In this episode, Lucy Adams and Karen Moran take stock of the people and work trends that are likely to shape 2026. Drawing on what they’re seeing across organisations right now, they focus on the changes that genuinely matter for HR and leaders, from shifting employee expectations to the growing pressure on organisations to operate with greater trust and transparency.

They explore how ideas about leadership, performance and culture are continuing to evolve, why traditional HR models are being stretched, and what this means for areas such as hybrid working, capability building and organisational design. The discussion highlights where HR can add the most value over the next few years, and where it may need to step back from long-established but increasingly unhelpful practices.

Lucy and Karen also reflect on what this moment means for HR more broadly, and how teams can prepare for 2026 in a way that is pragmatic, human and grounded in reality.

The HR Disrupted podcast will be taking a break due to other commitments but the conversation very much continues! For more insights from Lucy and the team at Disruptive HR, check out the website at www.disruptivehr.com.

Chapters

00:00 – Looking ahead: Why 2026 is a turning point for work 09:10 – Shifting expectations: What employees and leaders want next 21:05 – Rethinking HR models: What may need to change or disappear 34:00 – What’s next: Preparing for 2026

Find out more about Disruptive HR: www.disruptivehr.com Get in touch: hello@disruptivehr.com Check out The Disruptive HR Club: https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

HR doesn’t struggle with not having enough data - we’ve got tons of it. Engagement scores, churn and absenteeism rates, performance ratings, DEI metrics - the works. But can we honestly say we’re brilliant at using that data to drive our people strategies? The answer is probably, “not yet.” So, this episode explores how we can get better at turning data into real insight and how that insight can help us build more trust, better performance, and stronger cultures. Lucy is joined by Jenny Deaborn who’s spent her career helping organisations do exactly that. Her new book, The Insight-Driven Leader, is a practical roadmap for HR teams and leaders who want to make analytics genuinely useful and human.

Drawing on over 100 one-to-one interviews with CEOs, CHROs and board members, Jenny explains why the best organisations aren’t using “magic” HR metrics – they’re just using familiar ones with far more rigour. She unpacks why “regrettable attrition of top performers in critical roles” beats a single company-wide turnover number every time, how to define “top performer” and “critical role” with real fidelity, and why every good HR metric should be in service of a small handful of measures the board genuinely cares about.

They then dig into what it really means to be an insight-driven leader rather than just “data-informed”: connecting people data with customer metrics to show where revenue, risk and growth are truly sitting in your workforce. Jenny shares practical examples of using AI to join up disparate data sources, warning that technology is no longer the barrier – mindset and culture are.

Chapters

02:15 – Jenny’s story: neurodiversity, quotas and the credibility that comes with numbers

08:35 – Business-first HR: the tiny set of people metrics CEOs and boards really care about

16:50 – From data-informed to insight-driven: joining HR, CRM and ERP data (and where AI helps)

25:20 – Is your culture ready for analytics? Plus practical first steps for aspiring insight-driven CHROs

Disruptive HR

Find out more about Disruptive HR: www.disruptivehr.com Get in touch: hello@disruptivehr.com Check out The Disruptive HR Club: https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

Contact Jenny https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennydearborn/

Lucy and Karen get honest about one of HR’s toughest challenges: helping leaders and managers actually change how they behave. Drawing on their own “humiliations” as former HR Directors, they unpack why influencing senior leaders can feel so hard – from fear of getting it wrong, to loss of status, to simple overload – and introduce four familiar resistance types: the Defiant, the Intellectual, the Busy Operator and the Reluctant.

They share ten practical ways to shift behaviour without a 50-slide deck. You’ll hear how to start with sharp, leader-focused questions instead of programmes, use commercial numbers to earn attention, set clear people outcomes rather than more process, offer genuine choice, and make change feel tiny and doable through simple nudges. They also explore how to swap “HR as trainer” for peer-to-peer learning, use more human language, and tailor your message to different decision-making styles – from fast-moving Drivers to cautious “steady hands”.

Finally, Lucy and Karen show how to stop pouring energy into the hardest resistors and instead “go with the energy” – working first with early adopters, then using their success to win over results-focused pragmatists.

