Financial Times
175 episodes listed below
Isabel Berwick and FT colleagues dissect CEO loneliness, burnout and workplace power shifts.
Working It treats work as a place of practical decisions and human friction, not just productivity advice. Isabel Berwick leads FT colleagues and guests through questions about leadership, conversation, resilience, loneliness, and how offices keep changing.
PRESS PLAY
Working It is primarily an interview show: each week Isabel Berwick talks with a single guest — an executive coach, workplace psychologist, author, or business leader — about one specific problem in modern work, such as why CEOs have no real friends at the top, how to spot burnout before it becomes clinical, or why productivity 'hacks' fail. Some episodes depart from this format, bringing together a panel of FT writers (including Andrew Hill, Emma Jacobs, Anjali Raval, Polita Clark and Stephen Bush) to discuss a theme like schmoozing at work or a year-end retrospective on labour-market power. A handful of episodes were recorded live in front of an audience at FT events such as the Weekend Festival at Kenwood House. Guests skew toward people who study or coach workplace behaviour rather than celebrity executives — figures like Oliver Burkeman (Four Thousand Weeks), executive coach Tiffany Gaskell, and psychologist Audrey Tang appear to unpack a specific idea in depth rather than promote a book tour. Recurring subject areas include leadership and executive isolation, burnout and psychosocial safety, communication and networking skills, time management and productivity culture, and structural debates about hybrid work, pay transparency, the four-day week and AI's effect on jobs. Episodes run roughly 15 to 26 minutes and end with light FT cross-promotion for sister podcasts. The show is produced by the FT's audio team, with Manuela Saragossa as executive editor and Cheryl Brumley as global head of audio. It would suit managers, HR professionals and anyone navigating people-management problems rather than listeners seeking general career motivation. The podcast ran 153 episodes before concluding in January 2025 with a retrospective on how work had (and hadn't) changed since 2021.
Made for: Managers, executives and HR professionals dealing with concrete workplace problems like leadership isolation, burnout and hybrid-work policy.
What sets it apart: Grounds workplace-advice topics in FT reporting and named research rather than general motivational self-help, and mixes one-on-one interviews with FT-staff panel retrospectives.
Whether you’re the boss, the deputy or on your way up, we’re shaking up the way the world works. This is the podcast about doing work differently. Join host Isabel Berwick every Wednesday for expert analysis and watercooler chat about ahead-of-the-curve workplace trends, the big ideas shaping work today - and the old habits we need to leave behind. Brought to you by the Financial Times. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Isabel Berwick makes workplace ideas useful by testing them against management pressure, professional relationships and the limits of individual productivity.
Working It turns workplace pressures into questions that can be examined and acted on. Isabel Berwick moves comfortably between expert interviews, live audience questions and conversations with Financial Times colleagues, keeping the focus on how management ideas behave in real…
Productivity hacks become another task; you get permission to admit everything will not be done.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A thoughtful farewell on office etiquette, generational tension and the workplace habits each cohort has to learn anew.
Working It ends with a measured FT roundtable on how workplace habits keep being relearned. Isabel Berwick brings back Andrew Hill, Emma Jacobs and Anjali Raval to look back on the show, which began in October 2021 and closes after 153 episodes and several million downloads.
A measured, useful look at why leadership isolates people and how self-awareness can make authority less lonely.
CEO loneliness is treated as a practical leadership problem rather than a mood. Isabel Berwick frames the awkward distance that appears when colleagues become subordinates, private information has to stay private, and people respond differently to the person now making the final…
A practical, low-pressure guide to making workplace small talk feel less forced and more useful.
Working It treats schmoozing as a practical workplace skill, not a personality trick reserved for the naturally confident. Isabel Berrick frames small talk as part of networking and career advancement, then Matt Abrahams lowers the pressure with a useful shift in mindset:…
A candid, dryly funny look at early career insecurity and how working relationships evolve.
Working It opens with the host revisiting embarrassing early diaries and measuring the distance between her 23-year-old self and the more settled work persona she hopes she has become.
A practical live conversation on ambition, burnout and the quiet workplace signals managers should not miss.
Working It brings career advancement back to a practical question: how do people keep progressing without running themselves down? In this live Financial Times session, Isabel Berwick speaks with psychologist and author Dr Audrey Tang about workplace wellbeing, resilience and…
A sharp reset for workers and managers trying to make finite attention survive infinite demands.
Working It challenges the productivity fantasy that sharper hacks can make endless demands manageable. Isabel Berwick lets Oliver Burkeman make a steady, useful case for limits: attention is finite, deep focus has a ceiling, and effective management means deciding what will…
A coaching session on workplace boundaries explores agency, communication, and burnout before a new job.
Workplace boundaries sit at the center of this coaching episode, as a guest preparing for a new job reflects on past cultures shaped by favoritism, alienation, and limited room to be heard.
Journalist Ashley Milne-Tyte interviews researchers and authors on women, money, bias, and burnout.
In the 153rd and final episode of the FT's Working It, host Isabel Berwick brings back regular colleagues Andrew Hill, Emma Jacobs and Anjali Raval to review what has changed in the world of work since October 2021.
Isabel Berwick asks why being a CEO is so lonely, with Tiffany Gaskell of Performance Consultants International and former waste-business MD Alan Barton.
Why are some people so good at schmoozing?
Old diaries make the host wince.
Burnout can show up sideways.
Productivity hacks hit a hard limit.
Working It presents a Coaching Real Leaders session in which executive coach Muriel Wilkins helps Sarah prepare for a new individual-contributor role after two burnout experiences.