What Comes After HR as We Know It? Imagining the Alternative
HR was designed for a different world. A world of hierarchy, predictability, long careers in single organisations, and a largely unquestioned belief that institutions knew best. In that context, HR’s role made sense. It balanced risk, compliance, and people management on behalf of the organisation. That world has gone. Yet, HR, in many organisations, has […]
GUEST ARTICLE: Leadership Behaviours Shape Culture: The Time to Act is Now
Organisational culture is often described as “the way we do things around here” but that undersells its power. Culture is the invisible operating system that determines how people think, behave and collaborate when no one is watching. It matters more than strategy, structure or systems because it shapes the everyday choices that determine performance. Cultural […]
When Work Stops Being Essential, What Will Leadership Become?
For most of modern history, work has been tied to survival. People needed income, and income usually required employment. That quiet dependency sits beneath much of organisational life: performance management, attendance culture, compliance-based leadership, and the assumption that people will tolerate mediocre systems because the alternative is financial insecurity. But that foundation is starting to […]
What this week’s Middle East crisis quietly revealed about workplace wellbeing, culture, and a growing leadership risk
Watching how people respond to crisis tells you a lot about human nature. Watching how organisations respond tells you even more. On Tuesday, the UAE leadership quietly walked through Dubai Mall, stopping for coffee and greeting families without the ceremony many might expect. For many people, it felt like a simple but powerful signal of […]
What Business Should Learn from Politics and Why It Matters Now
The difference between governments and organisations is not power. It’s obligation. Governments cannot ignore the social contract. Their authority rests, at least in part, on consent, trust, and legitimacy. When those things begin to fray, the consequences surface quickly and visibly. Many organisations, by contrast, have behaved as though the social contract were optional. For […]
GUEST ARTICLE: Neurodiversity: Why Difference Needs Better Design
By Lorna King, CPCC, ACC, co-founder of EXE: Employee Experience Exchange and UAE-based workplace culture consultant. After years of working with organisations and listening closely to neurodivergent people, certain themes start repeating themselves. They don’t show up in clinical language or diagnostic criteria, but in conversations about burnout, brilliance, frustration, ambition, and belonging at […]
Most Performance Problems Are Not People Problems
The Risk of Misdiagnosing the Cause When results start to slip, energy dips, or burnout and attrition rise, organisations instinctively look to individuals for the explanation. Leadership capability. Mindset. Resilience. Engagement. The assumption is simple and deeply ingrained: if performance is failing, someone must need fixing or removing. This prevailing assumption is often a misdiagnosis. Across psychology, neuroscience, occupational […]
GUEST ARTICLE: The Missing Layer in Workplace Wellbeing: Cultural Intelligence
By Emma Jordaan – Founder and CEO of Infinite Consulting As we step into 2026, there is an inherent focus on wellbeing initiatives that need to be delivered in the workplace for the year ahead. But how many of us have pause for a moment, to consider whether the initiatives we are about to propose are suitable […]
The Manosphere Is a Growing Business Risk: What Leaders Need to Know
As we enter 2026, I expect one topic to move sharply up the business agenda: the influence of the “manosphere” and what it means for organisational culture, trust, and leadership responsibility. Growing evidence shows that the so-called “manosphere,” a network of online spaces promoting extreme or distorted views of masculinity, is shaping the attitudes of […]
Why the Future of Work Is Human Sustainability and What That Means for Organisations in 2026
For years we talked about the future of work as if it were a distant horizon shaped by technology, hybrid models, and shifting expectations. Useful, but vague. What we were really circling was a much simpler question: can our organisations sustain human beings over time without draining their health, trust, skills, or ability to perform. […]