BONUS #2: Workplace Geeks x Workplace Leaders Top 50 2026

This special episode is part of the Audiem podcast, Workplace Geeks x Workplace Leaders Top 50 2026 mini-series, sponsored by Rhino Interiors Group.

What happens when the old rules of work stop working?

In this live recording, Workplace Geeks brings together five more conversations with members of the Workplace Leaders Top 50 2026, exploring how workplace strategy, learning, estates and health and safety are adapting to a rapidly changing world.

Across the episode, they discuss:

• How hybrid working and AI are creating competing pressures for workplace leaders
• Why the traditional routes to expertise and mastery are being disrupted
• The opportunity to experiment, test and rethink what the workplace can be
• How AI could personalise learning, development and workplace experiences
• The future of university estates and making better use of underutilised space
• Why communication, connection and collaboration remain critical in hybrid workplaces
• How health and safety needs to adapt to a more flexible workforce
• What the next generation of workplace leaders can do to build their careers

Featuring:

Elaine Dup Preez, Salesforce
Catherine Murphy, Mastercard
Scott Wilson, Vodafone 3
Fiona Stewart, University of Salford
Claire Goody, Sage

Five different careers. Five different perspectives. One consistent message:

The workplace is changing and there is no playbook for what comes next.

Whether you work in workplace, facilities, estates, people experience, learning and development, health and safety or leadership, this episode explores how we can embrace the uncertainty, experiment with what works and build workplaces that are ready for the future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

This episode is brought to you in partnership with Rhino Interiors Group. Rhino create workplaces that connect space with performance, helping organizations deliver environments where people can do their best work. To find out more, visit rhinooffice.co.uk. Hello and welcome to Workplace Geeks the podcast from Audium exploring the people, ideas and experiencing shaping the world of work. I'm Chris Moriarty and welcome to another special episode of our Workplace Leaders series. Now, if you've listened to the first episode, you'll know these conversations come from this year's Workplace Leaders top 50 list, where we sit down with some of the people shaping our profession and ask them the same four questions. Now, normally what fascinates me is how different their answers are, but this time something else happened. Whether they worked in technology, higher education, health and safety, learning and development, or workplace design, they all kept circling back to the same underlying challenge. The rules are changing faster than the organizations are trying to adapt to them. Whether that's artificial intelligence or hybrid working, or just simply new expectations from employees and from businesses. We even end up pondering on how we develop people when the old routes to becoming an expert seem to be disappearing. So in this episode, you'll hear five different perspectives on the future of work and how we learn five different careers, but one remarkably consistent message. So let's get started. First up is Elaine. Now I met Elaine a few months ago after confessing that I'd pinched one of her slides for a presentation of mine, fully referenced, of course. So when I heard that she was on this year's list, I couldn't wait to get her onto the podcast for a proper chat. So here is my chat with Elaine Dupree from TellSforce. Elaine, thank you for joining us on the podcast. Well done. Congratulations for getting onto the Workplace Leaders top 50. We've met before, and I sort of mentioned to you that I've been aware of the work that you've been doing for some time now, and I think it's richly deserved getting on the list. Give our listeners a bit of orientation. Tell us a bit about yourself, your name, your role, the organization you do that work for.

SPEAKER_06 2:19

My name is Elaine Dupree. I'm a South African living in London and been for the last 10 years, going on 11 now, with my husband. I am an interior architect and I currently work for Salesforce as the director of workplace design for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, reporting into our global structure.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Amazing role. But how did you end up there? Did you ever sort of imagine that you were going to be traveling the world looking at one of the biggest and most well-respected tech companies on the planet looking at their global estate? How did you get there? What kind of steps happened on the lead up to it?

SPEAKER_06 2:53

Not at all. No. You know, I couldn't have imagined it. So I studied interior architecture and I had the privilege of graduating in 2008, right at the peak of the financial crisis and recession. So there were no jobs. There were no architectural jobs available. And so I joined an exhibition design company. That was my first job post-studies. And so I learned a lot. I learned a lot about software, learned a lot about lighting design and branding, but nothing architectural. So that was sort of an entryway. I then went back to study, did my postgrad, finished my master's degree, and I joined a really small architectural firm. Three people big. And if you're that small, you do everything. You're not just doing schedules or you know something big on a big project. You do all of it. So I worked in commercial interiors, but I also worked residential, I worked healthcare, designed a court building. And then we moved to London. So moved from South Africa to London, where I started really specializing in commercial interiors. I joined a firm called IA Interior Architects, and there I worked with a lot of leading brands. So Amazon, Lego, Bacardi, and Salesforce. So that was my first introduction to Salesforce as a consultant. I left IA and I joined Cushman, Cushman and Wakefield in their PDS team as an interior associate. And again, continued working with great brands. But there my experience rounded out a bit more because I dealt with the brokers and with the engineers and the cost consultants, and we all sat on the same floor. So that really holistic experience of the industry from my side grew quite a bit with my time in Cushman. And at that point, Salesforce recruited me back to say, we've this emir role, we know you, you know, we we want you to design. But then also there is this element of engagement and property that you'll look into and advise on. So that's how it all started. I've now been with Salesforce for six years, lean into the design a lot. We have partners in every country we deliver in. So I always feel like I don't have a small team, but I have different teams in each country, which is amazing. You get to learn from everyone. It comes down to the connections I made. Um, I never imagined that I'd end up with Salesforce while I worked as a consultant on their projects, but you you don't know where your path leads.

