Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture

A couple of years ago a piece of work was published that ended up getting headlines across the world. The academic paper - the work of Oxford University’s William Fleming - found that workplace wellness programmes didn’t work. That meditation app, that burnout webinar, that healthy eating week - they had no impact on work. It raised questions about what was really going on at work, were organisations using wellness initiatives as reputational alibis, giving them deniability when workers inevitably became exhausted by an unsustainable pace of work?

While early in his career William Fleming has already started proving himself as one of the most exciting workplace thinkers around. He works as part of Jan Emmanuel De Neve’s Wellbeing Research Centre at Oxford University.

My conversation with him takes in not only what is often called the Oxford wellbeing study but also his latest work which explores the stunning finding about impact of compressed working hours as a means of going to a four day week. He talks about his brand new research into AI chatbots and what we’re learning about their impact on wellbeing at work. Overall it’s an outstanding discussion by someone who is examining the impact of accelerating work on the rest of us.

Will Fleming's greatest hits:

• Employee well being programs - evidence of effectiveness
• Reduce or compress? Evaluating the 4 Day Week vs Compressed working hours
• Are wellness programs examples of depolicised labour reform?

A full transcript is on the website.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Has hybrid working been a disaster? Should we stop pretending and get back to the office? That is the claim of In-Person, a new book by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington.

I read the book with interest. Despite entering with an open mind, I wasn't wholly convinced by the evidence. The authors seem to be challenging fully remote work, rather than hybrid work. Additionally the whole book seems to come with an ulterior motive, intent on trying to score points rather than reflect on the best way to work.

Natalia Emanuel agreed to chat with me to debate the evidence - it proves to be an engaging discussion.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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A few people have asked me to do episodes on office politics and office interactions - one angle I wanted to look at that was through the lens of professional services firms.

Laura Empson is a Professor at Bayes Business school having previously worked in professional services herself.

She’s focussed on understanding the way that these firms work. Many professional services firms are a highly paid collection of partners who collectively own the firm. It means that the organisations are different to the version of work we are most used to. Rather than being low agency and low control they are high agency and are able to elect their leaders. I wanted to understand the impact that this had on the running of the companies - does the ability to elect leaders mean that politics takes place in public? Or does the overt nature of debate change the need for backchannel and gossip?

We talk politics, collective leadership, identity, and also how to achieve elite performance in a collective organisation - whether there has to be trade off between comfort and success. We also discuss the growing impact of AI as a disruptive force on professional services firms and whether it is upending pressure from younger workers to make these firms less toxic.

Check out Laura's podcast 'Leading Professionals'.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Our jobs have turned into the place where we’re told what to do: show up and follow orders. That was the finding of the latest cycle of the long-running Skills and Employment Survey.

When asked, only a third of UK workers say they are given the discretion to decide how to do their jobs, a number that has dropped from two-thirds in three decades.

When we hear this it’s hard not to think of the two other issues of contemporary work that have come to define the era: low engagement and low productivity. Professor Alan Felstead was one of the leads of the research and I asked him to explain the disappearance of workplace agency.

Check out the workplace quiz: How Good Is My Job

There's a full transcript on the website.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Bruce speaks with Daniel Susskind, economist and professor of business at Gresham College, about how AI is changing work, education, and the meaning of our jobs.

Daniel's new book tackles AI and how we should prepare for the future.

Predictions of the future have shown it is too uncertain to predict, so what can any of us do to ready ourselves? Susskind says that we should prepare by learning the basics while training on cutting edge technology. Above all else he believes we need to teach the essentials of character.

We also discuss Ethan Mollick's posts on AI.

AI2027 updated, Reddit post. AI2027 gives a positive vision of what is next.

It's an important, timely discussion. The website has a full transcript and links to Daniel's recent lectures.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Danny Meyer is one of the most respected restaurateurs in the world, but beyond the success of the likes of Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and Shake Shack he's also become famous for writing a book, Setting the Table, that has become an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of readers around the world. The book is used as training manual beyond the hospitality trade by businesses who want to be famous for providing strong customer service.

Danny talks about service being a monologue, whereas hospitality is a dialogue. In his new book, What Could Possibly Go Right?, he updates his story. His first book documented many slips on the way to running a series of beloved restaurants; he was proud that he'd never closed an eaterie. The new book catalogues closures, missteps, Covid and an even an intervention by his leadership team when the culture of the business was on the wrong tracks.

Danny tells Bruce that restaurants are the perfect space to watch culture on fast forward, and how anyone can learn lessons from his businesses as they strive to be the most beloved venues in New York.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Proper ding dong this week. I have a fabulously enjoyable back-and-forth with the brilliant Professor Rob Briner.

