This Working Life

Hosted by ABC Australia

Business Careers

Website RSS feed

Episodes

248

Latest episode

Aug 2026

Language

About the show

You spend so much time on work, why accept the status quo, when there are ways to do it better? Get expert advice, research and hacks that will crush your inertia. Join Lisa Leong and other This Working Lifers as we experiment and explore the latest in the world of work. We cover policy issues, like hybrid workplaces and remote work, employee wellbeing and organisational culture, the use of AI, employee surveillance, employee engagement, diversity and inclusion. We talk about progress on wider issues that relate to work, like work life balance, organisational change, restructures, and casualisation. On This Working Life our focus is on everything related to the people in a workplace too, including culture, individual experiences, performance management and career advice.

Listen to episodes

60 recent

September 6, 202625 min

You're being measured!

Do you measure up? Digital and AI tools coupled with an increased desire for productivity means we’re being marked more closely than ever before. New research shows that when we know how we're being measured we stop prioritising the work that isn't measured, especially if we think the systems aren't transparent or fair. Lisa gets stuck into the modern map of "metricisation" to see how to defend soft skills from a passion for measurement! The Radio National Top 100 Australian Books countdown is underway - make your vote count! Our Work Book guest is ABC Business reporter Daniel Ziffer and his pick for the This Working Life book club is Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. Guests: Dr Martin Edwards , Organisational psychologist and Professor in Management in the University of Queensland Business School Daniel Ziffer , ABC Business Reporter and author of A Wunch of Bankers: A Year in the Hayne Royal Commission ====== You can binge more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

August 30, 202625 min

Fluorescent lights burning you out?

How does your office make you feel? Are you an open plan convert or dying under the halogen lighting? We spend a lot of time in our workplaces and the way they’re designed can have a huge impact on our mental and physical wellbeing. Psychologists and architects are worried we've sleep walked into a world where the standard office design is actively burning workers out quick smart. It's a problem for employees stuck in environments draining them of the will, and employers losing good staff to bad design. So how do we fix it? Lisa dons a hard hat and goes looking for a smarter way to design modern workspaces. And it’s the first week of the Radio National Top 100 Australian Books countdown ! We kick off our series Work Book, getting the skinny on books that have changed the way people work. Rob Kelly's pick for our Work Book reading list is The Undoing Project by Michael Lewis. Guests: Dr Patrick Aouad , Neurologist, neuroscientist and the CEO of healthcare company CU Health . Natalie Phillips-Mason , Founder of Inclusive Change Michael Spinoglio , Design director of Spaceful Rob Kelly , Producer of This Working Life ====== You can binge more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

August 23, 202625 min

What do you do in a crisis?

How do you react in a crisis? Are you fight, flight, fawn or flee? We all react differently to moments of panic and stress but one thing we all have in common is that they cause us to make rash and poor decisions. Are we stuck like this or can we re-train ourselves to respond to panic and act or lead with a clear head? Guest: Dr James Donald , Senior Lecturer in Work and Organisational Studies at Sydney University and co-author of The Clear Leader ======= You can binge more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

August 16, 202625 min

How to get hired in the AI age

Artificial intelligence use in the job hunt is happening so fast it's hard to keep track and applicants and employers are feeling harassed by the speed of the change. Candidates find themselves trapped in a paradox where they need to write applications that make it through the screening while also standing out when an application eventually reaches a human decision maker. AI interviews are increasingly popular as well for hiring organisations which job hunters are reporting can make the process depressing and dehumanising. Research on the impact of these tools in their first years also suggests that the use of AI tools for hiring runs the risk of discriminatory practices being baked into the process. There's also a concern that employers run the risk of ending up with a distinct lack of diversity of thought in their teams. But employers and hiring managers love these tools and argue that they can improve the process for job candidates as well. So, what do we do? Lisa logs on with a legal researcher into the impact of AI hiring models and gets the goods from behind the digital curtain on how to beat the bot! Guests: Dr Natalie Sheard , Lawyer and McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Melbourne studying discrimination by AI systems, particularly those used in employment. Rudy Crous , Organisational psychologist and CEO of AI Human Relations firm Compono ======== You can binge more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

August 9, 202625 min

We're too tired to work!

