As economic conditions deteriorate, fears of redundancy and anxiety regarding the cost of living once again grip the UK. Financial wellbeing is a key pillar of wider health and wellbeing. Sadly, it’s often overlooked by employers striving to tick the box of colleague wellbeing in the most efficient way possible.
Having struggled with debt through his twenties and thirties, Peter Komolafe is today a qualified financial advisor. He has harnessed his personal experience to help ordinary people create financial security through positive financial habits. In 2020, he founded Conversation of Money (a YouTube Channel and weekly Podcast) to have conversations he wished someone had had with him when he was younger.
Following his delivery of a compelling session at the IoIC festival in 2023, in this conversation, Jen, Dom and Cat chat with Peter about the link between financial wellbeing and engagement and explore how internal communicators can help alleviate monetary worries.
About Peter Komolafe
Peter Komolafe is a best-selling author, award-winning content creator, financial expert, and TV presenter with 18 years’ experience in the financial services industry. He’s worked across retail banking, corporate banking, and wealth management with some of the UK’s top institutions, including NatWest, MetLife, St. James’s Place, and Investec.
In 2020, Peter launched Conversation of Money, a platform that’s helped tens of thousands of people make smarter financial decisions through engaging videos and podcasts. His YouTube channel has over 60,000 subscribers, more than 4 million views, and he’s become a trusted voice in the media, regularly appearing on shows like Lorraine, Steph’s Packed Lunch, and Channel 4’s Secret Spender, as well as Sky News and major national papers.
Find Peter on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterkomolafe/
Peter’s website: https://peterkomolafe.com/
Peter’s YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/c/conversationofmoney
Peter’s podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/4cry36NzOhlsg7R2uuhDAp
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How to build community at work with Adele McIntosh
Workplaces across the board are increasingly challenged by complex problems that demand an overhaul of the way work itself is undertaken. AI, geopolitical tensions, shifting attitudes to work, intergenerational differences, the climate crisis and more can easily create internal rifts and tensions that are hard to overcome. Unless, of course, the organisation makes a full-blooded commitment to connection and community.
In this episode, Jen, Dom and Cat chat with Adele McIntosh, VP of Internal Communication and Community at Arm. She shares why Arm chose to prioritise community, the benefits this has yielded and some of her top tips for creating community at work.
As work becomes increasingly fast-paced and fragmented, creating and sustaining a sense of togetherness and belonging is vital. Internal communicators are ideally positioned to deliver this strategic value to their employers.
Find Adele on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adelekmcintosh/
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Let’s talk about cancer with Alyssa Burkus
Cancer is a word that instils dread into all of us. Long regarded as a disease with no cure, today, one in two of us will be diagnosed with cancer at some point in our lifetime. This means we will all know someone who has to deal with the implications of this illness, whether for themselves or for a close family member or friend.
Yet despite the escalating prevalence of the disease and improved survival rates, we are still incredibly ill-equipped to speak about it. And when we don’t speak about it, we can’t support those navigating its ramifications. We can’t help colleagues who must adapt their work patterns to either fit around treatment plans or care for loved ones.
In this episode Cat, Jen and Dom chat with Alyssa Burkus – a three-time cancer survivor and volunteer cancer recovery coach. They talk about the incumbent systems that make cancer so hard to navigate and explore what organisations can do to demonstrate care, compassion and support at this most vulnerable of times.
About Alyssa Burkus
Alyssa Burkus is the founder of Shift Wisdom, a thought leadership agency that helps founders and business leaders increase their influence and authority through writing. Her work includes thought leadership strategy, ghostwriting and writing coaching, focused on leadership, change and future of work themes.
Before starting Shift Wisdom, she was an enterprise change consultant for 20 years, working with companies ranging from tech startups to Fortune 500s, and spent much of her time ghostwriting for senior executives. Alyssa is also a three-time cancer survivor and volunteer cancer recovery coach, based near Toronto, Canada.
