Workplace Geeks

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Chris and Ian are back in the virtual studio with serial social entrepreneur and purpose-driven pirate Sam Conniff, to explore his new project Uncertainty Experts. Described by Sam as an ‘interactive learning documentary’, their discussions explore the motivations behind his latest venture (with collaborators Katherine Templar Lewis, Dr Avri Bilovich and Dr Vivienne Ming), its inventive design, and Sam’s commitment to academically evaluate its impact.

Uncertainty is arguably at an all time high in modern society, and is typically viewed as a negative and debilitating phenomenon because it triggers reactions of fear, fog and stasis. By developing an understanding of and tolerance to uncertainty, we can improve creativity, productivity and resilience, in effect turning fear into action, fog into adaptability, and stasis into connection. A controlled field study evaluation of the Uncertainty Experts intervention demonstrated positive changes in attitudes and behaviour and practice.

New and improved!  🥳  Use the CHAPTERS feature on your pod player for section timings

Learn more💡🤓

• Uncertainty Experts
• Be More Pirate
• Sam Conniff
• Carleton (2016) paper 'Fear of the unknown: One fear to rule them all?'

Email us with questions and feedback: [email protected] 

Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn - don't forget to use #WorkplaceGeeks 💬

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles

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

Chris and Ian are out and about for their very first LIVE episode, recorded at The Workplace Event, Birmingham NEC, UK in April 2022. For this special show they’re joined by Dan Pilling, workplace strategy consultant at TSK Group, and fellow workplace geek. Their discussion explores the scope and value of practical workplace research pre and post pandemic. No PinderPonder™ this week folks (don't hate us) - but instead - some great questions from the audience (thanks to Brock James, Stuart Watts and Steve Henigan)💡🤓

Organizations thinking about workplace change can range from well informed to much less so, and so practical workplace strategy needs to recognise and accommodate both. Early visioning work can enlighten all parties. Much of the workplace data that organizations focused on pre pandemic is now largely redundant, but other research methods and data approaches, like scenario planning, can inform future workplace decisions. Equally, don't overlook the importance of investing in workplace change leadership alongside workspace commissions - the benefits greatly outweigh the relative costs.

🚨*New and improved! - use CHAPTERS feature on your pod player for section timings*🚨

Learn more

• TSK Group
• Dan on LinkedIn
• Dan on Twitter
• The Nowhere Office by Julia Hobsbawm

Email us with questions and feedback: [email protected] 

Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn - don't forget to use #WorkplaceGeeks

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles

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

After a humble apology and a dig into the #WorkplaceGeeks mailbag, Chris and Ian are joined by Susan Halford, Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol, to talk about a very special study indeed. Back in 2005, as Susan published research findings from her case study at ‘Insurance Co’, she used ‘hybrid’ to describe working between home, office and other workspaces. Yes, that’s right. Hybrid. In 2005. Dial yer brains up to eleven ready for this intellectual listen. The findings are every bit as relevant to work and workplace right now, as the name.

Thinking about hybrid working only in terms of different spaces risks oversimplifying the impact of hybrid on people, work and organizations. Hybrid workspaces have ‘relationality’: the different options affect the way work gets done, how people socialize, and how work gets organized and managed. Today, we need to get past opinions and headlines, and gather more empirical evidence to help us understand not just what is going on, but why.

Timings

[00:47] Welcome to Workplace Geeks
[01:47] #WorkplaceGeeks mailbag
[03:47] Introducing Susan Halford and her research
[05:32] *Interview listening guidance and suggestions*
[07:51] Interview starts
[08:50] Sociology, work and workplace
[13:42] The hybrid 2005 research
[32:02] Relevance of findings to hybrid working today
[43:22] BDFI ‘Neutral Lab’
[51:19] The PinderPonder™

Learn more

• The original 2005 Hybrid Workspace paper
• Susan’s University of Bristol profile page
• Bristol Digital Futures Institute page
• BDFI Neutral Lab