At one stage Rob says: ‘If you tell someone - whose favourite thing is organisational culture - and you tell them it’s not a very useful idea - they don’t like it.’ Well, I felt seen. To be fair I’d already acknowledged that I agreed on what he was saying that behaviours are more important than culture. Also I’m more than a culture fan, I promise.

But it’s a sign that it’s an outstanding discussion. Rob’s key point was that the idea of culture is vague and subjective. Rob says that culture is ‘a description. So if you want to change something, you don’t change the description of it, you change the cause of it.’ He says we should be specific about what we're trying to change, not just wave our arms and mouth 'culture'.

• We discuss if an obsession with scale is the curse of modern business.
• How to build effective organisations.
• Why you should focus on being specific about culture.

It's worth checking out some of Rob's posts. For example: Does changing culture change behaviour?

Rob asked me to share the following bio:

Rob Briner is Professor of Organisational Psychology (Queen Mary University of London) and a Research Director at Corporate Research Forum (rob@crforum.co.uk). He has been promoting Evidence-Based Practice in Management, HRM and Work Psychology for almost three decades.

His recent research with Corporate Research Forum includes reports on Evidence-Based HR and how HR can more effectively drive organisational performance.

He also leads CRF’s Work Psychology Network which has produced reports summarizing the best available and most practical work psychology theory and evidence around a range of topics including motivation and performance, assessing potential and behaviour change in organisations.

He has also produced a series of short posts on LinkedIn where he explores various popular ideas about behaviour at work (e.g., learning styles, psychological safety, growth mindset, happy-productive worker) and asks about each: Is that really a thing? That question is answered through a combination of critical thinking and using reviews of scientific evidence.

There's a full transcript at the website.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Sarah O'Connor is a journalist for the Financial Times who specialises in writing about work and the evolution of our jobs. Over the last year or so that has meant a lot of reflection about AI job displacement.

In her new book, We Are Not Machines, Sarah reflects on how technological change is reshaping the workplace - and the invisible enshittification it often brings with it. Sarah has a strong message: firstly that we should have more belief in the unique strengths of human labour, and secondly that individual agency is the most important differentiator in our favour.

It's a brilliant conversation that gives a flavour of her book.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Kate Murphy is the author a new book called Why We Click. It combines the very latest research into interpersonal synchrony - how we form bonds with others.

It's an intriguing read - at times compelling, at times challenging.

I chatted to her to understand 'the bad apple effect' and her take on whether we need face-to-face communication at all costs.

There's a full transcript on the website.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Dr Gillian Sandstrom is a researcher whose work explores her fascination with our conversations with other people - whether colleagues, friends or strangers. She’s just published a fabulous new book ‘Once Upon A Stranger’.

Her work says that we often have a ‘liking gap’ when we talk to people - we think they like us less than we like them - even if they are work colleagues. It turns out not to be true - our co-workers like us more than we realise.

It's a brilliant discussion - and potentially a prompt for you to change how you live your life.

This week's newsletter is about talking to colleagues.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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A return interview with Dr Pippa Grange, a performance ("regenerative") psychologist who has worked with the England men's football team and who has earned the admiration of Brene Brown.

I'm always excited to hear from the likes of Pippa, elite practioners who have earned the respect of the most respected high performers in the world.

Pippa has a new book out, Life Reclaimed, which is a reflection on burnout, the need for overperformance and how to achieve balance in life. It's partly informed by her work with some of the most talented people in the world and certainly bears the trace of her own experiences with burnout.

She also previews the BBC TV adaptation of Dear England featuring a character based on her.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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I saw a post by Professor Rob Briner about the enigma of psychological safety, and in the replies it was discussed that in fact PS isn't so much an enigma, there's evidence that it is the output of group identity. It felt important to talk to Katrien Fransen about her work exploring this.

This conversation (and the papers that led into it) were real penny drop moments for me.

There's a full transcript on the website.

Check out more:

We spend a lot of time talking about Katrien’s paper: The impact of identity leadership on team functioning and well-being in team sport: Is psychological safety the missing link?

We also discuss Unlocking the Power of ‘Us’: Longitudinal Evidence that Identity Leadership Predicts Team 5 Functioning and Athlete Well-Being

Her website focuses on the services that she and her colleagues provide for organisations.

Katrien is the co-author (alongside former guest Alex Haslam and Filip Boen) of The New Psychology of Sport and Exercise: The Social Identity Approach

Here's Rob Briner's post about psychological safety being hard to reproduce on demand.