SPEAKER_02 5:14

Lovely. Well, look, I've always been cautious of asking people to predict the future, but how you and I kind of met has its its roots in predictions of the future. I saw you speak at a corner event where you were talking about what you thought 2025 was going to be holding and you had some ideas on that. So I I don't feel so bad asking you this because I know you've got form. But just tell me what you think the kind of challenges are for people in our sector in a minute, or what they're going to continue to be as we look through the rest of 2026 and beyond. What do you think is keeping our profession or people in your role up at night and challenging their thinking?

SPEAKER_06 5:48

I think one of the biggest challenges that we face at the moment is the competing asks pressure. And I think it's something that was amplified by more people working hybrid. So, you know, post-COVID people are spending less time in the office, more time at home, or it's now balancing back out to the office. But I've I've been able to customize my workspace to the extreme, right? It's 100% what I want, change the expectation of people coming back to the office. Now, workplace leaders are stuck in a really challenging position where you're asked to deliver more with less resources. I think uh financially, but as well as as people. And I think artificial intelligence is amplifying that pressure. Because, you know, although artificial intelligence is amazing and the opportunities is immense, it's not quite there yet with lifting the workload, I think, for everyday people. So you're stuck in a position where you have to deliver more, you know, more complicated tech that obviously comes at a price tag with less money and less resources. And I think that is one of the challenges. How do you balance that out? How do you determine what is appropriate, what is important, what will move the needle? So, you know, where do you invest the limited resources you have?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

I suspect if I'd ask someone a similar question, I don't know, 10 years ago, right? Doing more with less is is kind of a constant. That's just kind of half of the course, right? That's always been the case. Are you sort of saying that you think partly because of the choice introduction that employees have got now, that you know, we we didn't have that choice before, now we do, and people go, well, hold on, if I had it here, why can't I have it here? Yeah, that's exacerbated it. But do you also think I just wondered when you were talking about AI kind of sharpening that that up a little bit as well, whether from a business leader's point of view, that kind of sense, well, why can't we just do this? Why can't we just throw AI at it? Or I suppose the other part of that as well is if you've got a demanding workforce, I mean the one thing AI is not doing currently is demanding more from the workplace in terms of amenities and all this sort of stuff. So are you sort of saying that that kind of mixing pot at the minute is actually thrown up like that kind of competing forces thing that you were talking about?

SPEAKER_06 8:08

Exactly. I think both of those items is increasing the pressure. The pressure has always been there. You know, you need to be frugal, you need to be responsible with the resources you've got. But I think from the employee side, you've you now want to or need to have been asked to deliver at the same level as my extremely customized home setup, which you can't really do at scale, right? You can't deliver that level of individualistic experience. But people are asking, why should I come in? I need more and more from the office. And then on the other side, you have the business saying, but everyone's more productive, right? Just use artificial intelligence. And the physical world is not caught up yet. So how do you show that extra level of productivity with less resource and to deliver on the additional demand? I think that's the challenge.

SPEAKER_02 8:55

And we've got no playbook to lean back on, right? It's all kind of new. All new. So if that's the challenge, what's the opportunity then? Come on, let's have a kind of a positive outlook on this. So if we're as a workplace community now, what could we be doing or should we be doing that? Aren't we aren't currently doing and therefore actually we need to grab hold of something and really drive something forward.

SPEAKER_06 9:15

These two I think is definitely linked for me. I was listening to a fantastic podcast actually over the weekend, so came at a great time by uh Simon Sinek and Dr. Eliza Filsby. And so they had a conversation around multi-generational workplaces. And Dr. Eliza, she phrased it beautifully to say that artificial intelligence has disrupted normal route to mastery. And it made me think a lot. You know, she she used an example of a law firm to say that they employ now less paralegals because artificial intelligence is doing the work. But now, what is that normal route now from paralegal to become the lawyer and the partner with the firm? And so for us, you know, I think that's the same, no matter what industry you're in. We've removed a big part of the grunt work. And for all of us, the grunt work was how you learned. It's how you become an expert, it's how you become a leader in your field. And that's where the opportunity is for me to say, how do we define that new route of mastery? How do we define knowledge sharing? How do we look at mentorship? What does that look like? I think there's a massive opportunity in there.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Maybe it's a bit cliche, but there's that kind of rites of passage of a profession. It's like, yes, I know that work there is really dull and really boring, but almost like karate kid and Mr. Milwaggy in the future. It's like you're going to realise how important that was when you become a master because you had to do the hard guards. And I guess what she's describing, therefore you're describing as well, is that there is this now shortening of those hard guards and what do we lose as well as losing the colour, the effort. What else do we lose as we do it? I guess as workplace leaders, we can start to form a voice, an opinion on how we do that and shape that because it's new. It's not an iteration of a previous model. It's like, oh, we've got a new model to get onto. Let's see, let's see what we can do.

SPEAKER_06 11:06

Yeah. And so I think that's something as leaders, we need to lean in and to say, what does engagement look like? You know, how do we spend our time with the younger people in the industry that's just starting out? You know, how do we teach them the skills and take them on the route to mastery? Because that's going to be massively important.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Lovely. So talking about passing on skills, final question about the next generation of workplace leaders. So you popped into the market in 2008. There'll be people now finishing their architectural degrees, coming into the market thinking, do you know what? Elaine's started where I am and now she's leading this global organization and developing their future workplaces. What would your advice be to these people that are hitting the market now? What would your advice generally be to future workplace leaders?