Are you just too tired to work? Australians feel exhausted. Eighty two per cent of Australian knowledge workers reported being on the verge of burnout last year, and businesses are scrambling to catch up with the cost of mental fatigue. But sleepiness can be a killer too and a major shift is underway in how Australian industries treat tiredness in the workplace. It's not a new phenomenon, people were talking about "brain fag" in Victorian England, but the way we think about fatigue and the way we treat it in the workplace is in flux. So why are we so tired and what can we do about it? Lisa puts matchsticks in her eyes and tries to solve the tiredness trap. Guests: Dr Drew Dawson, Professor, Director of Research Development at Central Queensland University and expert in Fatigue Management Strategy Dr Elizabeth Stephens, Associate Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Queensland and co author of the new study - A Cultural History of Workplace Fatigue which will conclude in 2029 Dr Kari Leibowitz, Health Psychologist, Speaker and author of How To Winter: Harness Your Mindset to Thrive on Cold, Dark, or Difficult Days Further Listening & Reading! Dr Kari Leibowitz on This Working Life in 2023 speaking about the power of harnessing stress =========== You can binge more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

August 2, 202625 min

Is Gina Rinehart right about cash bonuses?

Australia’s richest person and long time supporter of Australian Swimming Gina Rinehart has been offering cash bonuses for Aussie swimmers at the Commonwealth games, $20,000 for a gold medal! It can be a nice to have after a huge challenge or a drawcard to make people work harder, but there can be a danger to motivating your team with extra dollars. So, Is Gina Rinehart right, do cash bonuses work? What actually motivates us? Lisa digs into the world of motivation and incentives to try and figure out what works for us and how you can motivate people without alienating them. Stacey Parker's co-authored article on compensation and design for Motivation Science Mark Puncher's work sheet on connection with work Guests: Dr Stacey Parker - Associate Professor and endorsed Organisational Psychologist at the University of Queensland's School of Psychology Mark Puncher - CEO of Employer Branding Australia ========== You can binge more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

July 26, 202625 min

The dangers of silence at work

Speaking out at work is hard. It's even harder in a culture of silence. To take the decision to break the quiet is an act of bravery, ands it's one many of us are unwilling to risk. But the dangers of a culture of silence are many, and they impact employers and employees alike. While it can be a scary thing to do, research has found that people staying silent to protect their own heath and wellbeing almost always have worse results for their mental health in the long term in a silent workplace. Lisa speaks, loudly, with an expert on why people stay quiet. Guest: Dr Nate Zettna : Lecturer in leadership at the Business School of The University of Sydney

July 19, 202625 min

Is it getting harder to find a job?

After the 100th email auto reply, the AI application screening and writing the umpteenth cover letter of the week, the job hunt can feel like a real drain. If you're feeling like it's harder to find a job now than last time you were looking you are not alone. A combination of people staying put, international forces and a tight economic market have all impacted the white collar worker world. And that's before we think about AI! Despite unemployment numbers remaining pretty flat the Australian Bureau of Statistics found that in the first 3 months of this year one point one million people without a job wanted one, with one million available to start within four weeks. Job application numbers per role are up as well. Employment website Seek found that in May this year job advert numbers were down 4.5% on May last year, and that applications per job advert have gone up 5.5% in a year. So what can we do if we need a gig? How do we prepare ourselves and our children for a rapidly changing world of work? Lisa digs into the data and goes hunting for answers for you. Guests: Hari Hara Priya Kannan - Chief Data Scientist at The Demographics Group Nic Cola - CEO of RMIT Online ======== You can find more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

July 12, 202625 min

Is being good at your job holding you back?

Are you being asked time and again to be the one who gets everything done, is your reward for crushing it, just more “it” to crush? You might be paying a competence Tax! Research consistently shows that people who are seen as high achievers are stacked with more of the same rather than being given pathways to doing new things. it's a story a lot of people can relate to but it can be a very difficult trap to escape. Lisa is joined by a world expert in what she calls "the curse of competence" to give you the tools to break the hex! Guest: Dr Ruth Gotian: Success researcher, Associate Professor at Columbia University and Author of The Success Factor and the Financial Times Guide to Mentoring. ========== You can find more episodes of the This Working Life podcast with your on the job correspondent Lisa Leong on the ABC listen app (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Please email us at thisworkinglife@abc.net.au if you would like to get in touch, we read them all and love hearing from you!

July 5, 202625 min

Take a break!

When you’re under the pump, it can feel like taking a break at work is impossible. But that can be habit forming, and bad for your physical and mental health. Learn the benefits of building breaks into your workday, and how to do it in a way that feels manageable.