Can you feel it? Change is happening — culturally, politically, and inside the workplace. Orthodoxies that shaped the last decade of daily life are being questioned and dumped. Which employers have noticed the ‘vibe shift’ and which have missed it?

In this episode of This Isn’t Working, host Tanya de Grunwald is joined by journalist Brendan O’Neill – chief political writer at Spiked, and author of the new book ‘Vibe Shift’ – to examine why workplaces are both vibe shift battlegrounds, and some of the last places to formally recognise what’s happening.

Together, they explore how years of values-driven management, DEI orthodoxy, and risk-averse corporate decision-making have reshaped professional life — and why dismantling or reforming these systems may prove far more painful than building them.

If a cultural correction is underway, employers could soon find themselves caught between competing expectations from employees, leadership, and the wider public.

This conversation goes beyond headlines and culture war slogans to ask deeper questions about power, conformity, class, and institutional inertia.

Why do organisations struggle to reverse course once a moral consensus has taken hold? And what happens when employees begin to sense that the rules are changing — but leadership hasn’t caught up yet?

Brendan argues that entire industries and professional identities have grown around enforcing particular cultural norms, meaning any shift away from them is unlikely to be smooth or quiet. Instead, employers may face resistance, confusion, and fierce internal pushback as expectations collide with a rapidly evolving social mood.

We ask:

• Why are so many people talking about a “vibe shift” — and what concrete changes are actually driving the feeling that the cultural pendulum is swinging back?
• Have employers become trapped by policies and workplace ideologies they adopted too quickly, without fully understanding their long-term consequences?
• Why do large organisations struggle to adapt when social attitudes change — even when employees themselves can sense the mood shifting?
• What role have HR departments and corporate leaders played in embedding cultural norms that may now be losing public support?
• Will workplace conflict intensify before things stabilise, and how should leaders prepare for backlash from staff who feel invested in the old consensus?

Provocative, timely, and often darkly funny, this episode explores the growing gap between cultural reality and workplace practice — and asks whether employers are ready for what comes next…

Enjoy the episode!

Buy Brendan’s new book Vibe Shift: The Revolt Against Wokeness, Greenism And Technocracy https://www.amazon.co.uk/Vibe-Shift-Wokeness-Greenism-Technocracy-ebook/dp/B0G72K3PH8

This Is Working (business network)
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Photo gallery from last This Is Working event
https://bit.ly/4qOtwrP0

The Brendan O’Neill Show
https://www.spiked-online.com/podcast/the-brendan-oneill-show/

Freedom In The Arts
https://www.freedominthearts.com/

What happens when the workplace becomes a moral battleground, a group therapy session, or a political rally? And how should disruptive staff be dealt with?

In this darkly funny, unsettling, and sharply insightful episode of This Isn’t Working, clinical psychologist and culture critic Jaco van Zyl takes us deep into the psychological underworld of modern workplace activism.

Before empoyers can find solutions to emerging issues with increasingly demanding and unreasonable staff, they must first understand the problem – which Jaco argues has a large psychological component.

From moral grandstanding and identity performance to power, status, and the strange emotional rewards of self-appointed judges of what (and who) is ‘good’ and ‘bad’, this is a conversation that goes far beyond people policies, and into the human instincts driving today’s office conflicts.

As co-director of Critical Therapy Antidote, Jaco brings a clinical lens to what happens when ideology, therapy culture, and corporate life collide — and why HR often finds itself stuck playing referee (or ‘Mum’) in battles it was never trained to fight.

We ask:

• Why has activism become such a powerful source of meaning, belonging, and even excitement at work? Who is drawn to the idea of taking their identity and political views into the professional space, and why?

• Have employers played a part in encouraging bad behaviour – for example, by creating internal staff networks, pandering to demands for speech policing, and embracing flawed ideas like ‘bring your whole self to work’?

• What are the psychological payoffs of calling out, cancelling, or ‘educating’ colleagues — and who really holds the power in these dynamics? What do disruptive colleagues actually want?

• When and how does a drive for ‘inclusion’ slide into aggression, coercion, and control – and why can’t activist employees tell when they’ve overstepped the line?

• How will problematic employees respond when employers finally push back towards a more grounded, professional working environment? What strategies can they put in place to mitigate explosive reactions from troublemakers who have become accustomed to getting their own way?

By turns disturbing, witty, and uncomfortably familiar, this episode offers a rare psychological look at the hidden motives, emotional currents, and unintended consequences shaping today’s “values-driven” workplace.

Enjoy the episode!

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Critical Therapy Antidote https://criticaltherapyantidote.org/
Freedom in the Arts https://www.freedominthearts.com/

How well is ‘trans inclusion’ working out for employers – and which will be the first organisations to correct their mistakes? Hear what happened when This Isn’t Working host Tanya de Grunwald sat down with Father Ted creator and free speech advocate Graham Linehan…

Interview hosted on Graham’s channel https://www.youtube.com/@GrahamLinehan