Email us with questions and feedback: [email protected] 

Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn - don't forget to use #WorkplaceGeeks

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles

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

Chris and Ian return to Blighty to explore a novel approach to the ‘post-occupancy evaluation’ (or POE) of new workplaces with Dr Harriet Shortt, Associate Professor in Organisation Studies at the UWE Bristol. Harriet and her collaborators used a participatory visual technique featuring smartphone photographs to explore the lived experiences of staff, students and visitors using their shiny new £55m Bristol Business School building. James then joins for a PinderPonder™ to discuss the value of POEs, fluffy research and novel approaches.

Whilst useful learning and evaluation tools in principle, POEs are often uninspiring exercises that only scratch the surface of workplace change initiatives. This visual approach found that only 10% of the findings replicated areas covered by traditional POEs, suggesting the huge potential for untapped insights from richer qualitative work. And all of this from two simple questions:

• How do you feel about the building?
• How are you using the building?

Timings

[00:00] Welcome to Workplace Geeks
[01:19] Introducing Harriet
[04:00] Harriet explains her work and this research
[09:44] Traditional versus alternative POE approaches
[19:04] Paradoxical findings, including pride and identity
[22:38] Open and closed
[27:22] Being open to criticism
[32:34] Demonstrating strategic value
[38:48] Impacts of visibility and transparency
[41:48] Practical advice for trying participant-led photography (PLP)
[48:18] The PinderPonder™
[63:52] Outro and contact us

Learn more

• The UWE POE project website (including the full report download) 
• Harriet’s personal blog / website
• Harriet’s book, ‘Using Arts-based Research Methods’ (co-edited with Jenna Ward, and featuring a chapter by Harriet and Samantha Warren) 

Email us with questions and feedback: [email protected] 

Hit Chris and Ian up on LinkedIn - don't forget to use #WorkplaceGeeks

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles

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

Chris and Ian cross seven time zones to learn from the father of teleworking and environmental activist, Jack Nilles, about the multi-disciplinary research project that led to his 1976 book ‘The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff: Options for Tomorrow’. The conversation explores the motivations behind this seminal study, its prescience, legacy, and ongoing relevance. It also celebrates the tenacity, wisdom and vitality of a living legend: Jack, we salute you.

Teleworking has been proven to be an effective and valued part of hybrid working solutions since the 1970s. The barriers to implementation are rarely, if ever, technological or economic: they are cultural, often specifically managerial, and always have been. Despite this, tried and tested change methodologies can overcome these challenges. Now, more than ever, we need to embrace the many benefits of teleworking, not just for organizational and personal gain, but also as part of our strategies to address the climate emergency.

Timings

[00:00] Welcome to Workplace Geeks
[00:50] Introducing Jack Nilles and the research
[04:17] Recounting origins and motivations of the study
[15:05] Challenges of implementation
[29:46] The pandemic impact and strategies to implementation
[38:35] Climate emergency relevance
[47:55] The PinderPonder™
[59:54] Outro and contact us

Learn more

• Jack’s monthly blog
• The Telecommunications-Transportation Tradeoff book
• Managing Telework book
• The original hybrid workers can teach us how to do it right Wired article

Contact: [email protected] 

LinkedIn: Chris and Ian

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles

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

After another quick dip into the mailbag, Chris and Ian talk to WORKTECH Academy director, author and activist, professor emeritus Jeremy Myerson, about his award-winning research paper from 2011, ‘Space for thought: designing for knowledge workers’ (co-authored with lead-researcher Catherine Greene). The conversation explores the value of creative workplace research approaches, and includes practical advice for inspired listeners. James is back for a PinderPonder™ that also includes a brief debate about outsourcing your ironing.

Novel research techniques, like drawing to elicit visual data, provide user-centric approaches that can unlock surprising workplace insights. But it’s also easy to overlook smaller qualitative studies, in a world where big datasets and statistical analyses often attract the most attention. Yet their value to bring deeper insights about why people work and feel as they do can be used to complement and counterpoint the more common - and typically shallower - what data. 

