planet demands new ideas, smarter decision-making and the ability to solve problems quickly.

How can we create an equal playing field so we can tackle this crisis together?

In the last episode of the World Changers 2023 podcast series, host Elle Bradley-Cox sits down with senior consultant and scarlettabbott sustainability champion Harry Grout to talk about a fairer climate transition and how small behavioural shifts can create big positive change.

And, when we’re bombarded by messages every day, we asked the team, what was the last sustainability comms campaign that has stuck in your head?

Enjoy the episode and we’ll see you next year for World Changers 2024 …

Cut to the chase

• We ask the team scarlettabbott to share the most effective sustainability comms campaign they’ve seen recently – 01:15

• Sustainability champion, Harry Grout, explains what it means to be carbon literate – 06:52

• How sustainability road maps are useful, and how they can be better – 09:52

• What leaders can and can’t do when it comes to sustainability – 15:20.

Want more?

• Want to get involved in the conversation? Chat to us over on X, formally known as Twitter, @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected] 

• Read the World Changers article All fired up.

World Changers is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.

World Changers: Exploring the future of work

What happens when striving for a better work-life balance has the unintended consequence of complacency? Managers need to have difficult conversations – without drifting back to the bad old days of grind and hustle culture.

Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum says that the pandemic gave us a “rare but narrow opportunity to reflect, reimagine and reset our work”. But that window is quickly closing. And while our relationship with work and our expectations have changed, many leaders’ attitudes haven’t, leading to a fundamental clash when it comes to issues of mental health, wellbeing and development.

In this episode, host Elle Bradley-Cox sits down with director of consultancy Lu McKay to talk about the give/get contract and how leaders can deliver in this new world of work. Yes, we hear horror stories in the news about disconnected CEOs and employees, but when we look at individual cases, the gap is a communication one.

We also asked the scarlettabbott team for some examples of good worker/manager relationships and spoke to Daniel Cave, journalist and head of content at Executive Grapevine. He gave us his take on how the HR and comms space is reacting to changing employee expectations. In short: not that well …

Cut to the chase

• We ask team scarlettabbott what’s happening in our clients’ worlds, specifically when it comes to worker/manager conversations – 01:15

• Daniel Cave gives us the inside scoop on what’s happening in the HR and comms space – 05:52

• Director of consultancy Lu McKay on the sticky middle of line management – 09:29

• How can managers have tough conversations without crossing the line? – 17:06

Want more?

• Want to get involved in the conversation? Chat to us over on X, formally known as Twitter, @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected] 

• Join us for this month’s webinar with our expert voices

• Read the World Changers article Reset or rise.

World Changers is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.

Ep.8 Keeping me sweet

The talent vacuum is real. Too many clever folk are leaving work for countless reasons – many beyond anyone’s circle of control. But one thing businesses can influence is culture.

Companies that resist leaning into this will feel the pain – and cost – of employees leaving in droves. So how do we draw in new talent and hang on to the amazing people we already have? With a clear company culture.

Culture is often seen as a bit of a nebulous concept. Tricky to measure, and hard to quantify, what makes up the DNA of an organisation can be hard to pin down. But not impossible, as Lisa Hawksworth, our director of culture and insights, is on a mission to prove.

In this episode Elle Bradley-Cox sits down with Lisa – who lives, breathes and probably dreams about company culture – to talk about the workplace war for talent and why a cracking culture is the secret weapon.

Cut to the chase:

• We ask team scarlettabbott their reasons for leaving a previous job, and was it sweet or sour? – 01:14

• When comms is one of the hardest working most underappreciated roles, what keeps us sweet? We asked the community – 06:24
• Queen of culture Lisa Hawksworth on how to keep your right-fit talent – 08:20
• What makes a good culture? – 16:12

Want more?

Want to get involved in the conversation? Chat to us over on X, formally known as Twitter, @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected] 

Read the World Changers article Keeping me sweet.

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World Changers is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.

When almost everything is in the cloud, and the amount of data we’re storing is reaching hundreds of zettabytes each year and growing, what happens when the servers crash?

Crisis aside, what happens when our cloud storage becomes full? How do we organise information and make sure that institutional knowledge isn’t lost and that our people have what they need to work collaboratively?

