I’ve often described myself as a bit of a workplace nerd, and in a fairly nerdy way I love this time of year. The trend reports start landing in waves, and the picture they paint together is more interesting than any one of them on its own. The surface story is the one you’d expect. Disruption is up. AI is rewriting how we work. The bit I think is what is most interesting to zoom in on is the human signal sitting underneath all of that.

I was also interested to see how directly these reports map onto the big shifts I called out in the last edition which I’ve been spotting out and about and in conversations with clients over the last 6 months. When you read them through that lens, the real question becomes: what is the human impact of the evolution of work we are seeing right now, and what are these reports actually telling us about it?

The signal under the noise

My favourite top three reports this year:

• The Microsoft Work Trend Index

• The Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026

• The Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report

I’ve leaned on all three for years when I’m tracking and mapping out what’s coming next. Some of the trends in these reports land. Some don’t.

We’ll all remember how we were supposed to be working in the metaverse by now, and how that one didn’t quite play out.

TL;DR across the three. The human side is the work. AI is moving at pace (obviously), but our people are often more ready than their organisations are. Our line managers are feeling the pressure from every angle. The real opportunity sits in the cultural conditions we create. Those are the conditions that turn organisations into places where people actually enjoy work.

Gallup State of The Global Workplace 2026 Report

My take. Here is the signal standing out most for me in this one; Engagement levels haven’t been this low since the middle of the pandemic, and the toll is landing hardest on line managers and middle leaders. They’re absorbing the disruption, communicating it down, holding expectations together, and trying to keep their own heads above water at the same time.

We need to do a lot more to support the line-manager population through this period.

📊 Read the Gallup report ✍️ My related post on this

Deloitte Human Capital Trends Report

My take. Two things stood out for me here. First, the framing around making intentional choices to design for human advantage. Getting the best out of technology while leaning into the human edge, and what that combination does for high-performing organisations. Second, the work on rebalancing the relationship between humans and machines. What’s best done by humans, what’s best done by machines, what the risks are if you don’t think about that boundary at all, and what poor design here does to trust.

I see this very much as an intentional cultural design opportunity.

📊 Read the Deloitte report ✍️ My related post on this

Microsoft Work Trend Index

My take. This one is the OG, and the scroll-through design on the website is a joy to interact with. I’d been waiting for it for ages, and when it came through it didn’t disappoint.

The finding that really floored me: people inside organisations are now more ready to redesign their ways of working than their organisations are. That is a first in my memory. The design of the way the organisation actually operates is becoming the bottleneck. You’ve got people who are up for redesigning the work itself. That is a goldmine of opportunity, and it’s where leadership needs to create the space for them to do it.

I also loved their four working modes for AI use:

• Delegation

• Collaboration

• Asking

• Exploration

Teams that win are the ones where individual AI practice and the organisation’s AI conditions are both high. You’ll need the tools to attract the talent. Organisations need to get up to speed with their own employees. The other thread that stood out was the picture of a constant learning culture, where every day we are learning, sharing, and building the mindset.

The opportunity sits in re-architecting work through co-creation.

📊 Read the Microsoft Work Trend Index 🎥 Watch my short take on the Microsoft signal

These reports can get dense, even if you’re a nerd like me.

Try this. For the podcast and audiobook lovers. Take one of the heavier reports as a PDF, drop it into NotebookLM, and generate a 20-minute podcast-style audio version you can listen to on the move. You can tweak it to focus on the areas you care about most.

I did warn you I’m a nerd.

Trusted methods, new energy

The principles I keep coming back to in all of this are cultural. Human connection, curiosity about what’s next, the willingness to iterate and adapt as the world iterates around you. They are not new, and they don’t need to be. They keep travelling well as the conditions keep moving.

For me it always comes back to how teams actually work well together. When I think about that, I land in the same place every time. Human connection. Being part of a community. Put those two together and you get the equation that sits underneath everything I’m working on right now:

Human Connection + Community = Collaboration

There’s so much opportunity to design that into the way you work.

Out & about: client work

A handful of moments worth sharing from recent weeks.

Agile as a mindset

I’ve been working with a few clients recently on what an agile mindset actually looks like in practice, rather than reaching first for an Agile methodology in its purist form. The principles are great. Where I see them go wrong is when they get imported wholesale and used in a rigid way, locked to a particularly rigid framework. I’m more interested in keeping it principle-based. Options stay open. Iteration stays the default. You move with the world as it shifts around you, instead of trying to hold it still.

🎥 Here’s a short video on how to adapt Agile for the world we live in now

Co-creating what the room needs

There’s so much opportunity for people to learn from each other, across socio-economic backgrounds and especially across generations. With five generations now in most workplaces, designing exchange in becomes more important. If you’re developing a leadership pipeline, it matters even more. Knowledge and wisdom should flow in all directions, and that flow happens when you design for it.