• 00:03 – Setting the scene: Why influencing leaders feels so hard for HR
• 03:31 – Four types of resistance: Defiant, Intellectual, Busy and Reluctant
• 08:48 – Ten practical tips: Questions, data and focusing on outcomes
• 16:35 – Making it easy: Choice, tiny nudges and peer-to-peer learning
• 28:23 – Personas, packaging and next steps: Olivia, Jessica, Michael and a simple plan for your next leader conversation

Find out more about Disruptive HR: www.disruptivehr.com Get in touch: hello@disruptivehr.com Check out The Disruptive HR Club: https://disruptivehr.com/ https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

One of the biggest challenges facing HR is the perennial challenge of leadership capability. Despite years of investment in programmes, frameworks, and workshops, many organisations still struggle to see real behavioural change. The world around us is moving faster, the expectations on leaders are higher, and yet our development approaches can still feel generic, theoretical, and removed from the realities of day-to-day work.

But what if technology - and specifically, AI - could help us do it differently? Instead of a one-size-fits-all course, what if every manager could have a personalised coach in their pocket that gives them real-time, practical guidance in the moment they need it most? To explore the benefits and risks of AI coaching, Lucy is joined by Anand Chopra-McGowan, Managing Director, Europe at Valence.

Anand explains how Nadia, Valence’s AI coach, learns your context (company principles, programmes, your team) and supports both the “small moments” such as a tricky feedback chat, and the “big moments” like onboarding and performance reviews. He shares a live example of using Nadia minutes before a meeting, why perfect memory beats good intentions, and how the tool integrates where managers already are .

We dig into trust and ethics, what data Nadia uses, and how clients are measuring value - from time saved on reviews to uplift in leadership effectiveness scores and store-level customer outcomes. Anand’s deployment advice is refreshingly practical: point the coach at high-friction moments in your HR calendar, customise to your ways of working, and use early wins to convert sceptics.

00:29 — Why traditional leadership development stalls 10:22 — What Nadia is and how it works (with an in-the-moment example at 12:12) 14:47 — Ethics, data, and measuring impact (ROI examples from 19:23) 23:01 — How to deploy AI coaching and bring sceptical managers with you

Discover more about Disruptive HR

• Find out more about Disruptive HR: www.disruptivehr.com
• Get in touch: hello@disruptivehr.com
• Check out The Disruptive HR Club: https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

Contact Anand: https://www.linkedin.com/in/achopramcgowan/

As we know - AI isn’t something that’s coming in the future — it’s already here, and it’s already reshaping how we hire, develop and engage our people. The pace of change can feel daunting at times, but the big challenge for us in HR is how we shift from dabbling with new tools to really using AI as a strategic enabler. In this episode, Lucy explores the key opportunities and risks — from ethics and trust, through to leadership development, talent management and employee engagement with the help of one of the leading voices in people analytics and digital HR David Green.

David shares research showing more companies now have dedicated AI governance for HR, and why moving from “jobs” to “tasks and skills” matters if we want technology to augment work rather than trigger blunt headcount cuts. The conversation explores what great employee listening looks like when you blend surveys with collaboration and behavioral signals (at aggregate level), plus the implications for hybrid work, org design, and keeping the human experience at the centre.

For HR professionals wondering where to start, David’s advice is simple: build AI literacy, experiment hands-on, identify a few high-value use cases tied to business priorities, and iterate with a sponsor. The capability stack HR needs now ranges from data/AI literacy and stakeholder influence to human-centred design, storytelling, and emotional intelligence—so we can automate the repetitive, personalise the meaningful, and lead the transformation with credibility.

Chapters

00:03 — Meet David Green David’s journey from recruitment to people analytics; Insight222 and the Digital HR Leaders podcast.

07:04 — What’s actually being used Adoption snapshot; chatbots, sentiment analysis of feedback, and augmented JD writing. 12:40 — Trust, ethics & redesigning work Governance and transparency; shifting from jobs to tasks/skills; keeping the human experience central. 20:50 — Strategy to practice AI as a strategic enabler; leadership development, employee listening/hybrid insights, the HR skillset, and where to start.

Contact David: www.insight222.com

Discover more about Disruptive HR

• Find out more about Disruptive HR: www.disruptivehr.com
• Get in touch: hello@disruptivehr.com
• Check out The Disruptive HR Club: https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

In HR we have always tended to prefer standardisation. The instinct to make everything and to treat everyone in the same way comes from a mixture of practicality, compliance, and tradition. Standardisation makes processes easier to administer at scale, creates the appearance of fairness, and reduces the risks of inconsistency. For HR teams under pressure to manage large workforces efficiently, there is comfort in producing a set of policies or frameworks that apply equally to all. However in recent years there has been an increasing demand for the personalisation of HR, to counteract the limitations of having standard, universally applied processes. In this episode Lucy is joined by her co-founder of Disruptive HR, Karen Moran to consider when HR should be customised or personalised – and when it should be a standard, consistent approach for all.