In the latest episode of the World Changers podcast, Elle Bradley-Cox explores this topic with head of creative consultancy and veteran scarlettabbotter, Craig Bentley, who – with 17 years of service under his belt – is basically a walking server.

We also asked colleagues from creative, digital and project management for their biggest filing bugbears and got some handy tips to help you never lose a document again.

CUT TO THE CHASE

• The scarlettabbott team share their file saving solutions – 01:06
• Craig Bentley, head of creative consultancy, on sharing institutional knowledge – 04:29
• How to avoid the dreaded “filename.final.final.v2a” – 07:30
• A real-world example – 12:44

     Want to get involved in the conversation?

Chat to us over on Twitter @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected] 

WANT MORE?  

• Join us for our upcoming webinar with our expert voices  
• Read the World Changers article Digital dark age.

World Changers is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.

Don’t @me 

World Changers: Exploring the future of work 

Episode description: 

The digital working revolution has excited and inspired a generation of workers, who demand the benefits of remote working with digital connection. It’s a way of working that isn’t just feasible, it’s desirable too. But now that many of us are connected with everyone, everywhere, all the time, that sense of community is shifting. 

There’s no denying that digital platforms have changed the way we communicate, collaborate and create community. Once, platforms like Facebook satiated a social need, but now, we’re in an age of curation, purging our platforms and keeping our circles small. 

So in this episode, we asked senior members of the scarlettabbott team to share their tips for dealing with the daily deluge of notifications, especially when there are too many to count. 

Also, host Elle Bradley-Cox sits down with head of digital Tony Stewart for his take on the shrinking workplace network and the changing ways people and businesses are connecting online. 

Cut to the chase 

• Senior leaders at scarlettabbott share how they prioritise those pesky notifications – 01:34 

• Some socials statistics from the comms community – 05:18 

• Our head of digital Tony Stewart on the shifting attitudes to digital platforms – 05:39 

• Digital revolution and the P-word – 14:10 

• What businesses can learn from the gaming community – 17:26. 

  
  

Want more? 

• Want to get involved in the conversation? Chat to us over on Twitter @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected]  
• Join us for this month’s webinar with our expert voices
• Read the World Changers article Don't @me. 

World Changers is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk. 

World Changers: Exploring the future of work  

Your diversity and inclusion (D&I) efforts have bought you progress, but what if it’s time to take a stronger approach? What if, to bring about real organisational change, it’s time to employ the proverbial stick and take a harder stance on calling out and identifying unacceptable behaviours? 

Your people and your prospective employees look to you to create an environment in which everyone can feel and do their best. If your D&I policies are not explicit enough you risk demonstrating your inaction. It’s up tovyou to bring the policies and the progress you want to see happen.

In this episode of our World Changers podcast our host and senior editorial consultant, Elle Bradley-Cox, asks colleagues where they turn for guidance on what is and isn’t acceptable in the workplace.

Elle also sits down with director of client experience, and staunch D&I champion, Russ Norton to discover how you can put your foot down when it comes to inequality and how your attitudes and efforts to D&I may need to change to keep up with progress in your workplace.

Cut to the chase 

· The team shares their sources for where to find reliable and up-to-date guidance on inclusive behaviour – 01:37

· Our head of client experience Russ Norton on the carrot and the stick – 04:10

· What are the risks of a hard-line approach to D&I? – 10:43

· Our internal communication friends share their D&I priority for the next 12 months – 14:48

 Want to get involved in the conversation?

• Chat to us over on Twitter @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected] 
• Read the World Changers article It’s time for the stick: supercharging your D&I efforts.

World Changers is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.   

Episode description:  

Making audiences care is one of the fundamentals of employee engagement. But why is that so difficult? Well, it has a lot to do with trust.

If we don’t trust what we hear, we shut off. And in the world of work, it can have further ramifications: we start to distrust authoritative sources, hear negative tales about our employees and frankly, get tired of the noise. So, who wouldn’t want to turn the volume down?

In this episode, senior editorial consultant, Elle Bradley-Cox, sits down with editorial assistant, Charlie Feasby, to discuss how communicators can overcome the challenge of distrust and disconnect among employees, and the vital role empathy plays in storytelling.

We also speak to members of the scarlettabbott team – and some of our internal comms friends – about what they look for in a trusted news source, and the stories that have stood out from the crowd recently to really strike a chord with them.