SPEAKER_06 11:53

To seek out connection. If I look back at my career journey here, personal life, all of it, it's down to connection. And I think, you know, if relating them back to the workplaces, people shouldn't underestimate the value that an office environment provides, wherever that office is. But there's a lot of focus on the benefits of working from home, the benefits of hybrid, and you know, for work life balance, absolutely. Or even linear productivity immense. But there's so much of the intangible pieces that I think people are not talking about. That connection piece, the knowledge sharing, the networking, the innovation piece. It happens by accident. It's bumping into someone, it's sitting next to someone, it's overhearing a conversation. You know, I think building your network, your connections, that's so important. So I would say lean into seeking out connection, physical, in-person connection.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Elaine Deprees there. Now, I would pay attention to what she says is coming down the line because I did that at the cornet event I mentioned, and her projections were, you know, pretty Bob on. So pay attention to Elaine. Now on to our next guest, Catherine Murphy from MasterGuard. Now, Catherine and I share a past employer, so it was no surprise that a lot of her thinking aligned quite nicely with mine. But to tell us more, here's Catherine. Catherine, welcome to the Workplace Geeks podcast. And congratulations on making it onto the Workplace Leaders top 50 list. Just to get our listeners into the right headspace, why don't you tell us a little bit about you, your role, the work that you do, and then we'll find out a bit more about your career?

SPEAKER_05 13:37

Hi everyone. I am Catherine Murphy. I'm the director of Workplace Experience at MasterCard. So I cut across people, real estate, and tech. So kind of different functions that all have a big role to play in the workplace. And I see the workplace from two different angles. So how can I make coming to the office as meaningful and enjoyable as possible for employees? But also looking at it from the perspective of it as an asset. So how can I drive value from the workplace for MasterCard? So business value and propelling our methods. So that's that kind of manifests in a couple of different ways. So one is like how can we connect employees to our brand? Um, how can we build community, but also engage with the community and with charities and other organizations, engaging local businesses? So, what can we do to kind of bring them in, engage future clients as well, propelling our Force for Good mission, but also kind of down to the people? What can we do in the workplace to encourage collaboration and productivity? So it's quite, I guess it's probably quite varied beyond a typical workplace experience role.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

That's a lovely bit of context about you about MasterCard. But how did you get here? What's this career journey look like? Did you step in and go, you know, one day I'm going to be a workplace leader at MasterCard, or is have we gone on a bit of a bit of a journey on that?

SPEAKER_05 14:56

It's been an interesting road. I was on the Counter Council Gradduetski many moons ago. And one of my rotations was in property. So one of my roles there, um, which then I kind of progressed in and moved into a project management role. They had these really expensive gateway buildings in Kent. And they were buildings where you could go to access public services from those. And my controversial role was starting those buildings because they weren't representing value for money for people, they had really no footfall, but the concept was great. So I was kind of working with the um charities, working with the with the communities to look okay, what are these services and how can we reprovide those services in Kent, but also doing the technicals around the property, the leases coming out of those buildings, the closures and and all of the equipment in those buildings. So I guess that was probably my crack called into looking at things quite holistically. Then skipped a few and and then uh did some really wonderful roles as you do. And then just before COVID, I ended up in CBRE. I did did a few roles in CBRE, but as the pandemic was really taking hold, I moved into a role in the advisory business, leaving the the shaping of the workplace solutions that we would offer to clients to help them during COVID. So obviously, there were a lot of that there was very little uh footfall coming into London because of COVID. There were a lot of expensive efforts that were sitting empty. So we were actually developing and looking at solutions for how people would work out how much space they need in the future, write close their space, what they could do with their excess space at the time, uh looking at the return to the office and and how they would manage that. So that was a I guess a really interesting time and a step back into workplace experience. Then I went to Leastman, obviously that's where we both have experience, did a similar role to I think what you did. Working and partnering with organizations to advise them, kind of looking at their workplace data on their workplace strategy. Skip a couple of of different roles and change MasterCards in into this role, which I think kind of brings it all together, but from an internal lens, looking at our own environment.

SPEAKER_02 17:16

Let's get on to your take on some of the challenges at the moment. What do you think the biggest challenge is either for you and your role or MasterCard or just generally as you're sort of mixing with your peers to share your war stories and frustrations?

SPEAKER_05 17:30

I think probably planning is one of the biggest challenges. If you think about a traditional lease, 10, 15 years or whatever, and I think the way the world is changing, it's just so hard to know what a business is going to look like that far ahead. And I'm I'm not even talking about from the perspective of hybrid, but also just the shape of an organization. So if you think five years ago, we didn't renew the lease of our Canary Wolf building because everybody was there from home. We didn't think that we needed it. The organization was a lot smaller back then. Now we've just opened another manager in London because it's overflowing. But also when you think about AI, I'm not sure how many organizations have a clear view of what their head count is going to look like: five years, six years, seven years, eight years, nine years, ten years time. So I think really trying to plan for the future and be flexible and consider space options that can respond to different changing business landscapes, I think is one of the challenges at the moment. I would say the other challenge probably is with the rise of hybrids, with the rise of working from home, I think workplaces have to work a little bit harder. And it's challenging to build communities and engage your employees when people are coming in on different days, when you don't have like a set community, set active audience there all the time, I would say.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

So, what are the opportunities then? Let's let's turn this around, let's look forward. What what are the big opportunities for the workplace sector at the moment?

SPEAKER_05 19:03

Yeah, I would say so with the challenge that workplace has to work harder, it's a real opportunity to kind of dig deep, experiment, take risks, do something that's beyond transactional. So I I guess a couple of examples of that is with hybrid, but for us, you know, a lot of organizations have will offer complete choice, we'll give people complete freedom when they want to be in, what they want to do. And we realize that actually that has quite a low impact on collaborations because if you're coming in to collaborate and everyone else is working from home, or you're coming in to collaborate and actually you've got your set headset on, it's not a great thing. So we trial and experimented with offering like set team days, where you'd have specific teams coming in on specific days, flip the space throughout the week, so spread the demand to optimize the use of space, um, just as a pilot, as like a six-month experimentation. And we found that satisfaction and like ease of collaboration for during that time, the ability for people to sit with their teams. So I think those kinds of pilots, those kinds of experiments, the opportunity to, I guess, like push the boundaries of what a typical view of an office is and what a kind of typical view of a day in the life is, and try new things and try and engage with different groups. I think is probably better than ever right now. And I think it's part of the role that I really, really enjoy.

