The Work Well Podcast

Welcome to The Work Well Podcast! Today, we welcome Senator Emer Currie. Emer has become a voice for flexible and remote work in the Oireachtas. She left the corporate world when her second child was born, because of a lack of flexible working options. This led her to become more involved with grass roots organisations like Grow Remote and to campaign for flexibility in the workplace.

Emer ran in Local Elections in 2019 securing a seat on the first count and was appointed to the Seanad in 2020 as Fine Gael Spokesperson for Employment Affairs, Work Life Balance and Northern Ireland.

If you’re interested in the recent and imminent employment legislation that’s coming thick and fast through the Oireachtas then you’re about to get an update in our conversation with Senator Emer Currie. I know you’ll enjoy this conversation.

This week on The Work Well Podcast, we welcome John Riordan. John is Chairman of Grow Remote, a not for profit organisation on a mission to enable us to work, live and participate locally. He recently retired as Director of Support for Shopify, having also served as Chairman of Shopify International Ltd.

As we’ll hear during the conversation, the majority of teams John has managed worked from home, a business model he has been an evangelist for over the last 20 years in the US, UK and Ireland. In addition to chairing Grow Remote, John also serves on the board of the Sanctuary Runners, the IRFU Commercial & Marketing Committee and he’s also on the board of three start-ups.

So much value to be found in this episode, so enjoy our conversation with John Riordan.

This week on The Work Well Podcast, we welcome the Head of Diversity, Inclusion, and Wellbeing for Fujitsu Europe, Kelly Metcalf. In our conversation today, Kelly gives us her unique perspective on how to develop strategies that combine inclusion and employee wellbeing, creating a culture in which people feel themselves.

Kelly started her career as a HR Graduate at BAE Systems and later on she joined Fujitsu and progressed through a variety of senior HR roles during her career, including Head of Organisation Design and Change and European-wide HR Generalist roles, also spending time in global client management and responsible business.

I hope you enjoy my conversation with Kelly Metcalf!

Welcome to the latest episode of The Work Well Podcast! Today, we invited Dr. Robert Kelly, cardiologist and Lifestyle Medicine Physician. 15 years ago, Robert realised that his challenge as a cardiologist was not just to treat the presenting illness but to fix the reasons why people are getting sick in the first place. This is when his journey in lifestyle medicine started.

Robert is a certified Tiny Habits Coach and a Behaviour Designer, which means he helps people and patients design ways to successfully break through in their own life: to help find their true happiness and success in life, career, relationships, family, self-care and health. Through his website, he offers information and programmes related to healthy habits and nutrition for patients and organisations.

Enjoy our conversation with Dr. Robert Kelly.

Welcome to The Work Well Podcast! Today, we welcome Tony Vickers-Byrne, who has 30 years of experience as HR director and board adviser. Tony was Public Health England's first HR Director as well as serving as CIPD's Chief Adviser for HR Practice.

One of the most interesting aspects of Tony’s journey is the change of mindset he underwent in how he approached his work fairly late in his career thanks in large part to a couple of inspirational leaders who happened to cross his path.

Enjoy our conversation with Tony Vickers-Byrne.

In this episode of The Work Well Podcast, we have the pleasure to welcome Dr. Stephanie Fitzgerald. Stephanie is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist, Neuropsychologist, keynote speaker, and author. She is also the founder of Soyo Ltd, a company designed to help individuals and organisations achieve their highest and happiest potential.

Stephanie has experience as a Health and Wellbeing Consultant in multiple organisations, such as Deloitte, the NHS, emergency response teams through to a Premier League football team. More recently, she developed the Global Mental Health strategy for Rolls-Royce, an organisation with over 50,000 employees worldwide. Her specialty is delivering practical, evidence-based interventions that provide a base for sustainable improvement, in a safety-critical environment.

I know you’ll enjoy this conversation with Stephanie!

In this episode of The Work Well Podcast, we are privileged to be joined by the godfather of workplace health promotion, Ron Goetzel.

Ron is a Senior Scientist and Director of the Institute for Health and Productivity Studies (IHPS) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and is responsible for leading innovative projects for healthcare purchase, managed care, government, and pharmaceutical clients interested in conducting cutting-edge research focused on the relationship between health and wellbeing, medical costs, and work-related productivity.

Ron is globally recognised for his research on health and productivity management (HPM), return-on-investment (ROI), program evaluation, and outcomes research.

I hope you enjoy our chat with Ron!

Today on The Work Well Podcast, we have the great privilege of being joined by Professor Sir Cary Cooper.

Cary is the 50th Anniversary Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at the ALLIANCE Manchester Business School in the University of Manchester and the President of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. He is also the author and editor of countless scholarly articles and books, with which he contributes to expanding the knowledge on management, organisational behavior, and social sciences.

Cary's curriculum is extensive, so I'm excited to have him here to talk about the evolution and the future of mental health and wellbeing in the workplace.