Cut to the chase

• What the team looks for in a trusted source – 01:28
• An external perspective: our internal comms friends share their thoughts – 05:41
• How can communicators tackle the challenge of disconnect and distrust? – 08:47
• The bliss point – 14:45 
• Empathy in storytelling – 20:40

Want more? 

• Want to get involved in the conversation? Chat to us over on Twitter @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected]     
• Read the World Changers article Make me care. 

World Changers is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.  

Mind your manners: the new office etiquette 

Subhead: World Changers: Exploring the future of work 

Episode description:  

An increasingly large number of people are back in the office, while others continue to collaborate virtually. So, what virtual-first lessons can we adopt for hybrid working? You might be surprised: it starts with etiquette. 

Everyone knows not to heat up fish in the office microwave or take the last biscuit, right? Because when we’re all in one place, a code of etiquette arises. Yet in our virtual-first worlds of work, we’ve had to learn these unwritten rules – for example, taking turns to shoulder the unsociable meeting times across time zones to adopt asynchronous working.  

In this episode, senior editorial consultant Elle Bradley-Cox talks with cultural anthropologist (and snappy office dresser) Dr Alex Gapud about proximity bias in the hybrid world and how managers can educate their people to get around it.  

The scarlettabbott team gave us some of their workplace pet peeves – like an unannounced call or an ignored Teams message – and we asked the wider comms community for their opinion on the shift in etiquette. 

Cut to the chase: 

• We asked our team: what’s your number one workplace etiquette breach – 00:49 

• The connotations of etiquette – 04:16 

• We asked the comms community: how do you think workplace etiquette has shifted since the move to hybrid working – 05:16 

• The challenge of trust in hybrid working – 07:35 

• In conversation with Dr Alex Gapud – 08:22 

• Explore etiquette further – 21:19 

Want more? 

• Want to get involved in the conversation? Chat to us over on Twitter @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected] 

• Join us for this month’s webinar with our expert voices 

• Read the World Changers article on The new office etiquette.  

World Changes as a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.  

It’s time to dig deep – again. With a long and ugly recession predicted for 2023, employers and employees are going to have to tap into new wells of strengths to survive and thrive. In many cases, that strength is depleted from the chaos and uncertainty of the last three years. So, now’s the time to shore up our internal defences and come together as teammates to weather this latest storm.

Together, senior editorial consultant Elle Bradley-Cox and senior project manager Lucy Stead discuss what resilience in the workplace really means. She speaks openly about having a good team behind you when you’re not performing at 100 per cent, and how her experience trekking in Nepal taught her to break down projects into small, manageable chunks.

We also asked team scarlettabbott when have you had to bend and not break? And who helped you through? They talk about when they have broken and how to recover, resilience during the pandemic, ways to clear your head when things become too much and using times of resilience to grow.

Cut to the chase:

• What does resilience mean in organisations across different industries? – 01:12
• The team talks about being flexible in the face of challenges – 02:20
• Our cultural anthropologist, Dr Alex Gapud, on the role managers play in resilience – 08:10
• In conversation with senior project manager Lucy Stead – 08:44
• Further resources to explore resilience 2.0 – 21:12

Want more?

• Want to get involved in the conversation? Chat to us over on Twitter @scarlettabbott or drop us an email at [email protected]
• Join this month’s webinar [LINK] with our expert voices
• Want to know more about resilience 2.0? Read the World Changers article

World Changes is a podcast by employee engagement consultancy scarlettabbott. Find out more at scarlettabbott.co.uk.

Welcome to World Changers, a podcast exploring the trends making an enduring mark on our world of work; and how business leaders, HR teams and internal communicators can stay one step ahead.

First came the Great Resignation. Then, the Great Re-evaluation. If we’re facing into or living through a Great Recession, what comes next – a Great Rebellion? Naming workplace shifts in people dynamics has become trendy, but it overlooks the fact that it’s individual desires and wishes driving this change. And it’s your workplace rebels leading the charge.

In this episode, Elle Brdley-Cox talked with our lead behavioural scientist, Lindsay Kohler, about rebellion and how to understand the intent behind the dissent. We also hear from members of the team about their acts of workplace rebellion and their rebellious plans for 2023.

Want more?

• Want to chat to Lindsay and expert voice Marva Bailer? Join our webinar
• Want to explore more about workplace rebels? Read the World Changers article