In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, working life has changed significantly. Now, research is starting to identify certain professional and environmental trends that businesses need to be on top of.

In this episode of The HR Leader Podcast, host Jerome Doraisamy is joined by the founding board director of R U OK?, Graeme Cowan, to discuss why uncertainty is so prevalent in workplaces in the current climate, why the proliferation of remote and flexible working is a worrying development, the varying levels of trust in the workforce and why it is damaging, a decline in employee engagement and the consequences of not paying attention to that lack of engagement, and the ongoing wellbeing and mental health crisis.

Cowan also delves into the broader business considerations inherent with addressing wellbeing concerns, why the wellbeing focus isn’t working, how and why more managers want out of their workplaces, how business leaders can better support managers, why change leadership needs to improve, and the decline of respect in the workplace.

In this episode of Momentum Media's Defence Connect Podcast, host Steve Kuper is joined by Dr Ross Babbage, CEO of Strategic Forum and senior non-resident fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.

The pair discuss a range of subjects following Babbage’s recent trip to the United States, including:

• Australia’s need to prepare for a more direct involvement in kinetic regional conflict in the Indo-Pacific – including recognising that we are no longer on the periphery of geopolitical competition.
• The multidimensional depth and facets of the challenges being posed by the People’s Republic of China: Babbage emphasises that China’s strategy includes economic coercion, hybrid conflict and soft power, and that Western assumptions about China's integration leading to liberalisation have proven wrong.
• How Western governments have failed to effectively communicate the strategic risks to their populations: Babbage argues that public awareness is essential for national resilience and policy support, and that many in the public are willing to act once properly informed.
• Australia’s urgent need to expand and rethink its defence and industrial capabilities to meet the growing expectations of the new US Trump administration.

Enjoy the Podcast,

The Defence Connect team

In this special episode of Momentum Media's The HR Leader Podcast, Taylor Dee Hawkins joins the podcast to talk about the moral and commercial imperatives to best practice with management of a workforce that is more diverse than ever before and the benefits that come with it.

Host Jerome Doraisamy speaks with Taylor Dee Hawkins, the Foundations for Tomorrow managing director, about the work that she does, the extent to which business leaders are ready and able to lead so many different generations in the workforce, leaders’ cognisance of the need to do so, the dangers in not properly managing workers of all ages, the questions that businesses need to ask of themselves, and the practical steps to be taken.