What If?
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What If?
What if? The podcast that dares to think differently about people and business. What if?, from the CIPD’s Work. magazine, asks curious and unexpected questions about everything from inclusion to artificial intelligence. And it brings together world-leading experts, including academics, authors and b...
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35 Episoden
What if… bad bosses went to prison?
Recent scrutiny of the Post Office Horizon scandal, in particular, has thrown questions around ethical business and good governance into stark relief....
What if… everyone refused to come back to the office?
With Barclays Bank, Boots, JD Sports and Dell Technologies among some of the big names to have asked staff to spend a certain percentage of their time...
What if… your manager’s 20 years younger?
Most would agree that people shouldn’t be promoted into line management roles just because they've been at the company a while or are competent techni...
What if… AI wrote this episode?
Should you ever send a bot to a meeting in your place? Will the advent of ChatGPT et al eventually mean people lose the skill to write from scratch? S...
What if… the NHS collapsed?
The UK’s National Health Service is in such a parlous state that the new government should declare it a national emergency, a commission of experts re...
What if… we stopped listening to Silicon Valley?
Once upon a time, if the likes of Google or Netflix were up to something, it wouldn’t be long before other employers followed suit (think stack rankin...
What if… we paid nurses more?
During the Covid-19 lockdowns we all gained a renewed appreciation for frontline workers – healthcare professionals in particular, but also delivery d...
What if… everyone was racist?
‘Unconscious bias’ has not enjoyed the best of reputations over the last few years, with much training labelled ineffective, and concerns around the c...
What if… HR was a regulated profession?
To become a farrier (fitting horseshoes) in the UK, there is a legal requirement to have certain qualifications or experience and to register with a r...
What if… we banned relationships at work?
Rules drawn up by ITV following the Phillip Schofield scandal mean staff must now declare all workplace relationships – including friendships – to the...
What if...there was another pandemic?
Many people’s lives now feel fully ‘back to normal’ several years after Covid-19 lockdowns, almost as if the pandemic never happened... But should the...
What if… we all got high?
Some of today’s most high-profile leaders make no secret of micro dosing – the practice of ingesting small amounts of psychedelic substances to enhanc...
What if… no one was rich?
Many might be unaware that the pandemic led to the greatest ever surge in billionaire wealth globally. So is it time to take steps towards wealth redi...
What if… everyone got cancelled?
Is calling for an individual or institution to be boycotted ever justified, or productive? Or do we just need to grow thicker skins against offensive...
What if… we did away with experts?
Have the people of this country – as Michael Gove had it back in 2016 – simply had enough of experts? HR leader Amanda Arrowsmith and AI expert Rob Mc...
What if… China invaded Taiwan?
In the wake of the pandemic and the war in Ukraine, many are trying desperately to expect the unexpected – to anticipate the next ‘unthinkable’ global...
What if… there was no employment law?
In a world of work that looks very different to even five or 10 years ago, is employment legislation in the UK fit for purpose? Do any regulations sti...
What if…you could brainwash staff?
What if… you could brainwash staff?
Whether deployed knowingly or not, ‘choice architecture’ is everywhere in the workplace, from encouraging p...
What if… men took more parental leave than women?
Why, come 2023, is childcare still perceived as a predominantly ‘female’ domain by so many? Why is leave at the start of a child’s life still very rar...
What if… no one was an employee?
The way many people now work post pandemic is almost unrecognisable compared to how this looked before, raising the question of whether formal employm...
What if… CEOs were activists?
Examples of company bosses taking a hardline stance on political and social issues have proliferated over recent years – particularly in the US, on hi...
What if… we never retired?
In times gone by, it was an unspoken fact of life that come a certain age, everyone would swap their careers for a life of gardening, golf and general...
What if… everyone went on strike?
Fuelled by a cost of living crisis and several years of frontline workers having put themselves at risk during the pandemic, the UK is facing the bigg...
What if... we brought our true selves to work?
In this first episode of series three, we ponder whether complete self-expression at work is the ED&I holy grail, or would lead to total anarchy in pr...
What if… we fell out of love with charismatic leaders?
Since the financial crisis of 2008, the #MeToo movement and a series of high-profile corporate collapses, the business world has begun to question a c...
What if… we recruited at random?
If the traditional unstructured interview is about as useful at predicting on-the-job success as astrology and graphology, and many employers still re...
What if… no one had to work?
What would we all do all day if there were no jobs? And how likely is this to come to pass? Academic Daniel Susskind argues it is only a matter of tim...
What if… the metaverse wasn’t overhyped? (and we knew what it was)
You can already watch a concert, buy designer goods or bid for virtual artwork in the metaverse... And if you work at Accenture, or one of a handful o...
What if… we abolished HR?
It has been seven years since Ram Charan wrote his controversial article ‘It’s time to blow up HR and build something new’, and hopefully the professi...
What if… we all told the truth at work?
Radical honesty is an increasingly popular concept, particularly among Silicon Valley firms – as is the idea of speaking truth to power. But are we al...
What If...we did away with diversity and inclusion?
Episode 5Nobody doubts there’s a serious problem with lack of representation in the workplace. But are centrally organised initiatives really the best...
What If...there was no hierarchy at work?
Episode 4To some, it sounds like a dream to work in a business with no bosses. But as philosopher Julian Baggini points out, if you think hierarchy is...
What If...AI ran a business?
Episode 3Advances in artificial intelligence are accelerating so rapidly it’s no longer quite so far-fetched to think an algorithm could take the CEO’...
What If...we all worked from home forever?
Episode 2The coronavirus pandemic saw a forced exodus of knowledge workers from the office. But employers are divided on whether they want them back f...
What If...all pay was transparent?
Episode 1Employees like the idea of knowing what their colleagues earn – but that also means sharing their own salary details. Academics Emma Parry an...