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Burnout rarely arrives suddenly. It usually builds quietly. A few late finishes become normal. People stop taking proper breaks. Meetings creep into every gap in the day. The team keeps delivering, so the pressure looks manageable from the outside. Then one day a good person resigns, goes off sick, disengages, or simply stops bringing the energy and judgement they used to bring. By then, leaders are often surprised. They shouldn’t be. Burnout usually gives signals before i

Workload is one of those topics that everyone recognises, but few organisations handle well. People say they are busy. Managers say the team is stretched. Leaders know pressure is high, but the work still needs doing. So the conversation often gets stuck in a slightly helpless place: “Yes, workload is a problem, but what are we meant to stop?” That question is uncomfortable because it moves workload from being a wellbeing concern to being a leadership decision. And that is

Most organisations do not struggle to collect employee feedback. They can run surveys, pulse checks, listening groups, engagement platforms, exit interviews and manager conversations. There is usually no shortage of people data. The harder part is turning that feedback into change. This is where things often break down. People are asked what they think. They give honest answers. The results are shared. Leaders discuss the themes. Actions are promised. Then work gets busy, p

Employee survey results rarely arrive as one neat message. More often, they arrive as a pile of signals. Some scores are lower than expected. Some comments are sharp. Some teams look very different from others. A few themes confirm what leaders already suspected, while others raise new questions. This is where the real work starts. Not in collecting the feedback, but in deciding what to do with it. The problem is that most organisations try to move too quickly from “what di

Employee surveys are meant to create clarity. In theory, they help leaders understand what people are experiencing, what is working well, and where attention is needed. But in practice, the moment after the survey is often where things start to get messy. The results arrive. There are scores, comments, themes, charts, dashboards and probably a few uncomfortable findings. Everyone can see something needs to happen, but the harder question is much less obvious: what should we

Guest writer Magda du Preez, PhD is the driving force behind SENSE. She has a passion for leadership, team development, and organizational psychology. Her academic journey, which includes her PhD from Wits Business School, reflects her commitment to continuous learning and growth. As a part-time assistant professor at Long Island University, she shares her wealth of knowledge in executive MBA courses focused on strategy implementation and organizational development. Her impac

Dave Fearon hosts the Practice? Podcast - taking us into a world of thought that couples work and play, purpose and routine, life and legacy. Dave introduces Kyndra Frazier, a doctoral student studying Organization Development and Change at Bowling Green University. She is well into her career as a pastor, social worker, and consultant and aims to become a chief spiritual officer in a progressive company.

Megan Robinson is a coach, facilitator and public speaker. Her mission is to make leadership approachable and achievable for everyone. How many times have you found yourself saying: “This is something I shouldn’t have to deal with.” “They should know better.” Whether it’s stepping into a departmental conflict, reviewing an unexpected operational failure, or personally engaging with an issue, these are all things leaders often say they “shouldn’t have to do.” But why shouldn’t

The problem with Eisenhower's famous important and urgent matrix is the important but not urgent work never seems to get done. Or at best it happens rarely. If you spend all your time working in "What's the next thing that's going to blow up if I don't deal with it now?"* mode nothing's going to stand a chance of getting your attention unless it needs fixing now. (*That's a quote from a new client when I asked her how she decided what she worked on next. ) It doesn't matter h

Toby Kheng, founder of FreeFormers is on a mission to help small to medium businesses adopt better customer and employee experiences not just as design principles, but also in the way businesses design their HR strategy, build their tech stack and hire a superstar HR/People team. In Moneyball, Brad Pitt’s character, Billy Beane, is trying to build a winning baseball team with zero budget. He goes to the team owner, asking for more money to bring in the best players, only to b

Guest writer Daniel Glyde is a High Performance and Rapid Results coach who works with men. He's the founder of Positive Masculinity and guides driven, ambitious men to prioritise their wellbeing and to perform at their best in every area of their life. . You’ve worked hard, built a solid career or business, you’ve got a few quid, you live in a beautiful house and you drive that brand new Audi you’ve always dreamed of. But you still feel a bit shit. Miserable. Unfulfilled. Yo

Guest write Chloé Minson is a strategic HR consultant. She runs the Culture Co-Lab a company that supports business by support the people inside the business. When people thrive the business thrives. 17-23 March is Neurodiversity Celebration Week 2025. A worldwide initiative that aims to challenge the stereotypes and misconceptions around neurological differences. As HR professionals, people managers, and business leaders, we have a responsibility to create workplaces that en

Paul Crick is the founder of The Elevate Partnership. Enabling senior leaders and their teams to build resilience from the inside our to thrive in uncertainty. A team will never be found to exist on an organisation chart. This small epiphany came to me during a team coaching session, and this post aims to help me think through this idea out loud and encourage others to chip in if moved to do so. The Case For… The domain of music may offer a helpful metaphor to help further co

Guest writer John DePrince is a strategic leader with extensive experience optimizing business operations for many Law firm across America. He specializes in process improvement, KPI analysis, and fostering collaboration to drive productivity and profitability. Effective time management is crucial for achieving success and maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Professionals often juggle multiple tasks, deadlines, and meetings, which can lead to stress and burnout if not ma

Lis Hubert is an acclaimed design and strategy thought leader, writer, and speaker with extensive expertise in Digital Strategy, Customer Experience, Information Architecture, and Design Thinking. It’s tempting to think that only customer-facing roles (like customer service or sales) directly impact the customer experience. But studies show that providing a good employee experience (EX) is essential to business success. In fact, an HBR study showed that companies who moved f

Guest writer Simon Bird is an International consumer goods specialist & Strategic Growth Partner to senior leaders in competitive markets. Are you frustrated by the lack of inspiring options you can see for growth? If your business is starting to feel conventional, or it has it lost its spark and uniqueness then reach for your creative, irrational and emotive self to fire it up again. These instinctive capabilities may feel out of place in a business setting but I would argue

The companies that win aren’t the ones that chase profits. They’re the ones that put people first.

The Secret Recipe for Happiness at Work (and it’s probably not what you think).

Today, the gap between what we know and what we do often feels like it’s growing.

"No 21st century organization can afford to have a culture of fear" - Jim Clifton and Jim Harter Fear in the workplace is nothing new. The old-style ‘command and control’ rule is still very much alive in certain companies where “do as I say,” is the edict, and ‘don’t question my authority’ remains. In this environment, many don’t feel they are empowered to make their own decisions. You may want to dispute me on this, but after working with many millennials and Gen Z clients,