This past week we were living our best disruption life. The in-person learning experience we’d designed had to pivot to virtual when the tube strikes landed. We iterated, we adapted, and we ended up creating something we wouldn’t have without the constraint. Purposeful one-to-one pairings. Time to build on strengths people already had. A chance to codify the multi-generational exchange that was already happening inside the organisation in pockets.

🧰 Here’s some things to try 🎥 A short video on what we created

Different tools, different jobs

I’ve been continuing to experiment with different tools for different parts of the week, and protecting some things deliberately analogue. Pen and notebook still earn their keep, and so does walking thinking time.

For deep research lately, especially around some long-form writing I’ve been doing, more to come soon! Perplexity has been brilliant. The sourcing is great, the answers go deeper, and it has quickly become my default for that kind of work. I’m still a big fan of Claude for workflows, planning, and drafting. The biggest shift recently has been Wispr Flow for voice-to-text dictation. That one has changed how I work in ways I didn’t expect.

Try this. Be curious. Pick one of the tools above (or one I haven’t mentioned - by the time you are reading this there’ll likely be more) and have a play with it. If it helps, you’ve found a new tool. If it doesn’t, you’ve still learned something. The space is moving so fast that the curiosity to play, test, and learn is one of the most valuable habits you can build right now.

Designing enjoyment in

All of this keeps reinforcing the same point for me. The focus on humans is critical right now, and we have a chance to be much more intentional about how we design enjoyment into work itself.

The reports are telling us engagement is in a fragile place, and the temptation will be to throw another survey cycle or another engagement programme at it. The harder, more rewarding work is to get deliberate about how we architect enjoyment into the work that’s already happening.

Bring people into the co-creation. Make it fun. Make the line between the shop floor and the top floor much shorter than it usually is.

I spoke more about this on the May edition of Learning Now TV.

🎥 Catch the May edition of Learning Now TV

On the road

I’ll be out and about in Edinburgh, London, and Bristol over the next few weeks. If you’re around in any of those, drop me a line and we’ll grab a coffee.

If you’re heading to the CIPD Festival of Work on the 11th in london, I’d love to find each other and catch up there too for a Coffee IRL and dial up more of that Human Connection.

Let’s chat

As always, if you’re looking for a partner to level up your ways of working, solve the engagement puzzle through co-creation and designing enjoyment into work drop me a message or book a virtual coffee.

🧩

Tom Chief Activation Officer | SparkShift

Diary of a Solopreneur | Edition 3 | April 2026

Going solo doesn’t mean going alone.

One of the best things about becoming a Solopreneur is that you get to choose who you work with. You find the people whose work excites you, whose thinking challenges you, and whose ambitions align with yours. Then you build something together.

And here’s the other fun thing about this Solopreneur life: you get to constantly be co-creating. Co-creation is a central part of how I work with clients through my Work:Lab method (Identify, Co-Create, Activate), and the opportunity to co-create a variety of new things every day is one of the things I’m enjoying most about this journey.

But when you move beyond day-to-day co-creation and into deeper partnerships, that’s where things get really exciting. That’s where you start to build meaningful connections around work that genuinely matters to you.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that Edition 1 was Activate: opening up for business and starting a new chapter. Edition 2 was Identify: field notes from the digital nomad trail across Nairobi, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket. This edition is Co-Create. Two partnerships that have been taking shape over the past couple of months, both coming together right now.

The most pressing question I keep hearing from leaders and teams across every industry is this:

“How do we prepare our people and our organisations for what’s coming next?”

Before I get into the partnerships, I want to share the bigger picture. Because these collaborations didn’t come out of nowhere. They’re a direct response to six shifts I keep seeing in the work.

Six Shifts Shaping 2026

Over the last six months, the same themes have kept surfacing in every conversation I’m having with CEOs, leaders, HR teams, and founders across multiple industries and sectors. I’ve distilled them into six shifts that I believe are becoming key puzzle pieces in the world of work right now.

🧩 Evolution over Transformation

The era of the big-bang change programme is over. The organisations that are thriving right now are the ones evolving continuously, working in small focused sprints with a bias towards iteration. The world is more disruptive than it’s ever been, and waiting around for the perfect plan just means you’re standing still while everything moves around you.

🧩 Roles to Missions

Static job descriptions are giving way to something far more fluid. The smartest teams I’m seeing are assembling the right skills at the point of need, working on a mission together, then dispersing and reforming for the next one. This is what a skills-based organisation looks like in practice. It gives people the opportunity for stretch and development, keeps the work interesting and fresh, and brings new perspectives to every challenge.

