Our thinking.

Explore how a week in Johannesburg reshaped the role of storytelling in leadership, influence and social impact, showing how powerful stories can extend the reach of meaningful work.

Download the Leadership Clarity Report to discover how leaders can build trust, communicate strategy effectively, and lead with confidence in the age of AI.

Discover why the best communications agency partnerships go beyond delivery, becoming trusted advisors that strengthen strategy, execution, and impact.

Explore why employee recognition is becoming a critical driver of engagement, retention, and performance in the modern workplace.

Discover how Mission Command principles can help HR leaders build employee empowerment, accountability, and faster decision-making in complex workplaces.

AI makes employee listening easier, but action still depends on leadership. Discover why trust breaks down when feedback goes nowhere.

Leadership development programs often lose momentum after completion. Learn how alumni activation strategies sustain impact and improve ROI.

Discover why employee listening fails to drive change. Download the report to learn how to turn feedback into action and improve engagement and trust.

Employee burnout is rising as organisations optimise for efficiency over people. Discover how meaningful productivity drives engagement, energy, and performance.

Discover why human-led listening, not just surveys and sentiment tools, drives deeper employee insight, trust, and engagement in complex organisations.

Line managers shape the employee experience, yet most organisations fail to prepare them. Learn what new managers need to succeed from day one.

Uncover why human-led listening, not just surveys and sentiment tools, drives deeper employee insight, trust, and engagement in complex organisations.

Explore why traditional productivity models are failing and how leaders can shift to meaningful, human-centered work strategies that energize employees and drive real results.

Discover six critical shifts redefining employee engagement in 2026. Learn why outdated programs fail and how to create human-centered, high-impact employee experiences.

Forty1’s Meaningful Productivity Report reveals insights from 60+ senior leaders and offers 5 actionable steps to boost performance and wellbeing.

Learn why a human-centric M&A integration approach is key to unlocking real value post-acquisition. Discover six proven strategies to boost engagement, trust, and innovation.

This article explores why psychological safety is critical to organisational performance and offers actionable solutions.

Engaging the full workforce in a pharmaceutical launch can build trust, fuel advocacy, and improve long-term outcomes… if done strategically and compliantly.

Explore five proven strategies to help you discover how you can bring employees with you on a change journey.

When you think of a rebrand, you might picture a shiny new logo, a large-scale marketing campaign, or a bold new name. But real rebranding is as much about perception and positioning as it is about aesthetics. 

It’s that time of year again when organizations are planning ahead and making the decisions to inform the strategic direction for the months and years ahead. And, although there’s global economic growth expected, we know that 2025 will bring even more change for employees, leaders, and businesses. 

Targets are important but realistic targets matter more than ambitious ones. Organizations that maintain credibility on net zero with their people aren’t mistake-free—they’re open, transparent, learn from setbacks, and show genuine commitment.

In this episode, we’ll explore why organizations must invest in the right training to build managers’ capabilities, including supporting them in navigating difficult conversations through inclusive interactions.

Deskless workers. They’re not behind a desk, staring at emails or pondering which Teams background to choose. They’re out there, 80% of the global workforce in fact, and yet they’re often the ones left out in the communications cold.

How can organizations transform their traditional communication approaches into something more authentic? Here’s how you could adopt a little more ‘Brat’ into your own communications.

There’s a curious disconnect in how we approach sustainability. In this article, Lucy Moyle explores why our sustainable habits stop at the office door (and what it might take to bring them in).

In today’s fast-paced workplace, motivation is more important than ever. But what really drives employees in 2024, and how can organizations harness that motivation to boost engagement and performance?

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) isn’t just a technological challenge – it’s a cultural one.

We all know that supporting employees to look after their health is important. But when it comes to reproductive and menstrual health, the scale of the challenge is not being matched by provisions. If organisations don’t change, there’s more at stake than just losing talent.

Cultivating Culture in Emerging Biotech.

Here’s our take on how to build and balance a high culture to maximize your organizational potential.

Communications are key to managing your business challenges.

Formulating and evolving the right strategy initially requires applying specific building blocks, such as employee listening, the use of behavioral science, data and a precise, enduring narrative. Let’s take a closer look.

In today’s complex and fast-moving environments, organizations need workforces that are agile, collaborative, innovative, and committed.

So, when we’re asking for more from our employees, how can we ensure they are motivated to succeed?

What do we do when we find—in this process of quantifying motivation—that motivation within our organization is low?

Embedded comms specialists bring insider knowledge, flexible resources, and broad expertise. They understand your culture, adapt to your needs, and deliver impactful results – all without the overhead of a full-time hire.

Considering its importance, most leaders struggle to define motivation, and are poorly equipped to have a nuanced understanding of where it comes from and what it actually means for employees and businesses.

This, we feel, represents a sizable blind spot for leaders today.

While we recognize the importance of motivation, we’re not particularly good at actually quantifying why and how it’s important, and this is problematic.

The science tells us motivation is key for anything to happen. No motivation—no action.

You’ve probably heard that in 2026 Meta is shutting down its employee engagement platform.

To help you navigate this moving process, we’ve developed a list of recommended actions to guide you through the next 12 months…

Culture is the heart and soul of a business. You need to work to build it, to maintain it. And unfortunately, in some cases, you can lose it overnight.

In this exclusive broadcast, we delve into our latest report: The Business of Motivation, that provides a state-of-the-nation view of workplace motivation.

The team discuss what drives people to be motivated at work and how leaders can achieve more sustainable and balanced motivation.