SPEAKER_02 20:30

It's almost like what you're saying is because the kind of rule book's been torn up a little bit, actually, it gives you a bit more freedom to go. Hey, look, we're all sort of learning. Let's all, you know, you almost got more engagement and a bit more, like a bit more slack to go, look, we're gonna try something. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. Let's, you know, but let's give it a whirl. And I I suppose that's what we've always wanted is to be able to push boundaries and see what works and what doesn't. I suppose the the kind of what it then relies on is that kind of constant communication with your employees to make, you know, to understand what they're thinking and what what works, what didn't, and why.

SPEAKER_05 21:03

So I think the other thing, kind of looking around the rule book and looking kind of further out to the future, I think a big opportunity which I'd like to do more around is around um inclusivity and the personalization of space. So I think with all of this new technology that's coming in, um and all of the new data that we can start to collect, really thinking about those different groups in the office and the different inclusive needs in the office, and thinking about actually how can you start to personalise that space. So in some way, for example, you could have a profile that would recognize that someone like acquires the meeting room environment or slightly feminized things or different types of faces, then it can like direct you to those faces that might be more suitable for your needs and that sort of thing. So I think there's a real opportunity to start to lean into the environment and almost where it was maybe a little bit more standardized. A few years ago to think about what we could what we could do to personalize it in the future.

SPEAKER_02 22:04

Nice. Okay, so thinking about the future, there will be lots of future workplace leaders hanging on your every word here. And if you could go back to Catherine at Kent Council, what would your advice be for people that kind of want to carve out a career in this sector, want to, you know, end up one day being recognized as a leader in their own right? What advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_05 22:25

I would say probably the the key thing where you have so many different stakeholders is the ability to build trust. So I think if you can start small and deliver projects and build trust successfully in in different things, then I think it's a good way to start to build those networks and work up to this this sort of role. I think also taking ideas from other industries. I think some of the best ideas and inspiration comes outside of the workplace yourself. So looking at the world around you, you start to realise um there's all sorts of initiatives, all sorts of places, all sorts of things that you can bring in. And so I would kind of encourage that that radical thinking and that perspective for them.

SPEAKER_02 23:08

I love the idea of experimentation. When I was at Leesman, we would speak about being more scientific about workplace. And I think many saw that as simply meaning more data, but I always like the idea of test and learn. And hearing Catherine talk about experimentation brought all of that flooding back. Now, next up, a slight about turn. We talked to Scott Wilson of the newly formed Vodafone 3. Now, Scott represents a smaller cohort of people/slash HR-based leaders on this list. And with an L and D role, this was a conversation that took us away from workplace experience and dropped us straight into how employees continue to develop and grow. Well, Scott, look, thanks for joining me. Congratulations on getting on the Workplace Leaders Top 50 list for 2026. Same question we ask everyone on this to kick us off. Just tell us a little bit about what you do, who you do it for, what that work looks like.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

My name is Scott Wilson. Uh, I'm a people development partner working for Vodafone 3, as it is just now. Uh, it was up until about a year ago, three, that I worked for. But uh since we have merged with Vodafone now, we're now Vodafone 3. I essentially look after primarily the retail estate and work on their development, everything from induction right up to the leadership development programs. So all the way through the whole lifespan of uh someone working in retail. I started off in three, looking after the uh contact center for them and moved on to looking after head office staff, and uh the the role has evolved somewhat over the past decades that I've been here.

SPEAKER_02 24:52

That was gonna be my question. I was almost thinking, have you come almost like you're talking about how you sort of help people through the the sort of management stages? Have you almost done that journey yourself, albeit in the more corporate than retail, or did you come through the the retail part of that, the business?

SPEAKER_01 25:07

So no, I I was brought in externally. I was I mean, prior to being 10 years here, I was an HMRC for 13 years. So it was a bit of a difference in uh in in business somewhat. Within my 13 years within HMRC, I started off just as a tax advisor, uh working in contact centers, and then uh moved into the L and D arena. So then spent about eight years working in LD within HMRC and then what moved into three directly into the uh learning department.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

I'm quite curious about that bit where what was it within HMRC? You said it sort of ended up in the kind of people function, you started off as a tax advisor and got into it. How did that happen and then what locked you into it? What was the thing that locked you into that?

