You can’t escape the bleak financial news. Leading economists and financial institutions like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase are warning of a potential recession heading our way this year. And then, there’s inflation. They say we’re on the downswing finally. But coming from a 9.1% inflation rate[1] last year, a 40-year high by the way, it’s still shocking when your quick trip to the grocery store (not your stock-up marathon) drains nearly $100 from your wallet. If that weren’t enough, I learned a new financial term – stagflation. According to Time, it’s an old-school word for when recession and inflation happen at the same time[2]. They’re not sure it’ll happen in 2023, but they don’t rule it out.

Putting behavioural science to work to better understand why organisations do and don’t successfully change.

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus observed around the fifth century BC that change is the only constant in life. Fast-forward 2,500 years and change certainly appears constant within organisations. Yet, we remain less-than-brilliant at instigating, managing and delivering this critical change. The vast majority of change programmes stumble, and not for lack of budget. Instead, the challenge typically lies in not effectively bringing along our employees on the journey. This is ironic since we are – as a species – excellent at adapting to new environments.

Your favourite pack of biscuits. The fuel in your tank. The butter in your fridge. Train fare. Childcare. Your eye-watering mortgage hike. In this age of perpetual instability, one thing seems certain: this one is affecting all of us. 

As a global employee engagement consultancy, we have been observing closely as employee sentiments, expectations and wellbeing have transformed beyond recognition within the past three years. It’s hardly surprising that the back-to-back events of the pandemic, economic turbulence and political tensions have widely disrupted mental health and significantly reduced capacity to engage with work.

Boomerang employees – people who return to a previous employer – are a valuable part of the talent landscape. LinkedIn estimates that 4.5% of employees have returned to a previous employer, and 40% of employees have said they’d consider a boomerang move. It’s only a decade ago that HR teams widely reported ‘no rehire’ policies, but this has changed dramatically, and now 76% of HR professionals are open to hiring a boomerang employee (Raveendra et al., 2021).

You can’t escape the bleak financial news. Leading economists and financial institutions like Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase are warning of a potential recession heading our way this year. And then, there’s inflation. They say we’re on the downswing finally. But coming from a 9.1% inflation rate[1] last year, a 40-year high by the way, it’s still shocking when your quick trip to the grocery store (not your stock-up marathon) drains nearly $100 from your wallet. If that weren’t enough, I learned a new financial term – stagflation. According to Time, it’s an old-school word for when recession and inflation happen at the same time[2]. They’re not sure it’ll happen in 2023, but they don’t rule it out.

Thousands of Matt Hancock WhatsApp messages gave us some insights into how [amongst other things] communications were used as a powerful tool to influence our feelings and behaviour during the lockdowns. It got me thinking about how organisations communicate with employees and the potential impact on their mental health and wellbeing.

Most large organisations are increasingly awash with internal communications data that provide numbers on email, intranet, and other digital platform clicks, reads, and views. But it’s not enough. We need to know more about how our communications actually make people feel.  

We gathered change and communications professionals from around the world and asked them to share insights and experiences so we could explore how, together, we can change the way we change, for the better. 

“Another month and already another catch-up meeting? Not much has changed, what should I say this time?”

As someone who has spent her entire career working with business leaders to help them create healthy workplace cultures, I’m fascinated by the trend known as “quiet quitting.” A similar behavior was labeled “employee disengagement” years ago by Gallup, the management consulting company. Today, the difference is that when employees sense they are leading lives of quiet desperation, they post about it on social media. Not so quiet after all.