LEAP Listens · 2026-07-01 · 27 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
51 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
Rachel Tolhurst brings three decades of internal communications experience to explore why organisational change often fails and how to do it better. Rather than viewing resistance as the problem, she argues that uncertainty and lack of emotional engagement are the real barriers - citing Gartner data showing employee willingness to support enterprise change dropped from 74% to 43% between 2016 and 2022. She distinguishes between emotional engagement and transactional engagement, explaining that employees who've experienced repeated restructuring become cynical about change initiatives, making them harder to reach. Tolhurst shares a compelling case study from a financial services merger where she successfully advocated for telling employees before the public announcement, despite stock exchange pressures. Her core philosophy centres on an empathy-first approach: imagining what employees will experience when they hear difficult news, then designing communications that preserve dignity and respect. She also recommends change readiness interviews at the Civil Aviation Authority as a tool for understanding concerns and identifying solutions. For internal comms leaders managing redundancies, closures, or significant restructuring, her insights on timing, listening, and treating people with dignity offer practical approaches to maintain trust and loyalty even during disruptive change.
People generally don't resist change itself but rather uncertainty and disruption. Employees are more resistant when change feels imposed, disruptive, or when they've experienced repeated restructuring that eroded their emotional engagement with the organisation. If change improves a difficult situation, employees may welcome it.
Emotional engagement means employees care about the organisation's direction; transactional engagement means they focus purely on their specialist role and job security. Employees with only transactional engagement (common after multiple restructurings) will perform well but won't listen to or support change initiatives, viewing each new change as 'just another jacket' the company is putting on.
Rachel's financial services merger example shows that slight delays in external announcements are often legally permissible if the actual deal isn't finalised, allowing time to pre-brief managers under embargo and hold staff briefings before public announcement - preserving employee dignity without breaching regulations.
If employees hear major news (like a merger) unsettled and unprepared while commuting or at home, they arrive at work anxious with no answers, leading to poor customer interactions, service failures, and negative press coverage - whereas briefing them first allows them to serve customers with confidence.
Change readiness interviews, used at the Civil Aviation Authority, involve asking employees about their concerns but also their ideas for solutions. This listening approach helps communications and change plans succeed by understanding where people actually are before designing your strategy, rather than assuming resistance means the change shouldn't happen.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
There are a handful of genuinely useful ideas - the emotional vs. transactional engagement distinction, change readiness interviews, and the logistics of simultaneous floor-by-floor briefings - but the episode is padded with several minutes of host banter, a personal anecdote about a supermarket crush, and platitude-level advice ('empathy first', 'listen to your people'). The insight-to-runtime ratio is low for a 27-minute episode.
your engagement stats might be in the 70s, and you think, yeah, we're doing okay, that reports well. But when you read the comments, you think, Oh, maybe not so well
we found was that people there's a difference between being emotionally engaged with the organization and transactionally engaged
The emotional/transactional engagement distinction surfaced from the Kingston University project is a modestly fresh framing, and the 'toothbrush' visualisation technique for persuading executives is a practical original contribution. However, the episode's core argument - tell employees first, use empathy, segment your audience - is standard internal comms doctrine with no contrarian or first-principles challenge to received wisdom.
This is an example I call toothbrush, so I remember it if I'm prepping for an interview or something
tell them a little story so they have a little film of visual running in their head, they can actually realize if you arrive at work in that state, it's not going to go well
Rachel Tolhurst is a genuine 30-year practitioner with named institutional experience (Civil Aviation Authority, a major government engineering supplier, financial services mergers) who has clearly done the work at scale. She is self-employed and credible, but not an executive-level decision-maker or someone who built and scaled a function at a well-known organisation - she is a senior IC consultant, not a C-suite operator.
I worked for a large engineering firm that was a major supplier to government, um, I managed the employee engagement surveying there
one lovely method I learned at the Civil Aviation Authority was to do change readiness interviews
The episode scores reasonably well on specificity: named data sources (Gartner, Kingston University), real figures (74% to 43% change willingness, 31% AI sabotage, 44% Gen Z, 2,500-worker survey), and operational detail (four-floor simultaneous briefings, 9 a.m. stock-exchange delay, 20,000+ employees across two organisations). The main gap is no named organisations, no outcome metrics from the interventions described, and no before/after data on loyalty or retention.