Take a listen!

Welcome to the latest episode of The Work Well Podcast. Today, I’m delighted to welcome the Head of Healthy Ireland, Tom James. Prior to taking the lead at Healthy Ireland, Tom worked with the Revenue Commissioners for 19 years in various roles ranging from representing Ireland at EU level, specialist tax legislation roles, project management and a number of senior operational leadership positions.

Tom has a Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness from Tangent, in Trinity College, Dublin and chaired Revenue’s National Wellbeing Network before moving to Healthy Ireland in June 2021. Tom’s impressive career journey actually started with a degree in Computer Science where he first crossed paths with our host Brian.

Enjoy our conversation with Tom James.

We're going international for this season of the podcast! 

That's right. For this season we have lined up thought leaders from Canada, UK, Australia, the US and of course closer to home, to tell us more about the health promotion landscape in their jurisdictions and what we can learn from them.

Not only that, but we'll be discussing more about hybrid working, the return to the workplace and the first standard on psychological health in the workplace, the ISO 45003. 

For this exciting fourth season I’m delighted to welcome AJ Products as our sponsor. They are paving the way in ergonomic and active workplace furniture solutions.

See you next Monday!

In this episode, we have the Open Doors Initiative’s Director of Development, Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion, Siobhan Sweeney with us to discuss DEI and DEI strategies in the workplace. Siobhan previously worked at AIB as Group Diversity and Inclusion Lead, developing strategies to further the DEI mindset and to break down biases, raise awareness and deliver support initiatives across the group.

Siobhan is an award-winning expert in DEI and her work at the Open Doors Initiative has allowed her to help over 90 companies from all sectors to implement strategies and policies to empower diverse teams to perform at their best, fulfilling companies’ statutory equality and diversity requirements.

Currently, Siobhan is undertaking an MSc in Work and Organisational Behaviour/Psychology at DCU to complement her skills.

In today’s episode of The Work Well Podcast, we welcome recently promoted VP of International HRBP for LinkedIn, Lisa Finnegan. Lisa has worked at LinkedIn for 5 years and has over 17 years of experience in HR within the technology sector in Ireland. In this episode, Lisa shares her thoughts on remote work and wellbeing based on her own experience of working from home over the past year.

In addition to her role at LinkedIn, Lisa is also a wellness ambassador and a gym and fitness enthusiast, mom to a golden cockapoo named Bear and a self-proclaimed building project manager and interior design expert having recently renovated her home in the midst of a pandemic.

Those details will have to wait for another time. What we discuss in this episode is how to promote well-being in a large company such as LinkedIn in creative and applicable ways that can work for small and large teams.

Mary works for Permanent TSB and is responsible for Engagement, Wellbeing and Diversity and Inclusion initiatives across the bank, supporting over 2,500 colleagues, who in turn look after 1 million customers. She has had a varied career over the years, from her first job at 12 in the local hardware shop to serving pilgrims in Lough Derg, working in bars, barbershops and Burger King. Once she finally settled down and found her ideal career path, she has worked for Grafton Recruitment, PricewaterhouseCoopers and now in Permanent TSB. In her personal life, Mary is married to Marc and mother to three kids under the age of six. In between juggling her family and working life, she likes to fit in some trips back home to Monaghan – something that has been limited over the past year, but she’s looking forward to getting back to – and eventually giving her elderly mum a long-overdue hug.

Yvonne has been a highly successful academic and clinician with a strong track record in teaching, training, publishing and presenting for the last 20 years. She has published over 150 scientific articles and book chapters and given over 500 presentations and workshops internationally. She was an Associate Professor in Behaviour Analysis and a Senior Research Fellow at Ghent University before establishing Perspectives Ireland. She is a world leader in behavioural science and has co-developed the Process-based Behaviour Therapy technique (PBBT).

As the world’s leading TV hypnotist, mentalist, and brain hacker Keith Barry has been blazing a trail across the globe for many years. His mind-blowing skills have been showcased in over forty international television shows. Keith also worked as chief mentalist and hypnotist consultant for the blockbuster movies Now You See Me 1 & 2. He has written, produced, and performed many of his live shows over the last 15 years and has sold out venues worldwide. Keith’s TED Talk is in the top twenty-five TED Talks of all time, currently boasting over twenty-five million views.

Helen is Global Head of HR for Morgan McKinley, a recruitment and talent solutions business. She supports teams across Europe, Canada, India, and 5 Asia PACific offices. Helen and her team have been instrumental in developing a great culture in Morgan McKinley with a solid reputation as a Great Place to Work. Morgan McKinley also holds a platinum status as a Deloitte Best Managed Company and is the only recruitment company in Ireland to have been awarded a silver standard for Diversity and Inclusion from the Irish Centre for Diversity.

Morgan McKinley is a company with 700 employees globally and offices across ten countries. Rolling out global wellbeing initiatives is based on flexibility and the feedback of their employees. Helen tells us they never assume to know what people want, but they instead reach out and find out how their employees feel and what their real needs are.