SPEAKER_01 25:53

Well, without without going right back to work experience at school, when when I left school, uh when I went to uni, the part-time job that I had at that point was working for the Disney store. That really taught me about the customer experience and how vital that is to sustaining a business, especially like Disney, but not just big businesses like that where you've got theme parks and movies and things, it's about creating an experience for customers that instill a culture where they want to come back, but it's also instilling that culture within the people, and that's what happened with the within HMRC. I was I was a tax advisor uh for five years, and then I went I moved into a comms role. I I'd built up enough knowledge and enough kind of technical expertise to to be in that kind of role for for communications for the contact centres. But as I was rolling out different messages and and delivering these kind of key kind of bits of information, I've I found a a real connection with people. And it took me back to almost those those days in Disney Store when you were connecting with they would call them guests as opposed to customers, you would connect with your guests. I felt that connection when I was working with staff, really kind of seeing how people would would grow and develop before your eyes, you know, you're giving them all this information. So as soon as a role came up as a learning specialist at the time uh within HMRC, I moved into that and then I spent the next eight years kind of honing my skills from there. And it was very technical training, obviously it's it's HMRC, you know, you have to make sure you're stroking the T and dotting the eyes, you know. But it was uh a case of really understanding how those procedures have a knock-on effect on HMRC's customers, the people. So really getting under the skin of not just the customer experience from from the kind of external customer perspective, but also looking at it from the internal customer of the the people I was teaching, making sure they understood that this was people's lives, this was having an effect on them, this was something that affected the money going into people's pockets at the end of the month. We had to make sure we got it right, we had to make sure that we were given the best advice, the right advice at the right time, and seeing people realise that. And it wasn't about the the procedures or the the red tape and all that kind of stuff. It was really about understanding that the messages we deliver with an HMRC were, it was key to make sure that the customers understood what they were doing, when they were doing it, and when they should do it.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Now, look, where I want to take you now is I want to kind of look at where you think the challenges are facing organizations. Now, what's interesting about this is that you're one of the not the only, but the you know, generally speaking, this list is made up of people that manage working environments and facilities and properties, right? And you're you're coming at it from more of a people angle. So I'm actually curious about what your challenges that you think are out there for organisations, because I suspect it will come from a slightly different place. But just talk to me a bit about what you see as the major challenges, either for you or people like you and your role around that kind of thing generally, or just organizations generally when it comes to things like the workplace and and the workforce. What do you think are the kind of things that organizations are wrestling with at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 29:17

I think probably one of the biggest challenges with and this this is across the board with most organizations is that they treat the L and D department or learning in general as something separate from the business. You know, they they they see great content, great facilitation, whatever, but they they see they don't see the follow-up on the day-to-day, they don't see the value coming from it, they don't see that the the results. And the the results should be with any kind of brilliant learning or development, it should be that people leave a course feeling inspired, you know, to to really kind of change a behaviour. Because if they if they don't feel inspired, and and all they're leaving, you know. I I I always say it's uh an old boss of mine said, What we don't want are learning tourists, they turn up for your class, they get a pen, and they leave, you know, they've got the souvenir. Um what we want is people to actually feel inspired to to go out and and make a change, and that's how you change a culture, that's how you develop a culture. And for for me, that the real shift and the real challenge is kind of about about embedding ownership. A leader, and a leader can be anyone, and you know, a manager is a job title, but a leader can be anyone. It's about embedding that ownership, it's about the leader taking responsibility for applying uh the change, and and and that's where organizations need to kind of get on board and be a bit more receptive to that change actually happening. We've we've got really good at delivering learning, but we're not so good at delivering change.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

With skills as well. I do sort of think about the looming influence of AI, and yeah, I totally take your point. I used to work for an organization that sold training, actually, they sold marketing training, and so when like the recession hit, the two budgets that got hit the hardest were L and D and marketing. So when you when you're delivering marketing training, it was a bit of a concern. So I've always sort of realized that people think that L and D and stuff like that is kind of a uh a discretionary spend, and what you're describing there kind of makes the case for it not being, but with AI coming in, I'm sitting there, well, surely if if that's where it is now, just wait until leaders start going, Well, why do I need to spend money on training these guys up? I'm just gonna fling the fling the AI on it, that'll sort that out.

SPEAKER_01 31:32

AI is it's a buzzword, and people are throwing it about, but what the power in things like AI is, and I've seen a lot a lot of this coming out recently, is this agenic approach where you take individuals and you apply AI and in their development, it tailors programs to them, it it gives them materials to look at, it gives them stretch goals that are going to be specific to them, and that's that's where I think the power of AI lies. It's not in using it to rewrite CVs or you know, updating your LinkedIn, it's really about using it to explore your own potential, your own possibilities.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

That's such a good answer, Scott. That's such a good answer. Um, so let's look at, I mean, you sort of touched on it in a way, and I suspect this is because you're you've you kind of struck me as having a kind of a sunny side up personality here and looking at all the all the potential rather than all the challenge. What do you think the big opportunities are for organizations? What do you think, you know, the next few years, you know, what could we really be leaning into and and having a positive impact with?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

As I said, it's that ownership. It's about putting the onus back on the individuals to really kind of own their own development, but giving them the freedom to do that. And that's where things like AI can really help and really can create this environment of autonomy, which I th I think some organizations, I may be wrong, some organizations are a little bit afraid of that autonomy because they fear that's gonna take something away from the leadership structure or from their hierarchy. But I think giving a little bit of that autonomy back to the individual, you get back from what you give. And I think with this it's especially true because what you're gonna get back is an individual who is striving for bear, is stretching themselves, and ultimately is adding value to the workplace to the business.

SPEAKER_02 33:26

Right. This is the big one. I've got high hopes for this one, Scott. Oh gosh, okay. Yeah, I've got high I've got high hopes for this question because really this is your job I'm talking about here. But what would your advice be for the next generation of uh of aspiring workplace leaders?

SPEAKER_01 33:42

I would say take ownership early. Don't wait for someone to give you permission to develop or to step up. Be curious, ask questions, put yourself in situations where you'll have to grow, even if it feels uncomfortable, focus on the kind of the impact that you're wanting to have and understand the impact you are having, and it's not just in that role that you're in just now. So, yeah, I'd say as soon as you can, take ownership of your own development as early as possible.