More about Professor Katrien Fransen

I talk about a podcast featuring the boat race, you can check that out here.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Today's conversation is with Professor Benjamin Laker, someone I've long admired for his cutting edge work on the evolution of culture. His article on Meeting Free Days is probably the piece of research I've shared the most in the last 5 years.

Laker is Professor of Leadership at Henley Business School, which is part of the University of Reading. As well as writing multiple bestselling books on work like Too Proud to Lead and Job Crafting, he's also published dozens of articles in HBR and MIT Sloan Management Review. He's worked with government helping to develop policy on work and it's evolution.

I could have chatted to Benjamin about dozens of things but I specifically wanted to dive into a sensational piece he wrote in Harvard Business Review at the end of last year about changing culture inside of organisations.

Full transcript on the website

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Daniel Coyle returns to reflect on what has changed since we last spoke. He's moved attention to an examination of what contributes to us getting a fulfilling experience from work - and life.

We talk attention, community and the way that great teams demonstrate 'group flow'. We also delve into some research by Nick Epley that I've covered on the newsletter, that suggests we're terrible at predicting what will make us happy.

If you like this check out the previous episodes with Daniel:

Dan Coyle can fix your broken culture

The Culture Code

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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I'm joined by Daniel Zhao, chief economist of Glassdoor, who talks me through their new rankings of the best places to work in 2026.

It's an intriguing list, is a car wash really better than some of the most famous tech brands in the world?

The ranking allows us to explore what we want in a job: culture, connection, progression and autonomy.

Bad culture is 7 times more powerful driving quitting than salary: hear Charlie and Donald Sull talk about Glassdoor data

Glassdoor: Top US places to work

Glassdoor: Top UK places to work

Full transcript on the website

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Kevin Green is the Chief People Officer for First Group.

He's set about reinventing the culture of the organisation from the ground up.

I heard Kevin speak at an event last year was completely bowled over by the way he talked about culture and the way he was trying to build it. I think you'll love this discussion. There's a full transcript on the website.

Also mentioned: Waitrose culture episode with Lord Mark Price

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Dr Karen Bridbord is the author of a new book, The Relationship-Driven Leader that invites us to bring a psychologist's lens to our job and the relationships with those around us.

Her perspective is to use psychology to understand the person in front of you to interpret the world through their eyes. If you’ve got a controlling boss or someone who behaves in a way that impacts your life she helps you unpick what’s going in their head.

The Relationship-Driven Leader: Strengthening Connections to Enhance Productivity and Wellness at Work

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Gen Z have been shaped by recessions, the pandemic, geopolitical instability, not to mention financial insecurity and world changing technology.

That's the finding of the Edelman Gen Z Lab as told to me by the leader of the project Jackie Cooper. Most powerfully she explains that Gen Z's have a 'visceral need for safety' - that's financial, social, cultural and even physical.

They respond to fear by asking questions and wanting to be heard, which older generations often misread as entitlement or disrespect for hierarchy.

Politically, Gen Z is fragmented. Younger Gen Zs, especially boys/young men, are leaning more conservative and drawn to strong-man archetypes; older Gen Zs, shaped by Obama / BLM, are more idealistic about progressive politics. Algorithms and “TikTok-isation” amplify those splits.

I was blown away to see Jackie Cooper from Edelman talk about the research that the company has done to understand the new generation of workers entering the workplace - I think you'll love this discussion.

You can read the report here

Full transcript on the website.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Most company training is a waste of time that turns firms into bureaucratic sludge holes. That’s roughly the conclusion of today’s episode which is a conversation with Andre Spicer and Mats Alvesson

They have a new book out The Art of Less. Andre has been a guest a few times before - way back in 2018. This podcast is old. In 2018 this podcast was ahead of Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO at the top of the podcast charts. (Andre talking about open plan offices)

The idea that much of what companies do is related to their self identity, what the company aspires to be in the world - with the end result that it doesn’t achieve these things.

Things we discuss:

• 'The Death of the Corporate Job'
• how 'initiative-itis' is dragging down organisations
• how training is corporate sludge that doesn't achieve its goals
• corporate culture as an act of 'grandiosity'

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Jeremy Holt is a psychologist and leadership coach who has spent more than 20 years helping teams get better. Read his research about better team results.

This episode is the third part of a series about the power of identity in teams. Listen to the other Eat Sleep Work Repeat episodes about identity.

Jeremy posting about identity

Watch the Lebron documentary More Than a Game

Jeremy's book For the Love of the Game

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.