In this episode of the Unfucking Work Podcast, Michelle Minnikin and James interview Alex, who shares insights into their journey of realising the flaws in the traditional approach to work and life. Alex discusses the importance of living intentionally and mindfully, rather than on autopilot, and reflects on the pivotal moments in their life that led to this realisation. She also explores the concept of post-traumatic growth and how personal tragedies can accelerate our journeys towards self-discovery and fulfilment.

Alex shares her perspective on finding a balance between work and personal life, as well as her upcoming...

In this podcast, we managed to get the authors of some amazing books in the same place, at the same time, after much wrangling! Jon Alexander and Sam Conniff join James Eves and Michelle Minnikin.

We talk about:

Jon Alexander is the author of CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us - a book that seeks to reframe the moment in t...

Rebecca Cullum is a consultant working with leaders and teams to rewrite and build innovative and future-focused team culture. Her heart is for courageous, human, and creative leaders with engaged and thriving teams.

Rebecca has two decades of experience in industry-leading tech and telecoms organisations. Her experience ranges from managing high-profile projects, supporting executive teams, building leadership teams, and leading culture change.

For the last 8 years, she has worked directly with leadership teams on building culture, engagement, and performance. Her experience has given her a passion to re-imagine our ways of working, challenge expectations and...

Paula Gardner of Scarlet Thinking is a business psychologist, Human Givens psychotherapist and executive coach working with businesses and their employees around visibility, stress, overwhelm and getting needs met in the workplace. With a background of previously running her own PrRand marketing company, Paula advises and consults around creating businesses where everyone feels visible, vital and valued. 

We talk about:

The importance of recognising and addressing human needs in the workplace

The nine key human needs and the significance of understanding and fulfilling these needs for employee well-being and engagement

Creating a...

#18 Alex Barker

Alex Barker is a speaker, facilitator, writer and community builder. And a Pirate Captain. 

She’s the Co-Author of How to Be More Pirate, the sequel book to Be More Pirate,  and Captain of the ever-growing community.

She’s also an advocate of helping women find their voice, to become more influential, powerful and effective speakers, negotiators and decision-makers. 

We talk about:

How she advocates for empowering women to enhance their influence, power, and effectiveness in various roles, including as speakers, negotiators, and decision-makers.

Disconnection between...

#17 - Vanessa Raath - Unf*cking Work

This month James and Michelle speak to Vanessa Raath about unf*cking work.

Vanessa is globally renowned for her contributions to the international Sourcing Community. She has delivered Keynotes across three continents and has trained teams based from Auckland to Seattle. 

Vanessa launched her Talent Sourcing Training business in early 2019 and has not looked back. She is a qualified teacher with experience in both agency recruiting and internal talent acquisition (she loved both roles!). She now gets to combine her love of empowering others to do b...

#16 - Matt Ballantine - Unf*cking Work

This month James and Michelle speak to Matt Ballantine about unf*cking work.

Matt is a sociologist and technologist who has worked managing and leading technology teams in organisations across the public and private sectors for the last 30 years, including the BBC, Microsoft and Reuters.

Since June 2022 he has been an Engagement Manager at Equal Experts. He usually also has at least a couple of side projects on the go at any given time.

In this episode, we talk about:

T...

This month James and Michelle speak to Grant Duncan about unf*cking careers.

With a career spanning both executive search and consumer media industries, Grant brings significant experience from these worlds of consumer media and content where he has worked with some of the world's biggest companies to build their senior teams. These are sectors that were disrupted early on by digital, so he has also developed expertise in advising organisations across all sectors on how to navigate the leadership challenges and opportunities of digital transformation.

Before joining Korn Ferry, Grant worked at a global...

This month the Work Pirates are speaking to Cathryn Barnard about unf*cking recruitment at work. Cat is a partner and co-founder at Working the Future, a consultancy helping business leaders both make sense of the future of work and build easy-to-implement, people-centred, future-proofing strategies.

With a previous career in workforce planning spanning three decades and experience of growing her own successful businesses, Cat recognises the criticality of human connection and relationship in accelerating team engagement and performance. 

In this episode we dive into:

Why it's essential to p...

How does light affect you at work?

In this episode of Unf*cking Work, the Work Pirates sit down with Neina Sheldon, journalist, coach and Founder of Make Light Matter, a platform that supports individuals in managing the health impacts of light to improve their wellbeing.

Neina shares her personal experience and interest in light nutrition and chronodiversity, dating back to her diagnosis with seasonal affective disorder in 2003. 

The discussion also touches on the importance of understanding the impact of light on our health and wellbeing, the benefits of sunshine breaks at work, a...