SPEAKER_02 34:15

I do really buy into Scott's can-do optimistic energy, and I can just imagine him bringing all that energy to the learning process, which I think is a really, really important attribute for people in that sort of role. Now, sticking with the learning theme, our next leader comes to us from the university sector. Fiona Stewart next on the turbulent landscape that is higher education and how she is leaning on sector collaboration to take on those challenges. But before we go to Fiona, a quick message from our sponsor.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

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SPEAKER_02 35:50

Fiona, welcome to the Workplace Geeks podcast. Thanks for joining us and congratulations on making the top 50 list for 2026 for the workplace leaders. Before we dive into a little bit about you, about your career, just tell us what you do for a job right now.

SPEAKER_03 36:06

Okay, I'm Fiona Stuart, Director of Estates and Dacilities for the University of Salford. I've been in this role for just over six months. For a long time in my career, I've worked client side. I've always worked on the service provider side. So it's quite different, but very enjoyable.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

Tell us a little bit about that. So we'd like to kind of hear where people's careers have meandered, where it's taking them. Where did this all start? Where did you come into FM? What was the kind of starting point for that?

SPEAKER_03 36:37

Way back when I used to work for a national social housing provider. I started there as a housing officer, so I got a bit of insight into housing management, estate management. And I used to work very closely with our sort of asset management department. So they were doing life cycle replacement works and roofing replacements, kitchens, bathroom replacements, rewiring, boiler upgrades, all that kind of stuff. And I found that really, really interesting. So I kind of set myself a goal to hopefully join that team. And it did happen. So I went into asset management, even though it was called asset management, it was facilities management. I then secured my first facilities management role as a facilities manager, and that was purpose-built student accommodation. I was probably there around a couple of years or so, and then I was promoted into a regional role. So I managed um PBSA sites from Wales up to Scotland. Um, not sure how that is the Northwest, but anyway, it was a big pass. And a real mix of different assets, different sort of portfolios, and again, lots of new builds coming in, existing stock, lots of refurbishment. So I've I've really have genuinely learned as I've as I've gone along, and I've been successful through just being very curious and inquisitive and asking.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

Lovely. Well, here you are now, you're at the University of Salford. And I personally I'm really fascinated about estates and stuff at universities. Part of that is my wife works in the education sector and looks after a lot of universities. So over dinner I'll get a sort of download of all the challenges that the university sector's facing, but generally, and and then I sort of think about it from an estates experience facilities point of view. I don't think there's many things comparable, you know, in terms of the sorts of estates, maybe hospitals with the the kind of variety and the scale and all the rest of it. But just with all that in mind, just help us understand what the kind of major challenges are that you and and organizations that universities are facing at the moment when it comes to estates and facilities.

SPEAKER_03 38:59

I think within estates and facilities, and especially across university states, is the utilization of space. We've got buildings from sort of 1960s constructions right through to very recent, certainly across the estate at Salford. I suppose it's about really understanding that space, making sure that when we're building new builds, or constructing new builds, that we really think about the space and the purpose of it, and also thinking about future proof in it as well. Across higher education, it is everywhere. Less students are coming to campus. COVID was obviously the driver of that. We've got a lot more technology, we're a lot more digitally enabled. Students will choose to do their studies on online, and that leaves us with a bit of a gap in terms of we've got a lot of space and what what do we actually do with it? So some universities are really thinking commercially, they're looking at, you know, how can they lease that space, how can we repurpose it and make it into something else. So there's an awful lot of activity, a lot of space management strategies out there, and just thinking about space overall and how do we best optimize it. You'll have seen, I'm sure, there's a lot of mergers of universities, the first super university, and that that's a lot about space. There's also financial reasons for that as well, you know, with visa restrictions and cap student loans and funding and all of that adds into that as as well. So the lack of international student presence is a big concern for for universities as well. So I think in terms of that, I think universities in general have always worked very closely together. We're not afraid to share where our challenges are, where there may be opportunities. And that's um a really, really exciting part of you know collaboration within um higher education. We have lots of conferences we can go to and and learn as as well. But I think the really the really exciting part of that is is the sharing across institutions. You know, we're not afraid to say we've got a bit of an issue. Can you help us? Or what are you doing with with that? So that's that's really important.

SPEAKER_02 41:23

Well, what's lovely about that answer as well is that at the beginning you sort of self-declared you've got this kind of growth mindset. And um it's something my kids go to a school where it's all like growth mindset, and you sort of see the sort of sentences on the board that say, here's how you turn something that's not into something that is. And you've kind of lived and breathed that because what I've asked you about there is the challenges, and you've you've started talking about your excitement about the opportunities. And it's like, yeah, there we go, that's that's a growth mindset in action, which kind of leads us on to what do you think the opportunities are for universities, uh, university estates, university estates leaders? Because you know, just listening to you about how you're sort of looking at some of those challenges, like the utilisation as one of them, straight away. I'm sort of thinking, wouldn't it be interesting to get certain sectors to occupy those spaces that are going to want graduates to come? You know, suddenly that it does strike me as that there are some, if you look at it the right way, there's some exciting opportunities to do something different because it's an old model, right? And your point about Covid, I suppose, in a way, it did it for the sort of corporate office space. It sort of showed people there was a different way to work, and that's kind of been the new challenge. But you know, you had to carry on teaching during the pandemic, and that showed all the students, the lecturers, everybody involved, it's a different way to learn. So then you're left with these big sort of estates that are based on an old model. So, you know, just talk us through what do you think that the sort of big opportunities are with with turning these challenges around and turning them into sort of exciting new opportunities.