Gartner found that employees' willingness to support enterprise change dropped from 74% in 2016 to just 43% in 2022, a period when the average employee went from experiencing two plan changes a year to 10
31% of them admitted to actively sabotaging their employers' AI strategy. And among them, the Gen Z workers were for that that figure rose to 44%
The hosts do ask a few useful follow-ups ('Did you have any other pushback?', 'What was different about how people experienced that?') and Roger's A/B testing challenge is a genuinely sharp probe. However, the episode opens with nearly three minutes of self-congratulatory banter, the AI question is openly framed as a mandatory checkbox, and Roger's personal Safeway anecdote consumes significant runtime without advancing the discussion.
Did you consider doing any A-B testing where you did tell some branches or didn't tell others? Well that that would give you the case study data
it's mandatory for all conversations to mention AI. Um, so we've reached that bit
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
In this episode of LEAP Listens, Sara and Roger are joined by internal communications and change specialist Rachel Tolhurst to explore why empathy should sit at the heart of organisational change. Drawing on more than 30 years of experience, Rachel shares practical lessons from leading change programmes across a range of organisations, explaining why understanding employees' emotions is just as important as delivering the message. From mergers and redundancies to AI adoption, Rachel shares real examples of how organisations can handle difficult conversations with honesty, dignity and trust, helping employees feel informed, respected and supported through change LEAP Listens is
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
1 - > SPEAKER_02: Hello and welcome to Leap Listens, the People 2 - > Communications podcast from Leap Create. 3 - > I'm Sarah, and with me is Roger, our Creative Director. 4 - > Hello. 5 - > In this series, we're talking to industry experts about workplace 6 - > culture, employer branding, and how to communicate with the 7 - > people that matter most, your candidates and employees.
8 - > These are bite-sized episodes, short enough to get to the point 9 - > and learn on the go. 10 - > If you're new here, welcome. 11 - > We're heading towards a hundred episodes, and you can find them 12 - > all on our website, Spotify, or Apple Podcasts. 13 - > Hi Roger.
14 - > SPEAKER_00: Hello, Sarah. 15 - > How are you? 16 - > SPEAKER_02: I'm very good. 17 - > Very enthusiastic today.
18 - > SPEAKER_00: Excellent. 19 - > I am. 20 - > I'm enthusiastic because I'm excited about what we're going 21 - > to do now. 22 - > What are we going to do now?
23 - > SPEAKER_02: We're going to be talking about change, behavior 24 - > change, and how some people are very resistant to it. 25 - > And it's a very hard job, isn't it, for um particularly internal 26 - > comms teams to manage this correctly and managing people's 27 - > emotions as well when it comes to things like redundancy, team 28 - > changes, but even like small things as well. 29 - > People don't like changing their desk, for example. 30 - > So we're going to be talking about managing people's 31 - > emotions.
32 - > SPEAKER_00: Yeah. 33 - > And um, you know, as the old joke goes, um how many designers 34 - > does it take to change a light bulb? 35 - > I'm not changing anything. 36 - > SPEAKER_02: There you go.
37 - > Boom boom. 38 - > SPEAKER_00: Boom boom. 39 - > Boom Tish. 40 - > SPEAKER_02: I have to say, I like your uh LinkedIn posts 41 - > recently, Roger.
42 - > SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank you, Sarah. 43 - > Thank you. 44 - > Well, I'm gonna um I I just sort of decided to take a different 45 - > approach which felt a bit more me. 46 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, very good.
47 - > SPEAKER_00: And I can't compete, I can't compete with with your 48 - > videos which are all super professional and polished. 49 - > SPEAKER_02: Thank you. 50 - > SPEAKER_00: Right, should we crack should we crack on? 51 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, let's do it.
52 - > So we're gonna be talking to Rachel today. 53 - > Rachel has over 30 years experience in internal 54 - > communication across many organizations, and she's now 55 - > self-employed, working on change projects, hosting roundtables 56 - > and mentoring, and her experience spans change 57 - > management, employee listening and measurement. 58 - > And what drives her is empathy and dignity and how we 59 - > communicate during those difficult moments. 60 - > So, yeah, let's let's jump in.
