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We won! 🎉 Click here to learn how Audiem and Natwest won the 2024 IWFM Impact Awards ‘Corporate Workplace Experience’ category 🥳

We’ve also been shortlisted for a Drum Award 🥁 for The Science of Service podcast from Mitie, with over 100k downloads to date! Click to listen 🤞🏼

Workplace Geeks are media partners for WORKTECH24 London Special Edition. For £150 off the usual ticket price, click here 🎟️


In this, the 50th Workplace Geeks episode (woot woot 🎺) Chris and Ian are joined by Gemma Dale and Hannah Wilson from Liverpool John Moores University to discuss their recent paper from the International Journal of Workplace Health Management called “What is healthy hybrid work? Exploring employee perceptions on well-being and hybrid work arrangements”, co-authored with IFMA’s new Director of Research, Professor Matt Tucker.

Gem is a university lecturer, flexible and hybrid working specialist, author, coach, HR director and board advisor. Hannah is a Reader in Workplace Psychology, DBA Programme Leader, and also Gem’s Director of Studies for her own doctorate – of which this paper brings some key findings together. We learn that context is king, especially when it comes to hybrid, the perennially emotive topic where one man’s meat is another man’s poison (as the proverb goes).

Simon Iatrou from Magenta Associates is on reflection section duties to expose workplace aphorisms, while dutifully being accompanied by some noisy Brighton seagulls. 🩷

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem ⚡️To discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience, get in touch 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

Send the Geeks a message, instantly!

📣 Brand new FREE Audiem webinars featuring special guests | The 7 habits of AI-powered workplace leaders | register here 🤓

🌟 Workplace Geeks are media partners for WORKTECH24 London Special Edition. For £150 off the usual ticket price, click here 🎟️

The Workplace Event's Workplace Leaders Top 50 awards are in their second year, and the Geeks were honoured to be invited to speak to the winners. Each of these special episodes will feature small but perfectly formed chats with three winners🏅

In this third episode we're in conversation with Nicola Morris (ISS), Alistair Scott (IEM) and Steph Welch (Arup). The overarching theme of all three discussions is Workplace and FM as a career of choice (or most likely not) and all the inspiring, creative, equitable and disruptive ways to do something about it. Here's what we asked them:

• How did you get into the workplace sector?
• ⁠⁠What’s different about it now compared to then?
• What does the sector need to be better at, and why?
• ⁠⁠What advice would you give an up and coming workplace leader?

Thanks to obo for providing the Mute recording booth at The Workplace Event and to MJF Interiors for their excellent Workplace Geeks podcast lounge

Learn more 🌱🧠

• The Workplace Leaders Top 50
• Stemazing
• ISS
• IEM
• Arup

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem ⚡️To discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience, get in touch 🫱🏻‍🫲🏼

Send the Geeks a message, instantly!

🌟 Workplace Geeks are media partners for WORKTECH24 London Special Edition. For £150 off the usual ticket price, click here 🎟️

The Workplace Geeks are back with another WORKTECH Events special, and this time it's a PREVIEW of the forthcoming WORKTECH24 London Special Edition three-day extravaganza! (don't forget our exclusive ticket discount for Geeks listeners - link above☝🏼)

As part of Unwired Ventures, WORKTECH Events is a global conference series exploring work, workplace, technology and innovation, with an annual roster of events from LA to Auckland.

This episode features three conversatios with speakers who will be on stage in London on Wednesday 20 November. First up, futurist, tech entrepreneur and author Ajay Chowdhury talks broadly about future tech, AI, and the future of work and education.

Next up, researcher, academic and creator of the 15-Minute City concept, Professor Carlos Moreno, explores the placemaking legacy of Jane Jacobs and the godfather of telework Jack Nilles in relation to or sustainable global future.

Finally, EMEA regional manager at XY Sense, Jane Watson, discusses the relationship between workspace data and the metrics that matter, based on organisational context.

Workplace Geeks: always caring about your workplace education!

📣 Brand new FREE Audiem webinars featuring special guests | The 7 habits of AI-powered workplace leaders | register here 🤓

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem. Get in touch to discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience⚡️

Send the Geeks a message, instantly!

🌟 Workplace Geeks are media partners for WORKTECH24 London Special Edition. For £150 off the usual ticket price, click here 🎟️

Chris and Ian are joined by postdoc researcher Jana Retkowski and associate professor Ella Hafermalz, both from the KIN Center for Digital Innovation at VU Amsterdam, to discuss ‘Managing a ChatGPT-empowered workforce: Understanding its affordances and side effects’, co-written with professor Marleen Huysman.

Hot off the press this autumn as part of a FREE special edition of Business Horizons, ‘Written by ChatCPT’, the paper captures the zeitgiest when ChatGPT exploded late 2022, and explores the outcomes as early adopters moved from ludic tinkering to early workplace adoption. Spoiler alert - the genie's out of the bottle, and leaders need to consider the intended and unintended consequences of generative AI in the workplace.

With thanks to WORKTECH Events for making the introductions for this episode. And to top if off, we’re joined by Kasia Maynard, Head of Research and Editorial at WORKTECH Academy on reflection section duties.

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem. Get in touch to discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience⚡️

Send the Geeks a message, instantly!

📣 Brand new FREE Audiem webinars featuring special guests | The 7 habits of AI-powered workplace leaders | register here 🤓

In this episode Chris and Ian are back with the second second instalment from The Watercooler Event at London ExCeL. Described as 'the leading workplace culture and employee wellbeing show in Europe', the show blends the people angle of workplace (The Watercooler) with the workspace design and management side (The Office) - and this second episode focuses on the former!

Like our previous event specials, this episode features a sequence of mini-interviews, mainly with Ian, and then Chris joining the dots inbetween. So first, we hear from ex-Premier League footballer and mental health ambassador Clarke Carlisle with his wife Carrie Carlisle (author of Shut Up Alcohol), about their very own lived experience of family, neurodiversity and mental health. Next, Ian speaks to business psychologist and male allyship specialist (LinkedIn) Lee Chambers about the intersection between disabiltiy, wellbeing and inclusive workplace design.

So how does this translate directly into workplace delivery? Well, let's take three angles. From a legal and compliance perspective, we can learn from psychologist, and HSE expert Peter Kelly, who was there as the very notion of workplace wellbeing emerged from HSE, risk and stress considerations to become a growing wellbeing movement. Spoiler alert - there's still a tension between the organisational and the individual which needs careful attention. On that note, leadership is crucial, so Ian talks to Nia Thomas (author of The Self-Awareness Superhighway) about her passion, self-aware leadership. Finally, Chris talks to editor of the Journal of Biophilic Design, the lovely Vanessa Champion, about how the design of the workplace - and biophilic design more generally - can influence wellbeing. As Vanessa puts it, "for planet and people, simple really."

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem. Get in touch to discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience⚡️

Send the Geeks a message, instantly!

📣 Audiem has been nominated for three IWFM 2024 Impact Awards, two in partnership with NatWest. Read the success story here⚡️

Well well... the opportunity of a four-day working week for everyone. Bet that got your attention. It certainly piqued the Workplace Geeks', so on this episode Chris and Ian are joined by Joe Ryle, director of the UK’s 4 Day Week Campaign, (alongside his role as Media and Comms Lead for future of work think tank Autonomy) to explore the pilot evaluation paper from early 2023 called 'The results are in: The UK's four-day week pilot'.

Rather than being peer-reviewed for academic publication like much of the work on the show, this one is available directly from Autonomy. That said, the evaluation work was undertaken independently by a team of academic researchers mainly from Boston College, who handled the quantitative data, and the University of Cambridge, who handed the qualitative side of things.

And if that wasn't enough, the legendary Perry Timms, Chief Energy Officer and founder of PTHR, joins the Geeks for the reflection section both to offer insights from PTHR's own perspective - they were an early UK adopter - and also to reflect on the sort of senior leader perspectives he experiences about the movement.

Learn more 🌱🧠

• UK four-day week pilot review paper
• Joe Ryle
• 4 Day Week Campaign (UK)
• 4 Day Week Campaign (global)
• Autonomy
• Perry Timms
• PTHR

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem. Get in touch to discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience⚡️

Send the Geeks a message, instantly!

📣 Brand new FREE Audiem webinars featuring special guests | The 7 habits of AI-powered workplace leaders | register here 🤓

Workplace topics are often fascinating, complex and deeply relevant to millions of people. In all three of these respects, this episode feels really important. Chris and Ian are joined by two past guests to explore long COVID, first academically, and then personally.

For the first part, Dr Jo Yarker, Professor of Organisational Psychology at Birkbeck, University of London, and Director of Affinity Health at Work, shares key findings from a recent paper called “It’s a rollercoaster”: the recovery and return to work experiences of workers with long COVID. The paper was published in Work & Stress in 2023, and was co-written with longtime collaborator Dr Karina Nielson, Professor of Work Psychology at The University of Sheffield.

Then for the following reflection section, Dr Kerstin Sailer, Professor in the Sociology of Architecture at University College London (and black belt third dan space syntax ninja of the highest order) joins Ian while Chris was elsewhere, to talk very openly and honestly about how living and working with long COVID has affected her for the past three years.

Huge thanks to Jo and Kerstin for helping put this one together - we hope you think the Workplace Geeks have done this incredibly important topic justice. If you think other people would benefit from the insights, please spread the word.

🤩 Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word - thank you please! 🙌🏼

Learn more 🌱🧠

• "It's a rollercoaster" access to the full paper
• SOM Long COVID infographic
• SOM Long COVID mythbuster
• Affinity explainer about IGLOo model
• Jo on LinkedIn
• Jo at Birkbeck, University of London
• Affinity Health at Work
• Affinity Health resource library
• Kerstin on LinkedIn
• Kerstin on Mastodon (her preference to Twitter)

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem. Get in touch to discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience⚡️

Send the Geeks a message, instantly!

📣 Brand new FREE Audiem webinars featuring special guests | The 7 habits of AI-powered workplace leaders | register here 🤓

🏅The Workplace Event's Workplace Leaders Top 50 awards are in their second year, and the Geeks were honoured to be invited to speak to the winners. Each of these special episodes will feature small but perfectly formed chats with three winners 🤩

In this second episode we're in conversation with EDI standard-bearer Lucy Golding, the self-proclaimed fabulous CPO Alishya Artwell, and ex-dancer-cum-workplace change consultant Jennifer Bryan. Here's what we asked them:

• How did you get into the workplace sector?
• ⁠⁠What’s different about it now compared to then?
• What does the sector need to be better at, and why?
• ⁠⁠What advice would you give an up and coming workplace leader?

Thanks to obo for providing the Mute recording booth at The Workplace Event and to MJF Interiors for their excellent Workplace Geeks podcast lounge

Learn more 🌱🧠

• The Workplace Leaders Top 50
• Lucy Golding
• JLL
• Alishya Artwell
• Pareto
• Jennifer Bryan
• ABChange

Hit Chris and Ian up and follow @WorkplaceGeeks on LinkedIn

...and don't forget to use the hashtag #WorkplaceGeeks 💬

Remember to rate, review and recommend the show to help us spread the Workplace Geeks word 🙌🏼

What do you think of the show? Any ideas, topic or guest suggestions? 🤔 Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn, post comments using #WorkplaceGeeks, follow @WorkplaceGeeks, or email us at hello@workplacegeeks.org 💬

Workplace Geeks is sponsored by 2468 Group ☕️ and brought to you by Audiem. Get in touch to discover how AI-powered data insights can transform your employee workplace experience⚡️