SPEAKER_03 42:59

I think the opportunities, some may see it as opportunities, some some may not, but when you look at you know the first super university with Greenwich and Kent, and there's some further mergers that have happened as as well. I do believe, because we're working in a world of digitalization, that there will be many, many more mergers. And I do see that as a positive because if you look at the student experience, so we've got three universities in and around Manchester. We may teach some degrees here that other universities don't. So it's about looking at how do we really expand on that opportunity. So if a student wants to come and study in Manchester, for example, we've got a whole raft of different degrees, expertise that students could come to the city, and of course, that helps with the economy and everything as well. AI is going to play a massive part in that as well, and I think that. That's definitely going to be the way forward for teaching. There will always be some face-to-face human interaction. There has to be. But I see that as an opportunity. I'm not quite sure which slight, but I think that's going to be something really exciting in the future. And I think with the space stuff as well, coupled with potential commercial opportunities, it's how do we get our buildings working as smartly as possible in this world of digital? And that's something that we're really focusing on at Salford. So how do we make our buildings work as smartly as possible, having all that data and data is king at our fingertips to enable our workforce to work as smartly as possible as well?

SPEAKER_02 44:44

So if you were sitting here giving some advice to someone, you know, let's go all the way back to to the the young Fiona set in the social housing organization. What advice would you be giving people? What advice would you give someone who's sitting there listening to this going, I want to be on that workplace leaders uh list in the future? You know, what how should they approach that?

SPEAKER_03 45:05

Looking back at my early career, I always aspired to be a manager. And if I was a manager and I could manage people, that was my ambition. I always thought that I had really good people's skills, quite emotionally intelligent, really strong interpersonal skills. So I thought I would be a really good manager. And I think I made that, I became a manager and I learned again as I moved on in my career. But I think what I done to be successful was I worked hard. I always went above and beyond. And having that curious mind, I was always keen to, you know, if if if I had some quieter days, for example, I would always ask my manager, is there something I can do to help you? I see you're really busy, is there anything I can take off you so that I I can learn and maybe be my manager's successor? I was always really keen to explore what was happening outside of my bubble, so what was happening in the wider organisation. And I certainly was really exploring that when I worked for Sedexo as a global organisation. So I managed a contract in a multi-billion pound company, but I was always keen to see, well, what are they doing over there and what are they doing over there? So I spent a lot of time, as I know I've said a number of times, just asking and can I go in shadow? Can I see what you do? Because that also helped me as well, understanding maybe where my next career move would be. So I think it is that definitely ask questions, be curious, be inquisitive, explore outside your own bubble, and don't be afraid to take risks. That's really, really important. Um and I suppose just be nice. Be a nice, human, help and support others is really key as well. And don't be afraid to share what you know because it's important that you bring people up with you and you give them the skills and the knowledges as well. So share widely, really important as well.

SPEAKER_02 47:07

I think higher education is a sector that is going to and probably has to completely innovate its thinking, and that's going to have huge impacts on property and state. So that's one to keep an eye on. And finally, we're back into the corporate landscape, but this time looking at it through a health and safety lens with our next leader, Claire Goody. Claire, welcome to the Workplace Geeks podcast and congratulations on being named in the top 50 workplace leaders for 2026. Just to get our listeners into the right headspace, just tell us who you are and where you work.

SPEAKER_04 47:46

My name's Claire Goody, and I am the head of workplace health and safety for Sage. And for those that don't know, Sage is the accountancy software company.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Have you always been in health and safety? Or you know, what sort of route did you take into the industry and how have you ended up in this role? What were the kind of stepping stones?

SPEAKER_04 48:03

Okay, originally a long, long time ago, I wanted to be a dentist. And I stupidly thought that A levels were going to be as easy as O levels. I was the last year of O levels, and they weren't, and I failed them. So I had to retake, and when I retook, I thought, well, actually, what am I really interested in? And it was environment at that stage. So I did an environmental science degree with a placement, so I did a sandwich course, and part of that was occupational hygiene. So after I'd got my bachelor's, I then did a master's in occupational hygiene, which after that um I then started as bizarre a technical writer, but what was barber index? So people in the industry with no barber. Yep. So I used to write in the books, I used to I used to help with the microfish. Gosh, I'm showing my age here. Oh no.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

This is definitely an episode for the kids. That's it, they've got O levels, microfish.

SPEAKER_04 49:01

So, and then um, so I was there for a few years, and then I started work as a health and safety assistant for Thames Valley University. Then after that, I became health and safety manager for Alan and Overy, which is an international global law firm. And obviously, I'd done an environmental degree, and back then the environment was something that no one really did anything with at all. Sustainability wasn't really a word, and I was like, oh, do you know what? This is a gap. I can do stuff here. So I started the environmental things. So I eventually became head of health safety and environment for Allen and Overy. And I was there for oh, I don't know, eight, seven, eight years, and then I was headhunted for um Eversheds, which is now Evershed Sutherland, another global law firm, and headed up environment, health and safety and business continuity there. And I was there for 17 years, then went to Cushman's Wakefield, but I worked for Cushman's but was seconded into Sage. So it was two years ago, and then a year ago I was tubed over to Sage simply because being sort of like leading health and safety was just harder working as a contractor. I didn't have access to everything I really wanted to have or needed to have access to, whereas being working within Sage is so much easier.

SPEAKER_02 50:27

One of the things I I I love about this series is that everyone's kind of starting point is slightly different, you know. And I think you're probably the first person that says, well, it started with dentistry, uh, or not quite dentistry. Um, but like as you're talking there, health and safety feels like it's been the the sort of constant, the sort of consistent one. But you've talked about some of the other bits and bobs. I mean, I'm am I right in saying that now is health and safety kind of 100% focused? Is that is that a kind of a reflection of the importance of that, you know, that they're not trying to bolt on other things to it, whereas in the past it might have been like let's bundle a couple of these things together to make a whole role.