61 - > Welcome, Rachel, to the podcast. 62 - > SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much. 63 - > It's such a delight to be here after listening to lots of your 64 - > podcast episodes on my walkies around the Stroud Valley area. 65 - > SPEAKER_02: So, Rachel, tell us a little bit more about you.
66 - > SPEAKER_03: Thank you. 67 - > Yes. 68 - > Um well I've worked in the internal com space for 30 years 69 - > now across many industries and agency, and I absolutely love 70 - > the variety that this role gives us because we don't have to 71 - > stick to one particular sector, and I love that sort of freedom 72 - > and the variety that we get. 73 - > I've worked obviously on an awful lot of change 74 - > communications, and I like to take and talk about taking a 75 - > people or rather an empathy first approach to change because 76 - > I think that's all what it needs to be about is putting ourselves 77 - > in other people's shoes, and I'm really looking forward to 78 - > digging into that with you.
79 - > SPEAKER_02: So, yeah, today we're going to be talking about 80 - > um how some people don't welcome change. 81 - > Um, that's just the reality, and I know that you've learned um a 82 - > lot about this, Rachel, and got a lot of experience. 83 - > So let's just start, shall we, with um the honest bit that most 84 - > people don't welcome change, but what you've seen in 85 - > organizations and how you handle that, there's been different 86 - > ways. 87 - > So, what's the difference between the ones that get it and 88 - > the ones that are on board to the ones that just don't?
89 - > SPEAKER_03: Yeah, well, I think there's a really broad spectrum 90 - > of reactions to change. 91 - > You know, we're all we're all different. 92 - > There are people like me who actually find change quite 93 - > energizing and exciting to people who feel deeply 94 - > unsettled, even if you're just suggesting their desks move, 95 - > their desk moves to a different position, you know, and that's 96 - > fine. 97 - > Um, yeah, I think when we first spoke, I did say loads of people 98 - > just don't want to change at all.
99 - > And I'm not just a cynic, I think there's a lot of data to 100 - > back this up. 101 - > So, for example, Gartner found that employees' willingness to 102 - > support enterprise change dropped from 74% in 2016 to just 103 - > 43% in 2022, a period when the average employee went from 104 - > experiencing two plan changes a year to 10. 105 - > I mean, I'd be tempted to say it's more, but we all I think 106 - > can agree that it definitely increased. 107 - > Um, I think there are also different types of engagement.
108 - > So when I worked for a large engineering firm that was a 109 - > major supplier to government, um, I managed the employee 110 - > engagement surveying there as I have for most companies that 111 - > I've worked for, and we did a special project with Kingston 112 - > University Business School. 113 - > Um, because I said, and I think a lot of companies will find 114 - > this, your engagement stats, and I think Howard at Craze might 115 - > have a comment on this as well.
116 - > Your engagement stats might be in the 70s, and you think, yeah, 117 - > we're doing okay, that reports well. 118 - > But when you read the comments, you think, Oh, maybe not so 119 - > well. 120 - > And this matters in change, and what essentially the bottom line 121 - > was that we found was that people there's a difference 122 - > between being emotionally engaged with the organization 123 - > and transactionally engaged, as in you love your job, so you 124 - > have a specialist role, you will always work in that role, be it 125 - > finance, highways, rail, aviation.
126 - > You love the work that you do, but you especially for 127 - > organizations where people who've experienced a lot of 128 - > choopy situations, it's just another jacket, and you're the 129 - > company that's trying to make them do things right now, but 130 - > another one will come along, and that's their attitude, 131 - > especially once they've cheopied a few times, they can lose that 132 - > emotional engagement. 133 - > And yes, they will still do a good job and probably still be 134 - > quite good to the public and the people and the customers that 135 - > they work with, but when you're trying to get their attention 136 - > for change, it can be a lot harder, and they're not 137 - > necessarily listening.
138 - > Um, one lovely method I learned at the Civil Aviation Authority 139 - > was to do change readiness interviews so that identifies 140 - > people's concerns but also solutions to change. 141 - > It doesn't mean if everyone disagrees with it's not going to 142 - > happen, but actually trying your hardest to understand how people 143 - > could adapt to the change that's coming will make uh your 144 - > communications and your change plans much more likely to 145 - > succeed.