They look at when it makes sense to have standardisation and the risks are of being too rigid in your uniformity. They give three practical examples of customisation in action, how AI helps to personalise and they also discuss how to personalise without adding complexity, by using “employee personas” to design around real people.

Discover more about Disruptive HR

• Find out more about Disruptive HR: www.disruptivehr.com
• Get in touch: hello@disruptivehr.com
• Check out The Disruptive HR Club: https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

Chapters

00:03 – Why HR Loves Standardisation Lucy and Karen reflect on HR’s instinct to make everything consistent – and why “fairness through sameness” has dominated for so long. 03:32 – The Risks of One-Size-Fits-All HR They unpack how over-standardisation ignores individuality, stifles judgement and turns processes into tick-box exercises. 09:48 – When Standardisation Still Makes Sense From safety and brand consistency to data accuracy, Lucy and Karen explore where sameness genuinely adds value. 15:06 – How to Personalise Without the Chaos Real examples from Telstra, Wipro and Adobe show how HR can tailor experiences – with help from AI and employee personas.

In this episode, Lucy digs into one of the big questions right now: if most organisations have landed on hybrid, why does it still feel so clunky? Ranya Nehmeh, senior HR strategist, lecturer and co-author of In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work - joins to unpack why many hybrid set-ups deliver the “messy middle”: full calendars, half-empty offices and confused norms. She makes the case that the office still offers something distinctive: spontaneous interactions, faster trust-building and the sort of collaboration you can’t schedule into a diary.

Lucy and Ranya explore the long-term culture risks of ineffective hybrid working such as lower discretionary effort, individualism over collaboration, and promotion decisions skewed by proximity bias. They look at practical ways to make hybrid better including designing anchor days around activities that need co-location, fixing meeting hygiene and measuring outcomes not optics. They also discuss a divide many miss - pre- versus post-pandemic hires—and how HR can act as “architect of connection” through extended onboarding, mentoring across cohorts, and rituals that make everyone visible.

This episode looks at how you build flexibility and a healthy culture. The answer isn’t blanket policies; it’s clarity and intention. Think presence with purpose, flexibility with structure, and leaders equipped to have grown-up team conversations about what works now—for the work, the customer and the people involved.

Chapters

(00:03) The Future of Hybrid Work

(15:24) Optimizing Hybrid Work Strategies for Success

(21:54) Bridging Pre & Post-Pandemic Workplace Gap

(26:15) Hybrid Work Flexibility and Structure

(31:17) Importance of Office Relationships

(34:53) Exploring Hybrid Work Strategies

Contact Rayna https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranyanehmeh/

Discover more about Disruptive HR

• Find out more about Disruptive HR: www.disruptivehr.com
• Get in touch: hello@disruptivehr.com
• Check out The Disruptive HR Club: https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

Whilst we’re seeing tons of innovation in some of the key employee processes, reward and recognition can often be put in the ‘too difficult’ box. Recognition efforts often lack differentiation and are just vanilla or one-size-fits-all, and flexible benefits packages, meant to deliver choice, can too often feel overwhelming or unclear to employees. This week’s guest Rachel Richards, Reward and People Operations Director at Virgin Group, joins Lucy to share how they have broken away from the usual script. She shares their new benefits arrangements and how they've made them feel more meaningful, clear, and truly relevant.

In this episode you’ll hear how to engage your employees in shaping reward and recognition, how to create benefits from a position of trust and provide an offering that feels inclusive, brand-aligned and genuinely compelling - without increasing spend. It’s a conversation about trust, transparency, and the courage to break away from vanilla rewards to build something that reflects modern lives and makes employees proud.

Chapters

(00:03) Revolutionizing Employee Benefits at Virgin

(08:30) Enhancing Employee Benefits Through Engagement

(16:29) Empowering Flexibility and Wellbeing at Work

(24:56) Designing Employee Benefits With Purpose

Contact Rachel: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachelreclarke/

Disruptive HR

Website: www.disruptivehr.com

Join the Disruptive HR Club https://disruptivehr.com/the-club/

Email: hello@disruptivehr.com