Ep 287 - The 100-Year Life: Are Our Workplaces Ready?

Addiction remains one of the most misunderstood and stigmatised issues in the workplace. While organisations have made significant progress in supporting employee mental health and wellbeing, many employees struggling with addiction still feel unable to speak openly about their experiences, fearing judgement, damaged career prospects or even dismissal. In this episode of The HR Room, we're joined by Darren Grady, who spent 14 years concealing his recovery from addiction throughout a successful corporate career. With Darren, Mary and Dave explore the hidden reality of addiction in the workplace, the trust gap between employees and HR, and why high-performing employees can often conceal serious struggles behind professional success. The conversation also examines the difficult balance HR professionals must strike between supporting employees and protecting their organisations, and what employers can do to create an environment where people feel safe seeking help. Guests:

We all experience stress at work. Deadlines, demanding workloads and competing priorities are part of working life. But how do you know when everyday workplace stress is becoming something more serious? And what can you do when the pressure just doesn't let up? In this episode of Wellness Works, a mini-series of The HR Room Podcast, Dave is joined by Laura Barry, Head of People Development at Insight HR, to explore the difference between stress and burnout, how to recognise the early warning signs, and what finding a healthy work-life balance actually looks like. We discuss why burnout isn't always accompanied by a drop in performance, why simply encouraging employees to become more resilient isn't enough, and how organisations can inadvertently contribute to stress through the way work is designed and managed. Laura also shares practical advice for managers on recognising when someone on their team might be struggling, how to start supportive conversations, and the small changes individuals can make to create a healthier, more sustainable relationship with work. In this episode, we discuss:

For some HR professionals, working with trade unions is a normal part of everyday life. For others, the prospect of sitting across the negotiating table from a union representative can be unfamiliar – and more than a little daunting. So, what do you need to know before you enter a negotiation? How do you build a productive relationship with union representatives? And what happens when talks become contentious – or even break down completely? Joining us on this episode of The HR Room is Sharron Clancy, Senior HR Consultant at Insight HR, who has extensive experience working in unionised environments and negotiating with trade unions throughout her career. Alongside Insight HR Managing Director Mary Cullen, Sharron shares practical advice for HR professionals who find themselves dealing with trade unions – whether that's around pay negotiations, organisational change, redundancies, employee relations or workplace disputes. Guest: Sharron Clancy - Senior HR Consultant, Insight HR Topics include:

What can a reality TV show built around deception, suspicion and group dynamics teach us about how organisations really work? Quite a lot, as it turns out. In this episode of The HR Room Podcast, Mary Cullen and Dave Corkery are joined by Katelyn Divilly, organisational development consultant, leadership coach and former Traitor on the first season of The Traitors Ireland. Drawing on Katelyn's background in work and organisational psychology – as well as her first-hand experience inside the castle – we explore the fascinating parallels between The Traitors and the workplace. Why do informal leaders emerge within groups? Why are we so susceptible to groupthink? How quickly can labels become accepted as fact? And what happens when the systems and incentives inside an organisation encourage exactly the behaviours leaders say they don't want? We also look at trust as the infrastructure behind high-performing teams, the difference between confidence and genuine leadership competence, and why technical high performers don't automatically make good managers. Katelyn explains how organisational systems can unintentionally reward the wrong behaviours, while Mary explores what happens when influential individuals are allowed to behave poorly because they're considered too valuable to challenge. Finally, we discuss what pressure reveals about leaders – and why self-management, emotional intelligence and strong relationships become even more important when things start going wrong. In this episode, we discuss:

Recent events at KPMG Australia have developed into a major corporate governance scandal, following allegations concerning the misuse of confidential client information and questions over how the organisation responded to the whistleblower who originally raised concerns. In this episode of The HR Room Podcast, Dave and Mary are joined by Rebecca Bowman, Head of Investigations at Insight HR, to examine the case through an Irish HR and workplace investigations lens. They explore what employers can learn from the KPMG controversy, what constitutes a protected disclosure under Irish law, and why simply having an investigation process isn't enough if that process isn't independent, rigorous and fair. They also discuss what HR should do when a protected disclosure lands on their desk, when an external investigator should be brought in, the danger of treating a whistleblower as the problem rather than addressing the underlying concern, and why a poorly handled investigation can ultimately create far greater reputational and organisational damage than the original allegation. Finally, the conversation looks beyond individual investigations to organisational culture: do employees genuinely feel safe speaking up when the issue they're raising goes to the heart of how the organisation operates? Topics include: