Do organisations truly understand how their people work? A big question that needed some unpacking and was explored at a recent Workplace Evolutionaries event, led by Tim Allen and Mark Eltringham. Raw audio from the event so includes brief chat about dogs.

It explored aspects of how to encourage organisations to explore their understanding in more detail; how questions around productivity (personal and organisational) can hinder that exploration and set you on a different (and difficult) path that might have more to do with presenteeism and control; how trust is still a dominating factor in the decision-making process; are we mistaking hybrid working for rota working and how is it different to flexible working; where best for creativity and innovation; are we entering a time where organisations need to accept more uncertainty in the short-term as it is a complex area of functionality; it’s about the meetings between the meetings and the individual, informal organisational structure to achieve delivery rather than the official hierarchy.

And then a wider conversation including a discussion on the idea of the 4-day week and other ideas centred on the new era of work.

Do organisations know what their people do?

Workplace Cocktail Hour... with Chris Moriarty

Mark Eltringham is joined for a glass of red wine (or two) by Esme Banks-Marr of BVN architects and Jo Sutherland of Magenta. They discuss the joys of shared space, when people should tell AI to FO, the limits of workplace design, how to create a great culture wherever people work and much more

Workplace Cocktail Hour with Jo Sutherland and Esme Banks-Marr

Take me home, with Mike Petrusky

Domino Risch uses her new found freedom to discuss the limitations of relying on a single place to get work done. Sharing a hot drink over numerous time zones, she chats with Mark Eltringham about what firms get wrong about hybrid and in-office work, the best places to have ideas and how hard the modern world makes it to achieve flow states. They discuss the potential of anthropology to change the way we work. And what the current news about Deutsche Bank's insistence people come into the office on Mondays and Fridays tells us about the avoidable tensions that exist in the tedious debate about remote and office based work.

Going with the flow ... with Domino Risch

Dave, Chris and Ben gather around their microphones to take a broader look at Stoke's current predicament. They are strangely positive, which makes this description writer scared, and they predict a Stoke win against runaway league leaders Manchester City. Listeners who tune in after Monday at 22:00 will realise how wrong they were.

89: Reasons To Be Cheerful Part 89

America, observers are fond of saying, is the only country based upon an idea. That idea—that all men and women are created equal and have inalienable rights to life liberty and the pursuit of happiness—is directly informed by the Enlightenment, the movement that dominated ideas and culture in the 18th century.

But are we still an Enlightenment nation?

"The Enlightenment principle that we can apply reason and sympathy to enhance human flourishing may seem obvious," writes Steven Pinker in his new book Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism and Progress. "I wrote this book because I have come to realize that it's not."

Pinker is a linguist who teaches at Harvard and is the author of The Better Angels of Our Nature, The Blank Slate, and How the Mind Works. He's been named on the top 100 most influential intellectuals by both Time and Foreign Policy.

In this wide-ranging interview with Reason's Nick Gillespie, Pinker explains why he thinks Pope Francis is a problem when it comes to capitalism, nuclear energy is a solution to climate change, and why libertarians need to lighten up when it comes to regulation. He also makes the case for studying the humanities as essential to intellectual honesty and seriousness even as he attacks that "cluster of ideas, which is not the same as the humanities, but just happens to have descended over large sectors of the academic humanities: "the deep hatred of the institutions of modernity, the equation of liberal democracy with fascism, the feeling that society is in an ever-worsening spiral of decline, and the lack of appreciation, I think, that the institutions of liberal democracy have made the humanities possible, made them flourish."

Edited by Todd Krainin. 

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Steven Pinker Wants Enlightenment Now!

We chat to Liam Lawrence about his time at Stoke, and what's happened since. 

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101: Wizards meet... Liam Lawrence

Elina Grigorou is the author of a fantastic new book called Wellbeing in Interiors: Philosophy, Design & Value in Practice. The book looks not only at the ways organisations can use design to address the wellbeing of individuals, but also the impact this approach has on them as individuals in terms of their creativity and productivity. This in turn can have a transformative impact on the organisations for which they work.   

Crucially the book also looks at the philosophical underpinnings of wellbeing as well as the hardwired physical and psychological characteristics of people that mean many of the things we know about wellbeing have been apparent for hundreds or even thousands of years. 

In this episode, Elina is in conversation with Mark Eltringham in the first of a series of Wellbeing Matters podcasts in partnership with Wellworking. The idea for the series came about because of a debate that took place in 2018 and hosted by Wellworking featuring several of the people who have taken part in this series. What became apparent during that discussion was that while wellbeing is one of the most talked about workplace issues it is also one of the most complex, nuanced and yet misunderstood. This series aims to consider the facets of that issue in a sophisticated, informed and provocative way.

Wellbeing Matters Episode 1 - Elina Grigoriou on The Philosophy Of Wellbeing

Dr Sarah Norgate and Sir Cary Cooper have just published an extremely timely new book exploring the links between wellbeing and flexible working. They discuss why firms have been slow to adopt the practice and what they and their employees can do now.

Cary Cooper and  Sarah Norgate on lockdown, flexible work and wellbeing

A regular look at trends in the workplace and wider society and how they relate to people, places and technology

Do organisations know what their people do?

IN Conversation

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