Working It

We’ve heard a lot about diversity and inclusion in workplaces, but one group is often left behind: people with disabilities, visible and invisible. Given that millions of people were allowed to work flexibly during the pandemic, how can we extend that mindset shift to make permanent improvements for staff with disabilities? In this episode Isabel Berwick talks to campaigner Caroline Casey, founder of the Valuable 500, an alliance of 500 global chief executives who are committed to disability inclusion. Caroline points out that the silence at the top of companies sets the tone for everything that happens - since CEOs aren’t coming out as having lived experiences of disability, that allows inertia further down in their organisations.  For an account of how it feels to be a neurodiverse employee, and the benefits that this difference brings to a team - Isabel talks to Naomi Rovnick, an FT markets reporter who was recently diagnosed with dyspraxia.  Caroline and Naomi offer some practical next steps for managers and leaders in any organisation: it’s time to be open about disability. Want to read more? How employers ‘ghosted’ one young journalist with a declared disability by Isabelle Jani-Friend https://www.ft.com/content/e91c8785-8517-4f1a-b471-c80e80d6d8e2The hidden workplace skills of those with dyspraxia by Sarah Laitner https://www.ft.com/content/b4255c98-ca7a-11e5-a8ef-ea66e967dd44FT special report on modern workplaces and disability  https://www.ft.com/reports/modern-workplace-disabilityCaroline Casey’s Valuable 500 survey on disability and inclusion reporting among FTSE 100 companies, run in partnership with British media group Tortoise  https://www.tortoisemedia.com/disability100-report/FT subscriber? Sign up for the new weekly Working It newsletter. We’ll cover all things workplace and management - plus exclusive reporting on trends, tips and what’s coming next. One click sign up at www.ft.com/newslettersWe love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan and Manuela Saragosa. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In the first of a two-part series on the end of work as we know it, Isabel talks to two of the FT’s experts on employment and work trends - Sarah O’Connor in London and Taylor Nicole Rogers in New York. As record numbers of people quit their jobs, refuse to return to offices, or simply put a brake on their time-sucking ‘greedy jobs’ like corporate law and investment banking, this post-pandemic moment marks a profound shift in our relationship with work.  Have we really left the 9-5 behind to renegotiate how we feel about work and our employers? Taylor talks about the stunning success of the Reddit antiwork forums, and other ways in which workers are reclaiming their time and identities, while Sarah points out that there really are millions of people who have left our workforces. This is a topic FT readers can’t get enough of - and Isabel will be chewing over some of their spiciest comments.  Listen out for the next episode in the series focusing specifically on The Great ResignationWant to read more? Taylor Nicole Rogers on the anti-work movement https://www.ft.com/content/1270ee18-3ee0-4939-98a8-c4f40940e644Sarah O’Connor interviews economist Claudia Goldin about the ‘greedy jobs’ phenomenon https://www.ft.com/content/92be2a2d-aee3-48c5-922b-84eea37072f8Pilita Clark talks to the man who coined the phrase ‘The Great Resignation’  https://www.ft.com/content/3e561d41-0267-4d40-9c30-01e62fa9c10fSarah O’Connor on quitting your job https://www.ft.com/content/ad9f2346-19ef-4695-b6c9-c0983176eb23More background on China’s ‘lying flat’ movement  https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/the-lying-flat-movement-standing-in-the-way-of-chinas-innovation-drive/FT subscriber? Sign up for the new weekly Working It newsletter. We’ll cover all things workplace and management - plus exclusive reporting on trends, tips and what’s coming next. One click sign up at www.ft.com/newslettersWe love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan and Manuela Saragosa. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we delve into perhaps the workplace's most divisive issue: should you bring your dog to the office? Isabel (a cat person) talks to Lindsay Bumps (dog person), from Ben & Jerry’s ‘K9 culture committee’. The ice-cream maker has had dogs in its offices since the 1970s, so it knows how to get the balance right for everyone: the animals, their owners and even the 10 to 20 per cent of the population who are allergic to dogs. What can Ben & Jerry's teach the managers who are just starting to allow pandemic pooches in the workplace?Then, Isabel talks to Henry Mance, the FT’s chief feature writer and author of How to Love Animals: In a Human-Shaped World. Henry has written for the FT about the boom in office dogs — and he thinks there are many benefits to having pets in our workplaces. Can he win round Isabel and her fellow office-dog sceptics? Want to read more? Henry Mance on dogs in the office  https://www.ft.com/content/b25d8001-3ca5-4927-a990-7027acc6e4ccWe love animals — why do we treat them so badly? Henry Mance in the FT https://www.ft.com/content/fdc7ae21-bd59-4887-8417-7905d57b67baSome cute photos of Ben & Jerry’s K9-5ers  https://www.benjerry.com/about-us/our-k9-5ersWe love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts — please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michele Romanow and Andrew D’Souza are the co-founders of Clearco, a $2bn lender to ecommerce start-ups - and they shared a romance before sharing assets. They’ve now split up as a couple, and in this episode, they go public with what happened - and