146 - > And I just think that having a listening approach for 147 - > understanding where people actually are before you design 148 - > your communication plan is absolutely essential. 149 - > So I know not everybody feels that the surveying and 150 - > engagement stuff sits in internal comms. 151 - > I often really like it when it does because then you're really 152 - > close to the data and understanding your audiences 153 - > better. 154 - > SPEAKER_00: I yeah, so that's that's uh really a lot of great 155 - > insight there.
156 - > I don't necessarily agree with the sort of universal truth that 157 - > people don't like change because I think people cite wanting to 158 - > change as a reason to leave something or wanted to do 159 - > something different, but also it depends on the change, doesn't 160 - > it? 161 - > If you're currently deeply unhappy and something is going 162 - > to change for the better, then that's a a good thing, isn't it? 163 - > So it it it it's kind of uncertainty I think people don't 164 - > like more than that.
165 - > SPEAKER_03: Yes, I agree actually. 166 - > Yeah, I think you're absolutely right, and I guess the stats for 167 - > from sort of Gartner that I quote, for example, and I guess 168 - > a lot of the company change the internal communicators are 169 - > involved with, let's face it, is isn't always positive or it's 170 - > disruptive and so therefore can feel negative for a period of 171 - > time until things settle. 172 - > So, yes, I think you're absolutely right. 173 - > And I think a lot of people don't like change.
174 - > I don't think nobody likes change, but certainly I do. 175 - > SPEAKER_02: So yeah, so Rachel, I agree with that. 176 - > I've got a brilliant story about a financial services merger 177 - > where you basically said to the leadership, tell the employees 178 - > first. 179 - > So walk us through what happened and and why you pushed for that.
180 - > SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I I mean I think it's about the empathy 181 - > thing, and I always try and imagine what are we going, 182 - > what's going to happen to these people the day they hear this 183 - > news that might scare them, might be a bit scary. 184 - > And this is an example I call toothbrush, so I remember it if 185 - > I'm prepping for an interview or something. 186 - > So the context is I worked on a merger for a financial two 187 - > financial services organisation, and there was understandable 188 - > pressure to make the public announcement at a specific time 189 - > of day due to the stock exchange requirements, which would have 190 - > been before most of them had woken up in the morning.
191 - > And my concern was with over 20,000 employees across two 192 - > organisations, many of whom could eyeball each other across 193 - > the high street in the opposing branches, so therefore there 194 - > would be an understandable feeling of threat and fear 195 - > between them. 196 - > If they heard while they're brushing their teeth in the 197 - > morning, getting ready for work, or hear it on the bus, they 198 - > would arrive unsettled with no information and no preparation 199 - > to face a queue of anxious customers at the door.
200 - > Because in those days, if you remember savings passbooks, 201 - > people would queue up and they'd want their passbook updated, and 202 - > they'd have like I don't know 12 years worth of pages that you 203 - > know the dot matrix printer updating it, and it would cause 204 - > pandemonium, and the people just wouldn't if they wouldn't feel 205 - > in a good position and they'd be worried about themselves, and 206 - > they actually wouldn't have any answers either. 207 - > So my recommendation was to delay the external announcement 208 - > slightly to pre-warn branch managers under embargo to allow 209 - > them to open half an hour late, put a sign on the window to say 210 - > we were having staff training, to enable some briefing of staff 211 - > and QA's that they could use with customers.
212 - > The branch managers overnight didn't know what the 213 - > announcement was, but at least we were able to show that we 214 - > respected people enough to try our hardest to tell them first. 215 - > Um, one of the directors promised me he would find a typo 216 - > and so it wouldn't go to stock exchange till 9 a.m. 217 - > SPEAKER_02: So did you have any other pushback other than I 218 - > mean, obviously that was a very kind thing for him to do to 219 - > enable that to happen.