Find Alyssa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alyssaburkus/
Alyssa’s website: https://www.shiftwisdom.com/
Alyssa’s newsletter: https://newsletter.shiftwisdom.com/
Cancer Support Resources UK: https://cancersupportuk.org/
Cancer Support Resources Canada: https://wellspring.ca/
Cancer Support Resources US: https://www.cancercare.org/
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Exploring the last human job and the role of connective labour with Allison Pugh
Since the public launch of ChatGPT in late 2022, scarcely a day goes by without a news headline forewarning of mass redundancies caused by technological efficiency.
But aren’t there some jobs or vocations where, no matter how sophisticated technology becomes, it simply won’t be able to replicate human empathy, reason and oversight?
In this episode Cat, Jen and Dom chat with sociology Professor Allison Pugh of John Hopkins University, drawing on her book The Last Human Job. They examine the role of connective labour and empathic communication in building goodwill, trust, mutuality and human connection, never more urgently needed in workplaces across the board.
About Allison Pugh
Allison Pugh is Research Professor of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and the author of four books, most recently The Last Human Job: The Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World (Princeton 2024). The 2024-5 Vice President of the American Sociological Association, Pugh has given more than 100 invited talks and has had visiting appointments in Australia, France and Germany. She is a former journalist, and her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and other outlets. Pugh has served as a US diplomat in Honduras, cofounded an elementary school in California, waited on tables at the US Tennis Open and was an intern at Ms. Magazine. She and her husband have three children and live in Washington DC.
Find Allison on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/allison-pugh-b6169467/
Allison’s website: https://www.allisonpugh.com/
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Internal communication as a vital enabler of colleague engagement with Dr. Sarah Pass
Since the MacLeod report was first published in 2009, Engage for Success (EFS) has become a flourishing all-volunteer collective for those passionate about colleague engagement.
A senior lecturer at Nottingham Business School, Dr. Sarah Pass is a practice-oriented academic who concentrates on employee experience and engagement. As a member of the Engage for Success (EFS) Advisory Board, she co-leads the EFS annual survey, which benchmarks the engagement levels of the UK working population.
In this episode, Sarah and Jen discuss the findings of the latest EFS survey, explore the four enablers of engagement and dig into why colleague voice is so important when seeking to build motivation and goodwill at work.
About Dr Sarah Pass
Dr Sarah Pass is a practice-oriented academic who concentrates on employee experience and engagement. She is a member of the Engage for Success (EFS) Advisory Board and co-leads the EFS annual survey, which benchmarks the engagement levels of the UK working population. Sarah leads EFS projects focusing on different aspects and influences of engagement in practice and is also Chair of the EFS East Midlands Area Network.
Sarah is a Fellow of the RSA, an Academic Associate of the CIPD, and a member of the Involvement and Participation Association (IPA) Working Insights Group. In 2023, Sarah was ranked by HR Magazine as an Influential Thinker in HR. Sarah currently works as a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Business School (NTU).
Find Sarah on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahpass/
Sarah at Nottingham Business School: https://www.ntu.ac.uk/staff-profiles/business/sarah-pass
Engage for Success: https://engageforsuccess.org/
The Future of Internal Communication podcast is hosted by The Institute of Internal Communication – the only professional body solely dedicated to internal communication.
This podcast hosts a range of subject matter experts from within and outside internal communication, each sharing their insights on the future of internal communication. These thought-provoking discussions address the critical role of communication as a driver of workplace trust, connection, community, collaboration, innovation, engagement, culture, change, resilience and performance.
Organisations today face a rising tide of challenges, causing widespread disruption and demanding wholesale business transformation. How colleagues communicate both on- and off-line is the glue that holds organisations together. Communication cultivates goodwill and drives alignment around a shared purpose.
In a rapidly evolving world, Jennifer Sproul, Dominic Walters and Cat Barnard explore opportunity for internal communicators. As work becomes increasingly digital, data driven, distributed and on-demand, their conversations with thought-leaders examine the human side of work.
This series showcases the critical link between empathic communication and workplace trust, connection, community, collaboration, innovation, engagement, culture, change, resilience and performance.
Listen to The Future of Internal Communication, Inside Business with Ciaran Hancock and many other podcasts from around the world with the radio.net app
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