why they think they still make a good team. Then Isabel talks to FT colleague and Working It regular Emma Jacobs about the different ways organisations try to police office relationships, and why that is never going to succeed in stopping people from falling in love or having a messy break-up. Want to read more? Emma Jacobs on workplace handbooks - a new twist on the old rules of the office https://www.ft.com/content/b69d4fb7-9b6b-4507-bb0e-ac9a02de37baThe rise of office romances - the stats https://www.shrm.org/about-shrm/press-room/press-releases/pages/new-shrm-survey-the-rise-of-workplace-romance.aspxSuccessful co-founders who are couples https://sifted.eu/articles/married-cofounders/ClearCo’s Michele Romanow and Andrew D’Souza https://clear.co/en-uk/about-us/We love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A new generation of young professionals are becoming online stars in their own right through their social media channels. But what happens when personal brands meet the old-fashioned big corporate workplace? In this week’s episode of Working It, Isabel talks to Eve Cornwell, an English ‘lawfluencer’ who has been online for the past five years, blogging about her journey to becoming a young lawyer - before reinventing herself in the tech sector.  Eve believes that ‘lawfluencers’ like her, are helping to build a more diverse pipeline of applicants by making a career in the law seem accessible to all. She also posts videos about her personal life - and challenges. But the line between our personal and work selves can become ‘blurred’. And working alongside very successful young stars can be difficult for less famous colleagues. Isabel discusses the fast-evolving dilemmas around influencers at work with FT graduate trainee Akila Quinio. She’s Gen Z - but doesn’t have a big social media presence. Are we all going to have to have personal brands in future?     Want to read more? The ‘lawfluencers’ who blog about their lives at top law firms, by Akila Quinio https://www.ft.com/content/94f50e66-7c6b-48d3-a277-4d4fa7f00662Eve Cornwell’s YouTube channel  https://www.youtube.com/c/EveCornwellChannelEmma Jacobs on the employees who take to TikTok https://www.ft.com/content/c7f8fb0e-8f1a-4829-b818-cb9fe90352faFT editorial on the perils of using staff as influencers https://www.ft.com/content/2a72dc23-0926-4c84-b026-a139b0a56d7eWe love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In a tight global labour market, older women are having a moment. Employers are offering more leadership and promotion opportunities, as well as practical policies to help manage the hormonal upheavals that hit half the population in their forties and fifties. In this episode Isabel talks to Navene Alim and Landy Slattery from the UK’s Channel 4 television network, who pioneered the workplace menopause policy in the UK several years ago. They talk about how it has benefited everyone in their workplace - and the silence and misdiagnosis that until very recently often accompanied women’s symptoms of brain fog, sleeplessness and anxiety. Many big companies are putting together policies to support and promote older women - the fastest-growing segment of the workforce. But, as Isabel discusses with Working It regular and FT columnist Brooke Masters, there are downsides to being open about our health status. Sexism and ageism are still rife - might there be a cost to sharing too much? Want to read more? Channel 4’s pioneering menopause policy is free for other organisations to download and adapt  https://assets-corporate.channel4.com/_flysystem/s3/2020-10/Channel%204%20Menopause%20Policy%202020.pdfAn FT feature on the stigma around menopause fading in workplaces  https://www.ft.com/content/311504fa-04a2-11ea-a958-5e9b7282cbd1Almost 1mn women have left the UK workforce because of menopause symptomshttps://www.hrreview.co.uk/hr-news/almost-a-million-women-have-left-the-workplace-due-to-menopausal-symptoms/135691FT columnist Elizabeth Uviebinene on femtech investment  https://www.ft.com/content/5ed48a73-a75c-44d7-924d-b65eec28c64fCompanies supporting older women into leadership https://www.ft.com/content/162a607c-4072-4706-91fd-5a7fb252be91We love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s traditionally been mothers who have had to take time off work to look after children. But in the past two years, the pandemic has accelerated a huge shift towards many more fathers wanting to play an active role in family life. In this episode of Working It, we look at the fast-moving changes in workplace parental leave trends - and what that means for mothers, fathers - and the co-workers who pick up the slack.Isabel talks to Matt Schneider, co-founder of the US-based City Dads Group, about why paternity leave matters - and the barriers that still stand in men’s way. Are we really still hard-wired to think about men as breadwinners and women as caregivers?Then she discusses why paternity leave matters more than ever in the current hot labour market, with FT management editor and Working It regular Andrew Hill. If the older, male, leaders in organisations take a dim view of younger colleagues taking paternity leave, do they risk losing them to other companies with a more forward-thinking culture?And we find out that equality for men in this area might just be the key to women’s advancement - and even help to close the gender pay gap.Want to read more?Join a City Dads Group in the US https://citydadsgroup.com/The FT’s Emma Jacobs on family leave policies as the key to staff retention https://www.ft.com/content/b14b4e7a-e87d-4aee-a267-8100661e4b57France doubles paternity leave https://www.ft.com/content/36efc7ea-9deb-489a-ac82-97138b7b34f5McKinsey survey on paternity leave and why it matters https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/a-fresh-look-at-paternity-leave-why-the-benefits-extend-beyond-the-personalWe love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle in 2022? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The last two years have made us all experts in digital communications at work - or so we think. In fact, many of us are unwittingly upsetting colleagues, or even jinxing our own careers, by not practising good email etiquette and Zoom hygiene. In this episode Isabel talks to Erica Dhawan, who really is an expert on digital communication, about the common pitfalls and generational differences [be careful how you use those ‘thumbs up’  emojis, everyone]. We relive some of the best/worst digital fails of the pandemic, including the Netflix staff sacked for dissing colleagues on a public Slack channel and the infamous case of the Texas attorney stuck in the Zoom kitten filter. Erica shares some of the strangest things she has to do as a workplace communication consultant - including teaching Gen Z staff how to get over their fear of voicemail and landlines. Isabel and Erica discuss practical things we can do to improve the way we talk to colleagues online. Including a definitive ruling on the vexed subject of whether or not it is rude to put a period on the end of texts, emails and DMs…   Want to read more? Pilita Clark on email etiquette  https://www.ft.com/content/3bb151b5-e785-4305-a1f0-6eb71a9dd327Tim Harford on making email work for you  https://www.ft.com/content/e32ea720-be03-4264-95a2-21696e530e84Erica Dhawan’s website  https://ericadhawan.com/Erica’s advice in Harvard Business Review  https://hbr.org/2021/05/did-you-get-my-slack-email-textWe love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle in 2022? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After the murder of George Floyd in 2020 and the worldwide social justice protests that followed, businesses acted swiftly to pledge change for their BAME workers. Nearly everyone wanted to post a black square on their corporate Instagram feed - but what real action has been taken? And is there anything you can do to speed up change in your own workplace? In this episode Isabel talks to Taylor Nicole Rogers, the FT’s US labour and equality correspondent, and Working It regular, to get a snapshot of where corporate America stands on diversity, equity and inclusion. She talks about her own workplace experience as a Black woman - and the toll of ‘code switching’ - changing the way you talk, act or dress - to fit in with white corporate culture.Plus, Nela Richardson, chief economist at ADP, a huge human capital management company, on what US payroll and employment data can tell us about progress on diversity at work. Want to read more? Taylor Nicole Rogers on why Black American workers need economic reform https://www.ft.com/content/377a163d-fdbf-4f11-bb4a-e26465f8c2aaPilita Clark on why minority staff want to spend more time working from home https://www.ft.com/content/0049bea8-2d5a-42f4-9ac6-cc79402a7bb9The evolution of the chief diversity officer - and the problems of embedding diversity right across workplaces, by Emma Jacobs https://www.ft.com/content/6eac296d-acf6-4b41-9349-dc9723212914ADP’s Nela Richardson on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/nela-richardson-59813613/Employers shift focus from education to skills - featuring LinkedIn’s programmes  https://www.ft.com/content/4e610474-9c93-4e47-a042-915d2222cc4bWe love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle in 2022? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who wouldn’t want to have a regular paid day off to go surfing, take a long walk - or to care for family members? During the pandemic a growing number of companies have been experimenting with four-day weeks and in this episode Isabel talks to Andrew Barnes, founder of 4 Day Week Global, a non-profit organisation that helps companies switch to a more flexible working week. Andrew first brought in four-day working weeks at his own company in New Zealand, and found productivity and staff happiness rocketed. Isabel also talks to the FT’s Emma Jacobs, who has written about the benefits - and drawbacks–of four-day working. There are many reasons why corporate leaders don’t like the idea - not least because some of them confuse presenteeism with productivity. But are these objections valid? Or could a shortened working week on full pay even be a way for bosses to hold on to staff - and halt the Great Resignation?Want to read more? Pilita Clark’s FT column ‘Get ready for the four-day working week’  https://www.ft.com/content/c5d83853-682e-4076-81c1-813b246309f8Emma Jacobs’ feature on shorter working weeks during the pandemic https://www.ft.com/content/2973bdb4-aef7-4766-b4a5-3f83dd0d667fEmma’s interview with Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, an expert on shorter working weeks https://www.ft.com/content/7bb06122-57d0-11ea-abe5-8e03987b7b20Andrew Barnes’ organisation 4 Day Week Global has lots of resources  https://www.4dayweek.com/We love to hear from you. What do you like (or not)? What topics should we tackle in 2022? Email the team at workingit@ft.com or Isabel directly at isabel.berwick@ft.com. Follow @isabelberwick on Twitter Subscribe to Working It wherever you get your podcasts - please listen, rate and subscribe!Presented by Isabel Berwick. Editorial direction from Renée Kaplan. Assistant producer is Persis Love. Sound design is by Breen Turner, with original music from Metaphor Music. Produced by Novel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.