220 - > But did you have any other pushback from other leadership? 221 - > SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was the whole C-suite to be honest, 222 - > because absolutely we must stick to stock exchange rules. 223 - > But actually, if our contract wasn't signed and ready until 9, 224 - > it was appropriate within the rules to announce it then. 225 - > We didn't we weren't a listed company ourselves, so we didn't 226 - > have to, you know, there weren't shareholders to be concerned 227 - > about.
228 - > So in that instance, so people were saying no, and they just 229 - > thought I was trying to be, you know, do the do the fluffy 230 - > stuff. 231 - > But when I told the story, and this is where I talk about 232 - > coming at empathy, tell them a little story so they have a 233 - > little film of visual running in their head, they can actually 234 - > realize if you arrive at work in that state, it's not going to go 235 - > well, and your customers won't like it, and the press can say 236 - > about how negative it was, and no one knew what was what to 237 - > say.
238 - > So it's and and it's not just me trying to influence, it's 239 - > genuinely me trying to make it a better experience for the 240 - > employees. 241 - > But we should always be thinking about what's the impact on the 242 - > wider business, and that would be on customer satisfaction, 243 - > customer service, and potentially sort of reputation 244 - > and and media. 245 - > And I think the the bottom line for me is even when there is 246 - > terrible pressure, or terrible pressure, a lot of pressure to 247 - > do something to a certain time or in a certain way, there can 248 - > sometimes be just a tiny way to find out that you could pay tell 249 - > your people first, and the cost of not doing so in terms of 250 - > trust and loyalty, I think, is far higher than the 251 - > inconvenience of a little delay.
252 - > SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's really good advice, and 253 - > obviously appreciate that there was legal reasons around that, 254 - > but I guess in a lot of organisations they're often 255 - > trying to foster a sense of togetherness and things being 256 - > non-hierarchical, and I suppose nothing's gonna kind of sever 257 - > that quicker than that idea that you're the last to hear about 258 - > some major announcement. 259 - > SPEAKER_03: Absolutely. 260 - > SPEAKER_02: And once you'd done it that way, Rachel, what was 261 - > the what was different about how people experienced that?
262 - > SPEAKER_03: Obviously the news was still big and impactful, and 263 - > some branches did close because you wouldn't want two branches 264 - > of the same brand facing each other on the high street. 265 - > So the change was still difficult, but I think it helps 266 - > with people feeling respected and valued that you were honest 267 - > and upfront with them, and I think that helps with loyalty 268 - > and trust. 269 - > I think it's really important. 270 - > It's clearly still difficult, but at least it means you you 271 - > still have their you still have them at the beginning, you 272 - > haven't lost them immediately by just not bothering to tell them 273 - > at all.
274 - > It's how they would see it. 275 - > SPEAKER_00: Did you consider consider doing any A-B testing 276 - > where you did tell some branches or didn't tell others? 277 - > Well that that would give you the that would give you the case 278 - > study data for the answer to Sarah's question. 279 - > SPEAKER_03: Yeah, not wanting to break the embargo, uh, that's 280 - > not something I was prepared to risk.
281 - > I don't think I could have pushed it that far. 282 - > But nice idea. 283 - > SPEAKER_02: So um what does so we talk about like dignity say 284 - > in in difficult moments? 285 - > Um what does dignity actually look like when you're delivering 286 - > like really difficult news, like redundancy, closure, that kind 287 - > of thing?
288 - > SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's a couple of really short stories I 289 - > want to share, share here in terms of ways that I've done 290 - > this, and it is about that telling people first, but also 291 - > really showing you thought through their experience. 292 - > So I one change was um in financial services, a wholly 293 - > owned subsidiary that had been homegrown and loved and nurtured 294 - > for a long period of time, it was successful, um, was about to 295 - > be sold.
296 - > So they would obviously feel quite rejected. 297 - > Now, at the time, I don't know if you remember this, we've gone 298 - > through lots of phases of things. 299 - > If you had a team important meeting or off-site, you'd 300 - > travel to a hotel, say, and you'd be in a different space 301 - > and you'd be away from the office. 302 - > Isn't it good to be away from the office to talk?
