Profits Are Up. Employees Are Paying the Price.

The sales team is hitting targets, profits are up, and cashflow is healthy – all clear signs of a thriving organisation. And yet what it actually feels like to work in a successful business has changed, and not for the...

Microsoft’s Voluntary Retirement Buyout: A Human-First Move or an AI Restructuring Play?

In a first in its 51-year history, Microsoft has offered voluntary retirement buyouts to approximately 8,750 US employees – around 7% of its domestic workforce. The move is part of a broader AI-driven workforce restructuring that is reshaping an entire...

840,000 Deaths a Year: The ILO Report Every EX Leader Needs to Read

More than 840,000 people die every year from health conditions linked to psychosocial risk at work. That figure comes from a landmark new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO), and is a major wake-up call for employers. Research over the past...

Your Employee Experience Roundup: HR Tech Europe, Agentic AI, and the Workplace Abuse Crisis

It’s been a busy week for employee experience technology, with a flurry of AI product launches and acquisitions. Amsterdam was also the place to be, with HR Tech Europe 2026 taking place to packed-out sessions. Some concerning new research also...

Eight in Ten Frontline Workers Faced Abuse Last Year. Why Aren’t They Speaking Up?

In the past year, 80% of UK frontline employees experienced workplace abuse. Of those who did not report it, more than half said it was because violence is simply “part of the job.” The data comes from a Trades Union Congress...

Learning Pool Acquires WorkStep to Build End-to-End Frontline Employee Experience Platform

On 20 April, Learning Pool announced its acquisition of WorkStep, an AI-powered employee engagement platform built specifically for frontline organisations. The deal follows two earlier Learning Pool acquisitions: WorkRamp, an AI-first learning management system (LMS) for high-performing teams, and Elucidat, a...

Workday and Achievers Bring AI-Powered Recognition into the HR Platform

Workday and Achievers have launched an AI-powered recognition and rewards solution built directly into the Workday platform. Announced on 16 April, the new offering – Workday Recognition – embeds Achievers’ recognition and rewards solution into the Workday suite, using AI...

Your Employee Experience Roundup: Perception Gaps, Disengaged Managers and the Agentic AI Future

Every fortnight, I’ll be rounding up the latest employee experience news, research and insights, and pulling out the threads that connect them. So if you’re too busy to track every report drop, every new trend, or indeed every time a...

The Pay Transparency Disconnect: Why Employees and HR See Pay So Differently

Most HR professionals believe pay at their organisation is fair, yet barely half think their employees agree. Published yesterday, Salary.com’s 2026 State of Pay and Compensation Practices Report finds a 31-point confidence gap between what HR believes about pay fairness and what...

Sales Performance Rises 22% When Managers Build Trust Skills

Managers with the ability to build trust across their teams significantly increase the chance of hitting sales targets, new data suggests. Research by MindTools Kineo, launched in 2023 and continuing today, highlights how managers’ non-technical, human skills contribute to business outcomes...

 The Perception Gap: Why Leaders Are Getting the Frontline Experience Wrong

Corporate leaders across retail, hospitality and food service sectors are designing strategies with significant blindspots in their frontline operations. Axonify’s 2026 Frontline Operations Report, published earlier this month, reveals a significant disconnect between what leaders believe is happening on the floor...

Josh Bersin’s Agentic HR 2030 Vision: What does it Mean for Employee Experience?

As more organisations deploy AI agents across their operations, the question of how this technology will reshape HR is gaining traction. Are we heading towards a world in which people issues are mostly handled by AI bots, not humans? Last...