Timings

[00:00] Welcome and Workplace Geeks mailbag
[04:05] Introducing Jeremy and the research
[06:52] Discussion with Jeremy about ‘Spaces for thought’
[40:51] The PinderPonder™  
[55:17] Outro and contact us

Contact

[email protected]
Chris
Ian 

Learn more

• ‘Space for thought: designing for knowledge workers’ research paper
• WORKTECH Academy
• The Helen Hamyln Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art 
• Lynda Gratton ‘How to do Hybrid Right’ HBR article
• Microsoft ‘The New Future of Work’ research project
• The Workplace Event / The Workplace Conference

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles

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

Chris and Ian get their first piece of mail :D then talk to adjunct professor, author, and workplace strategy consultant Kursty Groves about her book, ‘Spaces for Innovation: The Design and Science of Inspiring Environments’ (co-authored with Oliver Marlow). The conversation explores the book’s design, motivations, then selected coworking case study, interview and workplace theory content. Sadly James is on holiday this week so no Pinder Ponder :( but there are still plenty of insights to discuss.

‘Spaces for Innovation’ is the output of a mixed methods research commission, involving literature review, case studies, ethnographic observations, interviews and workshops. The book is structured around ten sequential themes about workplace change. Only three of these themes are specifically about physical space: spaces for innovation involve social, cognitive and digital spaces too.

Timings
[00:00] Welcome back to Workplace Geeks
[03:35] Introducing Spaces for Innovation
[04:45] Kursty explains the book and its motivations
[20:15] Impact Hub coworking case studies
[25:15] Alex Hillman and Franklin Becker interviews
[27:10] Extending Duffy with Vischer - Kursty’s 5Es of workplace
[40:05] Chris and Ian reflect
[53:38] Get in touch with us!

Contact
Email us:
[email protected]

Hit us up on LinkedIn:
Chris
Ian

Learn more

• Spaces for Innovation eBook
• The Office Chronicles Podcast 
• Shape Work Life - Workplace Strategy Consulting
• Impact Hubs
• The Workplace Event / The Workplace Conference 

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles

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

In this launch episode, Chris and Ian explore what they mean by workplace research, then explore it with two very different ‘workplace experts’: Mark Eltringham from Workplace Insight, and Dr Matt Tucker from Liverpool John Moores University. Armed with new insights, they then interrupt Dr James Pinder for his reflections

Quality workplace research is more important than ever, in an increasingly noisy world of content marketing and thought leadership. But academia plays by different rules. So we need more accessibility, for us all to become better critical thinkers. Which is why you need to subscribe to this podcast!

Timings
[00:00] Welcome to Workplace Geeks - what and why?
[04:07] What is ‘workplace’? (hint - it’s polysemic)
[06:00] What is ‘research’? (hint - planned investigation)
[08:27] Discussion with Mark Eltringham
[18:32] Chris’ reflections about the discussion with Mark
[19:20] Discussion with Dr Matt Tucker
[27:41] The Pinder Ponder
[44:15] Get in touch with us!

Email us
[email protected]

Hit us up on LinkedIn
Chris
Ian

Learn more
Workplace Insight
IN Magazine
The Workplace Event > The Workplace Conference

Promo or the RTO L@S report.

📩 Subscribe for new episodes, events and workplace insight from the Geeks community.

⭐️ Enjoying the show? Follow, rate and review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. It genuinely helps more people discover us.

💬 Got an idea, guest suggestion, or workplace topic we should explore?

Follow Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn
Join the conversation using #WorkplaceGeeks
Or email us at [email protected]

Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audiem ⚡️
Helping organisations make better workplace decisions through AI-powered insight and employee feedback.

Supported by 2468 Group ☕️

🎧 Dialogue editing by David Crackles