303 - > And in that situation, the C-suite was pushing for this, 304 - > and I just thought, oh, that sounds awful. 305 - > And I said, Look, the moment someone says to you, we need to 306 - > talk, whether it's your friend, your parents, your partner, your 307 - > boss, you're like, oh my god, and you want to know now. 308 - > Yeah, you don't, there's nothing else you can think of. 309 - > And I told them again a story of imagine this, and they're 310 - > worried, and then they get their coats and they don't know who to 311 - > put their phone through to, and then they queue outside, they 312 - > all get on the bus, and then they get stuck in traffic, and 313 - > then they finally get there and they have a cup of tea, and an 314 - > hour later you tell them the news they were worried about, 315 - > and then they're upset, and then they're trapped at this 316 - > location, and they actually just want to go home, or some might 317 - > want to go to the pub, some might want to work, but they 318 - > want that they want to be treated like adults, and we need 319 - > to show empathy for the fact that they want to make their own 320 - > choice at the end of it, and they put just you know, from the 321 - > moment of we need to tell you something, we need to talk, it 322 - > really should only be a few minutes.
323 - > And I persuaded them that even though the building had four 324 - > floors, we lined up a C-suite director and a union rep and HR 325 - > on each floor. 326 - > They said there's going to be an announcement in five minutes. 327 - > We've agreed for the call centre to take your phone number to 328 - > take your calls, put your phones through to this number in five 329 - > minutes. 330 - > I'll brief you right here, right now, and that's what we did.
331 - > And they were all told in person simultaneously across the four 332 - > floors. 333 - > There was no shuffling people about or leaving them, and then 334 - > they were allowed to do what they wished once that 335 - > announcement had happened, so they could go home. 336 - > Some went home, some went to the pub, but it was respected that 337 - > they showed that we'd really thought through how it would 338 - > impact them. 339 - > And I do think that makes a massive difference.
340 - > SPEAKER_00: I can couldn't agree more with that. 341 - > I think um that story particularly resonated with me 342 - > because I remember when I was about 18, I worked in Safeway 343 - > and I fancied this girl called Charlotte, and I asked her out, 344 - > and she said, I'll tell you in two weeks' time. 345 - > It might have been a week, yeah. 346 - > So I had to wait for a whole week.
347 - > That's a long time when you're that age as well for her to come 348 - > back and say I've thought about it and no. 349 - > Um and I'd I'd really rather have that she had just said no 350 - > uh at the time. 351 - > So no, I think that that uh very much resonates and is actually a 352 - > little bit triggering. 353 - > Oh sorry.
354 - > What did you do? 355 - > Go to the pub, go home. 356 - > Embarrass myself and try it again, you know, a couple of 357 - > weeks later. 358 - > Yeah.
359 - > SPEAKER_03: Like that, you know, tenacity. 360 - > Um, another would be a very short example, another would be 361 - > um work for an organization that had very high number of 362 - > frontline workers, and they won work, you know, through 363 - > government contracts, so you would then have rebids as well, 364 - > and this rebid was coming. 365 - > And on the one hand, you want your current company employer to 366 - > stay because it's who you know, and then the other hand, maybe 367 - > the new ones would be nicer, but on the other hand, there'd be 368 - > changes regarding, like it's very unsettling for people, and 369 - > we committed to just again.
370 - > This was the almost the opposite. 371 - > So everyone was out, so just a few office workers, and everyone 372 - > was out in the lorries, doing their day jobs, doing the 373 - > physical jobs, and we promised as soon as we had the answer, we 374 - > would call them to their locust, excuse me, their nearest, that's 375 - > localist, local and nearest depot. 376 - > Um, we would call them to the nearest depot where senior 377 - > manager and HR rep would be waiting to tell them what 378 - > happened and handle the QA's, no matter what had happened, um, 379 - > because it was a difficult transition, so it's kind of the 380 - > opposite, but it's the same again, and people say they did 381 - > say, I really appreciate that you trying so hard to tell us 382 - > first because gossip spreads and people people respect that.
383 - > Not a labeling support, but I just I really think it's so 384 - > important. 385 - > It's not just well, we sent them QA's and you know they all we 386 - > read from a script to tell them the news. 387 - > No, like we treated them like humans because yeah, they all 388 - > they that's all we all are. 389 - > SPEAKER_02: Because you hear some horror stories, don't you?