SPEAKER_04 51:06

So and it was yeah, and it was cheaper, wasn't it? You know, just me, my team. Whereas Sage don't look at it that way. You know, Sage have got a massive environmental team, sustainability is really important to you know the firm and and its and its customers. I have we call them workplace managers, facilities managers to everyone else in in every site. I work with them, but again, with business continuity, I work with them, I work with travel. So I I still have my fingers in those pots, but my focus is ensuring the health and safety of our colleagues.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

Okay, so let's broaden these this out a little bit. Let's think a little bit about what the challenges are in the industry at the moment. Now, that can be generally the workplace and facilities, it might be specific to the health and safety kind of considerations in organisations. But what are the kind of headaches and challenges in the market at the moment that either you're experiencing or you're seeing amongst your peers?

SPEAKER_04 52:00

Obviously, COVID came along, and we all worked from home and we all had a lovely time working at home, let's be honest about this, you know, because we didn't pay for our travel, etc. etc. But it also there was the reduction in face-to-face, the social side, all of that, which some people did suffer from, particularly if you were living on your own. You know, if you were at home with your family and your wide of friends, etc., not so much of an issue. But I think for the younger people it was an issue. So going back to work is important. But the thing is we're now hybrid. So we don't have the full coverage that we used to have. You know, you used to have fire wardens in every day, you have first aiders in every day. We don't have that. So I think that's quite difficult to make sure you've got that coverage in every office. Because obviously I'm global coverage, it's not like, oh, I'll just go in and make sure my office is fine. There's 35 offices. You know, you've got to make sure that they're all correct. And that's quite difficult. And again, how do you find where your first aiders are? You know, in the old days, you used to know where your first aid is at. Now it might be in a completely different floor, let alone, you know, not in the same seat. So that that for us was was a challenge. And also another one was I found is people with medical conditions want first aiders to know about their medical conditions, so that if something happens to them, the first aid that doesn't turn up blind, they're like, oh, okay, I know that Mary has seizures, and I don't need to do anything unless Mary's seizure lasts for more than 10 minutes, you know, or or whatever it may be. And I think that in the past has been quite problematic, and that's something we've worked on over the last couple of years and found solutions to that.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

It is kind of amazing because there's a lot of talk about hybrid and flexibility and stuff, and it's it's definitely seen as a positive thing. Like as you sort of described, it's like, yeah, look, generally speaking, is a good thing. It's kind of like these ripple effects, isn't it? That you suddenly go, oh, actually, hold on a minute, that's going to have an impact on this. How that you know, that's that's an assumption that we've just been working on in a certain way for so long. So that if that's the challenge, or one of the challenges, there's lots of challenges in the market at the minute. What do you think the opportunities are for the sector, whether it is linked to what you just described, or whether you think generally speaking, from a health and well-being point of view, there's there's more to be done. What do you think the kind of big challenges that we could be really gripping onto and doing something with?

SPEAKER_04 54:12

There's a real opportunity to improve situations through the communication channel. We had a committee meeting yesterday with San Jose, and we were talking about hazard reporting, you know, how important. And suddenly they were like, Oh, I didn't realise we actually had to do this. And we're like, Yes, because by doing that we improve it, and you won't have to keep reporting it or experiencing it. So I think that's one of the key things is getting the word out, but repeatedly, you know, because you can't just send it out once and think they know, because A, people miss things. We all miss emails and communications all the time, and people are joining, people forget things. So I think it's that constant awareness of health and safety, but without ramming it down people's throats and making it sound like it's a really bad message, you know, we're doing it to improve things, not because we're, you know, big brother sitting on your shoulder trying to catch you out.

SPEAKER_02 55:04

Great. Okay, so I want to transport you back to a young Claire thinking, dentistry's for me, pivoting into environment, pivoting again into organizational hygiene, pivoting again into health and safety. But what would your advice be to you know future workplace leaders who are sort of aspiring to get the sort of recognition that you got this year with the the list? What would you be advising them?

SPEAKER_04 55:28

I think grab all learning opportunities that you can go out there, get wide knowledge, get wide experience if you can. I wish, in a way, I'd probably done like one of my one of my best friends also in health and safety, um, and she did consultancy. And so by doing that, by being like a contractor, she worked in lots of different industries when she was young. And I think that was that's a really good thing if you can do. She didn't go the degree route at all. She just got work experience. And because she did it when she was young, she wasn't tied down, she didn't have a family, she was able to move around. And I think the wider the knowledge you got of various industries, the better, because then you can chew in to wherever you fancy. You know, talk to people, join your local groups, you know, go to the talk to see what is happening, what's what's useful, what can you, what can you grab, because that's what you want. You want to be keeping up to date with what's happening, what people are saying. And read your read your journals.

SPEAKER_02 56:29

I'm not one to dwell on COVID, but you realise that the ripples continue, even now, to appear. There we are, hearing about how health and safety had to adapt because of more remote flexible working. So the ripples, even now, continue to flow. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed our latest sit-down with this year's workplace leaders. There is plenty more to come. Now, if you have joined us for the first time on Workplace Geeks, a quick plug for our main series, series five, which launched in June. We started off with Dave Coplin looking at the impact of AI on work. And we've just had episodes from the amazing Julia Hobbsbourne, the author of The Nowhere Office, and Margaret Heffanen, author of Willful Blindness, an all-round phenomenal thinker on business and leadership. And we've plenty more guests lined up. So do check it out on your favourite podcast platform. Like and subscribe. Before we finish, just a reminder that Workplace Geeks is brought to you by Audium, the Workplace Analytics platform, helping organizations make sense of written feedback and uncovering the stories behind the scores. You can find out more at audium.io. Stay tuned. We will speak soon.