Hello and welcome to the latest episode of The Work Well Podcast. Today on the show I’m delighted to welcome Kate McDaid.

Kate is a well-established health and performance nutritionist and founder of NutriKate, a Dublin-based nutrition consultancy that specialises in high-performance. Kate works closely with individuals, elite teams and corporations to help them achieve their health and performance goals. She recently appeared in Sport for Business' 30 under 30 list where she was recognised as one of Ireland's emerging business leaders working in the business of sport.

This episode is brought to you with thanks to The Fruit People. You will actually hear in this episode Kate mentioning the importance of fruit in our diet. 'The Fruit People are Leading the way in workplace nutrition both in office and remotely!' Check out thefruitpeople.ie for more.

It’s with thanks to The Fruit People we have a delicious Fresh Fruit & Healthy Snack Pack to give away to one lucky listener to this episode.

To find out how to enter go to workwellpodcast.com, find the link to this episode with Kate and you’ll find the competition details at the bottom of the article.

Now sit back and enjoy my chat with Kate McDaid.

Fania Stoney is a co-founder and consultant with Healthy Place to Work. Healthy Place to Work takes a holistic view of health in the workplace; they help companies implement a wide-ranging and evidence-based health strategy. Fania works closely with organisations, maintaining collaborative relationships across multiple stakeholders to create healthy workplaces and high performing environments for employees. This involves analysing data, investigating existing programmes, identifying current strengths and opportunities, and embedding new programmes.

Healthy Place to Work was founded as a response to a need in the Irish workplace environment. A few years ago, there was a boom in workplace health and wellbeing in Ireland, but many organisations didn’t offer much beyond the usual fruit basket and yoga session. Fania wanted to look deeper, look at the individual within the organisation. How can this individual be supported to flourish at work and beyond?

Dermot Whelan is a radio and TV presenter and a public speaker. He’s a certified master of wisdom and meditation teacher and a stand-up comedian. He’s perhaps best known for co-presenting the hugely popular Dermot & Dave Show on Today FM but he’s had a rich and varied career.

Dermot describes his career path as more of “a bizarre trail through a forest”. As a kid, he was interested in the media, but he was passionate about ancient Egypt and Greece, so he went to Trinity College Dublin to study archaeology at third level. He soon discovered archaeology wasn’t precisely as he imagined, and after graduating, he started working as an assistant director for TV and film. He drifted into radio in his late 20s when he discovered the creativity behind it. Stand-up comedy came as a side to his radio job, but it soon evolved more than he expected. The stress and anxiety he felt before comedy shows turned into panic attacks. That was when he realized he needed to make a change and went towards a wellness path.

“To be honest, I just needed to find something that would help me manage stress better than a pint of Guinness. So meditation opened that door for me. And I found it was far healthier and way cheaper.”

A born-and-bred Galway woman, Sheila Greaney has had a lengthy career working in the engineering space. Her role as Site Engagement Lead for Cisco Systems Galway is all about the 'people experience'. She makes sure that all employees are happy, content, productive and most of all, maintain a healthy work/life balance. At Cisco, giving back to society is seen as equally important and is celebrated as much as their contributions in work itself. Sheila has worked hard on many aspects of the Cisco Culture and helped enormously to get Cisco Ireland to where it is now. Cisco ranked Number 1 in the Great Place to Work for 2016, in the top 3 after that, and is now back in the number one position in 2020.

Cisco globally is well known for its 'giving back' culture. Sheila takes pride in running the CSR team at the Galway office. The site has raised over €25K a year on average for the last 12 years for local charities from a working population of fewer than 200 people. One of her most recent projects was setting up an on-site gym for the site, turning what was once an unused data-centre into a daily used space for anyone and everyone on-site to exercise and improve their overall fitness and wellbeing. It has given everyone a huge added benefit of being able to work out at their convenience. Ensuring people are happy and enjoy coming to work is something Sheila takes very seriously.

As we are all aware by now, working remotely carries a lot of challenges. One of the most topical right now is how our work life has become so intertwined with our personal life as we are forced to transform our homes into a working space. On this episode of the podcast, Dr Malie Coyne discusses how the lockdown has changed the way we relate with our family and how we can manage our working day and home life.

Dr. Coyne is a Clinical Psychologist and N.U.I.G. Lecturer with 20 years experience of working therapeutically with children and families. She is very passionate about promoting wellbeing and increasing awareness of mental health issues, which she achieves through her work on the A Lust for Life mental health advisory panel, public speaking and media contributions. Dr. Coyne believes that the solid foundations for emotional and mental wellbeing begin in early childhood and that staying well involves looking after your mind on a daily basis.

In this episode, we’ll discuss the most frequent questions parents have during lockdown, how we can manage time with family, how to deal with children’s fears and anxiety, and how the future will look in terms of the balance between working hours and family time.