390 - > Oh, yeah, of some companies that deliver you know news 391 - > particularly of redundancy that you just think, goodness, like 392 - > who's making these decisions? 393 - > So, Rachel, if you were to do this again, or you're giving 394 - > advice to somebody that had to sort of deliver some um some 395 - > news that's um not gonna be you know uh taken particularly well, 396 - > what what what advice would you give? 397 - > SPEAKER_03: Gather as much information, sort of data, 398 - > anecdotal that you possibly can about your audiences, so have 399 - > some audience segmentation or personas, like know who they 400 - > are, know where they are in their working day, like my 401 - > different examples, or they were in a branch and they'd have 402 - > customers coming in, or they'd be out on the road, or they'd be 403 - > in the office but constantly on the phone, etc.
404 - > Really understand how they work and how their day is, as well as 405 - > the types of history that they have, the things that they feel, 406 - > the things that have happened to them, and just understand as 407 - > much as you can, and then really try to think through like me 408 - > telling those stories of those people's days, work that 409 - > through, like what's what is going to be their experience of 410 - > that day, and really think it through, not just you know, we 411 - > we woke up to the announcement often, but we don't necessarily 412 - > think so much, but we're like, Oh, we'll deal with the other 413 - > bit afterwards, but actually do plan that too, and try to think 414 - > about how you could mitigate things going wrong or things 415 - > being misinterpreted, you know, difficult change is always going 416 - > to be difficult, but I think that listening and understanding 417 - > of who people are and what they need and what they're going to 418 - > experience, and demonstrating that you've tried to meet them 419 - > where they are, both physically and emotionally, I think is 420 - > really important.
421 - > SPEAKER_00: So, are we coming to the end of our time? 422 - > I do have just one quick question, and um it's obviously 423 - > mandatory for all conversations to mention AI. 424 - > Um, so we've reached that bit. 425 - > And just thinking about how um AI is not just detecting but a 426 - > behavioural, cultural change.
427 - > So have you got any advice for how people should deal with 428 - > that? 429 - > SPEAKER_03: Yeah, definitely have some stats again as well, 430 - > because I'm a bit of a geek. 431 - > Um, yeah, AI in some organisations is being rolled 432 - > out just as tech, but that won't necessarily work because it's a 433 - > change to ways of working, isn't it? 434 - > So, you know, organisations across every sector, there's 435 - > from Gartner Digital Workplace last year.
436 - > Uh something that really struck me was they said that from their 437 - > research, almost every organization said, Yeah, yeah, 438 - > we're implementing AI. 439 - > Only about 20% of them knew why or had a reason why that they 440 - > could actually articulate to staff and customers, which is so 441 - > important, and also that fewer than 20% had any governance 442 - > around it, so they predict a lot of data breaches and issues for 443 - > security around AI as well.
444 - > So there's a lot of future risk, and organisations that just 445 - > switch the tech on without guardrails, without thinking 446 - > about those safety aspects, without Actually involving 447 - > people will often struggle. 448 - > So there was research also in 2025 that surveyed two and a 449 - > half thousand workers across the US, UK, and Europe, and they 450 - > found that 31% of them admitted to actively sabotaging their 451 - > employers' AI strategy. 452 - > And among them, the Gen Z workers were for that that 453 - > figure rose to 44%, which I can understand because I think there 454 - > is a real concern around early careers and jobs, you know, 455 - > because those of us who are more experienced can use AI to do 456 - > things that a junior person may have may have done.
457 - > But we need to think about again, think about the 458 - > consequences of not getting it right. 459 - > I think would be in addition to what I'd say to my earlier 460 - > answer and try and understand every everything and try and 461 - > mitigate, but also try and mitigate some of those risks 462 - > that where it could really go wrong. 463 - > And I think there's an opportunity for IC practitioners 464 - > not to own AR implementation on our own, because I don't feel 465 - > that's right either.
466 - > But we should work with key stakeholders, particularly sort 467 - > of HR security and IT, on this change to how we are as an 468 - > organization and make sure there's a really clear and 469 - > honest reason why we're implementing it. 470 - > That can be difficult, especially if the efficiency 471 - > conversation comes in there. 472 - > But if you have no reason why, they're going to assume that's 473 - > what it is and they might sabotage. 474 - > So it's a really tricky one.
