The Evolve Workplace Wellbeing Podcast

In this episode, Dr Helen Fitzhugh of the Evolve team speaks with Professor Cormac Ryan, Professor of Clinical Rehabilitation at Teesside University. Cormac talks about the Flippin' Pain campaign to help people reach a modern, evidence-based approach to understanding and dealing with chronic and persistent pain. He talks about its relevance to the workplace, the feedback the campaign has received from people with lived experience of pain and his team's next steps towards a new Flippin' Pain in the Workplace project. 

You can visit the Flippin' Pain website at:   https://www.flippinpain.co.uk/ 

In this episode Prof. Kevin Daniels of the University of East Anglia speaks with Dr Laura Kudrna, Associate Professor in Health Research Methods and Professor Richard Lilford, Professor of Public Health, Co-Director of NIHR Midlands PSRC, both of the University of Birmingham. They talk about their current research on the topic of WHISPAs: Workplace Health and Wellbeing Initiatives that are Free at the Point of Use to Workplaces. They also detail the evidence and studies that informed the design of their forthcoming work trialling new packages of support and testing if they reduce sickness absence in participating employer organisations.

Find out more about WHISPAs here: www.whispas.co.uk

In this episode Professor Kevin Daniels of the Evolve team at the University of East Anglia speaks with Elizabeth Bachrad, Head of Programme Strategy for Business for Health. Business for Health is a Community Interest Company that focuses on the impact of business on health outcomes. Elizabeth describes findings from the process evaluation of a Trailblazer project supporting people with musculoskeletal conditions. She highlights that what makes the Trailblazer programme interesting is that it doesn't treat employment and health as separate problems.

Business for Health led the process evaluation of the MSK Trailblazer programme, MSK for musculoskeletal conditions, in partnership with Unity Insights and with support from West and North London ICB and local government partners. www.businessforhealth.org 

In this episode of the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing Podcast, Dr Helen Fitzhugh of the University of East Anglia speaks with Dr Katie Elizabeth Green, Senior Lecturer in Leadership Development at Manchester Metropolitan University. Katie draws on her extensive research for the Good Employment Learning Lab to offer insights into the isolation line managers can feel, their wellbeing and the ripple effects of that for team wellbeing. She offers insight into the value of programmes to foster peer learning between managers.  

You can find out more in this report and article: 

Developing collective leadership in an online peer learning community - Katie Elizabeth Green, 2025

How_To_Develop_The_People_Management_Skills_of_Line_Managers_Good_Employment_Learning_Lab.pdf

In this edition of the Evolve podcast, Prof Sara Connolly of the University of Leicester speaks with Dr Chris van Stolk, Executive Vice President at RAND Europe, part of the original Evolve team. Chris was recently on the advisory group to the Keep Britain Working (Mayfield) review due to his longstanding experience on research and action to improve health and wellbeing at work. In this podcast he comments on the urgent need to make progress on maintaining and getting people into employment and highlights the importance of helping young people avoid long-term exclusion from the labour market. 

In this episode, Dr Helen Fitzhugh of the Evolve team speaks with Dr Laura Byrne, lecturer in Human Resource Management and Organisational Behaviour at the Leadership and Management department at Aston Business School, Aston University.  She wrote a PhD thesis on whole-organisation wellbeing strategies in context and shares here useful insights on what makes these successful (or not!) Laura's refreshing and hopeful take on workplace wellbeing includes paying attention to context and the future, as well as focussing on human connection.

She is also carrying out a study on the wellbeing of people professionals and if you are interested, you can sign up to take part here: https://forms.office.com/e/QW0vZWjZiq  (Please note this link will only be live as long as the project is running, you may come across this podcast after the project has closed). 

In this podcast, Prof Kevin Daniels of the University of East Anglia talks with Dr Juliane Opel of the University of Kassel in Germany. They discuss the paradox of high satisfaction amongst entrepreneurs who face working conditions (stress, instability etc.) that are know to lower satisfaction in other types of employment. Juliane draws on her current postdoctoral and previous PhD work, outlining different ways in which entrepreneurs reach a point of satisfaction in face of overwhelming odds.

In this edition of our Evolve podcast, Dr Helen Fitzhugh of the University of East Anglia speaks with Professor Adam Whitworth, Professor of Employment Policy, Scottish Centre for Employment Research at Strathclyde Business School. The conversation covers Adam's research on policies that support people to move into or maintain good quality, well-matched paid work, particularly people with health conditions, disabilities or complex disadvantages. Adam is leading the WISHES project - potentially the largest ever trial of job crafting. More information can be found here for employers interested in finding out more about the trial: Employers – WISHES: Workplace Intervention for Sustainable Health and Employment Support

In this edition of the Evolve Workplace Wellbeing Podcast, Professor Sara Connolly from the University of Leicester speaks with Professor Ying Zhou from the University of Surrey, where she is Director of the Future of Work Research Centre. Her research is focused on job quality, occupation and employee wellbeing and in this podcast she shares findings from her latest work on the Skills and Employment Survey, focusing on meaning and purpose at work. She explains that when people are able to use their skills at work, take initiative and count on supportive managers, they are far more likely to think their work is meaningful. 

In this podcast Dr Helen Fitzhugh of the Evolve team speaks with Prof Alan Felstead, Emeritus Professor of the Welsh Institute of Social and Economic Research Methods and Data (WISERD) at Cardiff University. Alan offers insight into the changing location of work (remote, hybrid and more) and job quality. He draws on personal stories and almost 40 years of research in this area, as well as recently published research from the Skills and Employment Survey: a nationally representative sample surveys of individuals in employment aged 20-65 years old. 

You can find the How Good is my Job quiz here: 

How Good Is Your Job | Take the Quiz

Read Alan's work at:

https://wiserd.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/8.-Is-the-Office-Dying.pdf 

Is job quality better or worse? Insights from quiz data collected before and after the pandemic  

https://routledge.pub/RemoteWorking