While many organizations take pride in celebrating their business achievements, there’s a growing need to invest time and effort to deeply understand and genuinely honour the affinity celebrations that matter to their people.

How do we keep our people passionate about the causes we commemorate and ensure they make a positive difference?

Affinity celebrations often serve as a moment in time for us to come together, honour diverse histories and celebrate progress.

But are we truly knowledgeable about what we’re actually celebrating?

Despite companies launching several DEI and wellbeing initiatives over the last three years, employees are feeling more drained, burnt out, and disconnected than ever before.

It seems like even with the best of intentions, something is missing.

DEI is good for business, yet the gap between aspiration and reality remains significant.

While many organisations take pride in celebrating their business achievements, how often do they also invest the time to deeply understand and genuinely honour the affinity celebrations that matter to their people?

Ever been in a conversation where someone just talks at you and doesn’t ask you any questions? Has someone ever asked you a question and then not listened to your answer? Doesn’t feel great, does it? It seems that the need to feel listened to is just part of what it means to be human.

The question seems to be not whether to do more and better employee listening, but how to do it well in our complex, ever-changing workplaces?

Why do we have so much ground still to cover when it comes to delivering successful change programmes?

It’s hardly surprising that the back-to-back events of the pandemic, economic turbulence and political tensions have widely disrupted mental health and significantly reduced capacity to engage with work.

Despite girls outperforming boys in school, and more women attending university than men, women are less likely to study STEM fields and enter STEM careers, as evidenced in a report by the World Bank.

Your favourite pack of biscuits. The fuel in your tank. The butter in your fridge. Train fare. Childcare. Your eye-watering mortgage hike.

In this age of perpetual instability, one thing seems certain: this one is affecting all of us.

Together on the Employee Engagement Summit main stage, senior Forty1 consultants Liz Bryant, Jason Frank and Behavioural Scientist, Dr. Guy Champniss, explored and demonstrated why the impact of what we do is more important than ever before; and how we can harness Behavioural Science to maximise impact and minimise risks.

If the financial situation is making you a little edgy, it’s no wonder it’s got many people and businesses concerned.

It’s only a decade ago that HR teams widely reported ‘no rehire’ policies, but this has changed dramatically, and now 76% of HR professionals are open to hiring a boomerang employee.

Most large organisations are increasingly awash with internal communications data that provide numbers on email, intranet, and other digital platform clicks, reads, and views. But it’s not enough. We need to know more about how our communications actually make people feel.

We gathered change and communications professionals from around the world and asked them to share insights and experiences so we could explore how, together, we can change the way we change, for the better.

“Another month and already another catch-up meeting? Not much has changed, what should I say this time?”

At our employee engagement consultancy, we believe that managers are critical to the success of every organization. They are the bridge between senior leaders and employees.

Successful organizations are adaptable, changing to better serve their markets and stakeholders as times, technology and expectations evolve. Smart leaders know that before implementing better systems, new processes or updated strategies, they must ensure they have one essential element in place—people. People who are willing to make the change.

One of the key questions leaders are faced with is, “How do you maintain, or indeed strengthen, company culture in the face of change?”

Our CEO, Russ Lidstone believes there are eight key principles to success in this area.

If you care about diversity, equity and inclusion in your workplace, but don’t know what you can do about it, consider becoming an ally. That’s the topic we explored in our workshop, “Allyship is the New Leadership,” at the 2022 IABC World Conference in New York City this week.

Whilst more and more organisations are making commitments and participating in DEI discourse, there is so much more that needs to change.  

Listening, science, and skills: three steps to helping employees create change that really sticks.

“In the fast-changing world of healthcare there’s never been a greater need for employees to adapt their behaviour, enabling them to work in new ways, learn new skills, and have new types of conversations.”

Change is all about belief, emotion and energy.

There’s nothing quite like the power of real-life stories demonstrating the positive impact of what you do, to help get you out of bed in the morning, and make change really happen.

With hybrid working becoming the norm for many, and a continuing move to borderless entities, connecting with people, and understanding employee sentiment, has never been more important.

Your EVP isn’t just for recruitment marketing – it has to be a tool you can use to seamlessly bridge candidate attraction and talent retention.

Shouldn’t everyone be able to flourish and thrive at work, rather than just function or even struggle?

So many people are experiencing work-related stress and poor mental health, particularly considering the last two years.

At a time when everyone is heavily invested in ‘purpose at work’ do we need to re-examine what really gives people a feeling of purpose?

Imagine you’ve been invited to a party. No one talks to you, you don’t get asked to dance and you find out you were only invited to fill out numbers. This is a far too common experience for diverse talent.

COVID-19 has made the corporate approach to wellbeing even more crucial. With more people working from home or in a hybrid way, it can be more difficult to find a unified approach.

Tight deadlines, heavy workloads, structural changes, financial security, health and safety concerns – these are just a few of the many challenges employees face today.

Photography plays an important role in how we perceive the world around us.

Once seen as peripheral, soft, or ‘fluffy’, the pandemic has made us begin to reconsider its centrality to core business activity.

To bring about lasting, meaningful change and to ensure it’s seen as fundamental – we’ll need to relook at existing perceptions, challenge them, and envisage the impact of this reimagining of a wellbeing 2.0.

Have you had that uncomfortable feeling in your stomach – the one where there’s an urge inside you to proudly show up as the diverse and confusing individual that you are, but you don’t know how that fits within a culture where the norm is to ‘be the same’?

Whilst it’s true that we hear about diversity, equity and inclusion often, do organisations really understand what these terms mean?