475 - > It's fascinating. 476 - > So many conversations about this, but it's really tricky to 477 - > get right, and I think we're going to hear loads more 478 - > examples as, or just as the year goes on, as everything's 479 - > happening so quickly about whether things are going well or 480 - > not. 481 - > Um, I suppose the bottom line is there are quite a lot of reports 482 - > about how AI implementation isn't giving return on 483 - > investment for organisations as well.
484 - > So will it stop or will they just start slicing out swathes 485 - > of people to try and prove that it saves them money? 486 - > I who knows, but I'll be really interested to find out. 487 - > SPEAKER_02: Great. 488 - > Well, thank you, Rachel.
489 - > It's been um yeah, really interesting, and also to share 490 - > your experiences as well. 491 - > I think that's been really sort of beneficial to the 492 - > conversation. 493 - > SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much for the opportunity. 494 - > I've really enjoyed it.
495 - > SPEAKER_00: Well, it's that time, isn't it? 496 - > So it's that time where we ask if you have any interesting 497 - > reads or listens that you would like to recommend. 498 - > SPEAKER_03: I absolutely do. 499 - > I've recommended this book and podcast for a number of years 500 - > now.
501 - > It helped me at a time when I needed it. 502 - > Um, it's a book called Untamed by a lady called Glenn Doyle. 503 - > And essentially it is around how we often feel that we're somehow 504 - > caged by things that we've been told about behaving a certain 505 - > way or not causing a fuss, or and actually often the things 506 - > that hold us back is just ourselves because we somehow 507 - > fear that we would be told off or in trouble, but actually we 508 - > want to make a change.
509 - > So I feel it's quite appropriate book for this conversation. 510 - > And she also has a podcast uh called We Can Do Hard Things, 511 - > which and it's all about I think being brave, but also realizing 512 - > the things that we think we're not allowed to do, we often are. 513 - > So that could be change, you know, change your job, move your 514 - > house, um, be brave, learn AI, whatever it is. 515 - > And I think learning to feel more free and brave is a 516 - > wonderful thing for everybody, both in work and personally.
517 - > SPEAKER_00: That sounds brilliant. 518 - > Uh Sarah's there thinking Roger needs the book that is that's 519 - > the opposite of that, which is to think things that he thinks 520 - > he's allowed to do, he's he's not. 521 - > Great. 522 - > No, that's brilliant.
523 - > SPEAKER_02: Great, no, that is good. 524 - > Definitely one for the for the reading. 525 - > SPEAKER_00: Thank you very much, Rachel. 526 - > Really nice to talk to you.
527 - > SPEAKER_03: And to you, thank you. 528 - > It's been a pleasure. 529 - > SPEAKER_00: Well, that was an interesting chat with Rachel. 530 - > SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, very good.
531 - > SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you got from it, but I thought 532 - > that she actually made some really interesting points, 533 - > especially the stuff around telling people sooner, you know, 534 - > not making making people wait for some announcement, so 535 - > they've just got more time to to worry. 536 - > I thought that was a really good point. 537 - > Yeah. 538 - > Um, and this I guess it's just that putting yourself in other 539 - > people's shoes, isn't it?
540 - > Really? 541 - > It's that empathy, dignity, and then things around the the kind 542 - > of unintended consequences of what you might be doing. 543 - > So I think in a head, which I thought was all you know just 544 - > sensible advice really for for life and work. 545 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
546 - > And and also considering the different personas and just 547 - > doing some scenario planning, isn't it? 548 - > It's just like how would they act and what can we do to 549 - > support them in those moments and um sort of really going into 550 - > the detail of that before you do anything. 551 - > So I thought that was really good advice. 552 - > SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
553 - > And um, do I need to say something about subscribe to the 554 - > podcasts? 555 - > Thanks for listening. 556 - > SPEAKER_02: Yeah, all of that, Roger. 557 - > SPEAKER_00: Subscribe um on all good platforms, and thanks for 558 - > listening.
559 - > SPEAKER_02: Wonderful. 560 - > All right, until the next time. 561 - > Bye. 562 - > Goodbye.
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