🧩 Intentional Leadership

Leadership by default just doesn’t cut it anymore. The latest Gallup State of the Global Workplace report tells a powerful story here: manager engagement has dropped from 31% to 22% in just three years. The people responsible for leading teams through the biggest shifts in a generation are themselves disengaged. But here’s what’s interesting: when managers actively champion change, particularly AI adoption, employees are 8.7 times more likely to say it’s transformed how they work. The shift towards leaders who choose to lead, who are intentional about how they show up and how they develop, is going to define the next few years.

🧩 Multigenerational Workforces

We’ve got five generations working side by side right now, and at a time when the world already feels divided, this is one area where we can actively take steps in the other direction. I think there’s more that connects us across generations than what separates us. The shift I want to see is from generational divide to generational exchange: creating the conditions for people to learn from each other, share experiences, and recognise that every generation has something valuable to offer. When organisations use lenses instead of labels, and facilitate genuine knowledge flow in both directions, something really powerful happens.

🧩 The Global Opportunity

I talked about this in the last edition through the lens of the digital nomad scene, and work-from-anywhere is increasingly becoming a serious talent strategy. But the bigger picture is the global opportunity. Emerging hubs across Southeast Asia and East Africa are rewriting assumptions about where great work happens and who gets to do it. Africa is at the centre of this for me. The youngest continent on the planet, with a median age of 19, and a workforce that is already highly AI-enabled. The opportunity to tap into new pools of talent that are digital-native, creative, and hungry is enormous. Countries are building the infrastructure and visa pathways to attract global workers, and the organisations paying attention to this now are going to have a significant edge.

🧩 AI-Enabled Culture

And then there’s the one that’s shaping everything else. The shift towards AI-enabled culture. Gallup puts it plainly: 95% of organisations have seen zero measurable profit impact from AI despite billions in investment. The technology works. The opportunity now is to create the conditions for people to actually use it well, and that’s a culture and leadership challenge. This is the backdrop against which all the other shifts are playing out, and it’s where two exciting partnerships have taken me over the past few months.

The Power of Partnership

So we’re in the Co-Create edition. And I’m delighted to introduce two partnerships that have been shaping up, both sitting at the heart of the AI-enabled culture conversation, but coming at it from very different angles.

Introducing Scail

I’ve seen this kind of moment before. Working in the innovation team at one of the UK’s largest financial services firms, I watched fintech start to disrupt traditional banking products and services that hadn’t changed in decades. Small, fast-moving teams were rethinking customer experiences from the ground up. The organisations that moved quickly, and brought their people with them, created real distance from everyone else.

Now, every sector is living through that same kind of disruption. And the picture is uncomfortable. Organisations are investing more in AI than ever, but only 5% are seeing substantial return on investment. 65% of employees in AI-implemented organisations say it’s boosted their personal productivity, but only 12% say AI has changed how their organisation actually works. Individual gains are real. Organisational gains are nowhere. And that gap is a leadership and culture problem.

A group of us came together over a shared belief that this problem needed solving properly. A squad of likeminded people, each bringing different skills and knowledge, assembled around a challenge we kept seeing go unanswered in the market: that the biggest barrier to AI adoption in organisations is the people side. The confidence gaps among leaders. The cultural resistance. Teams being handed tools with no context for why or how to use them.

That’s why we built Scail. An AI consultancy for SaaS businesses in regulated, high-trust markets: fintech, healthtech, legaltech, insurtech. We build AI capability with clarity and confidence, delivering measurable improvements and creating real, lasting value from AI. What makes us different is that the people and culture work is built into the model from day one.

I’m leading people, culture, and learning at Scail, and I’m genuinely excited to be back working with regulated SaaS businesses again. Having spent years deep in the fintech world, I’m looking forward to reconnecting with many from the fintech and insurtech community to see what’s moved on since the days when Monzo was Mondo, and to meeting the broader regulated SaaS market where it is right now.

Here’s why this matters now.

The regulatory landscape for AI is shifting fast. Right now, 78% of AI users are already bringing their own tools to work. In a regulated business, that’s not someone using ChatGPT to draft an email. That’s unaudited decisions being made with unvetted tools in regulated processes. Shadow AI in a regulated environment is a compliance risk hiding in plain sight.

Meanwhile, 88% of companies say they’re using AI regularly, but most are stuck in what we call pilot purgatory: lots of experiments, no embedded change. You can’t mandate curiosity. You can’t force someone to find their own moment of clarity about what AI means for their work. But you can co-create it with them. Bring your leaders into the conversation early. Let teams shape how they’ll work with AI rather than having it done to them. When people are part of building the approach, they own and adopt it.

The question for organisations isn’t “how do we get our people to use AI?” It’s “how do we create a culture where they want to?”

If your AI strategy doesn’t have a people strategy inside it, it’s a shopping list.

👉🏾 We’ve gone live today! Come and meet Scail here

Introducing Corporate Love

On the other side of the AI conversation, I’ve been building something with Chris Thomason, author of Supercharged Thinking.

One of the things I find genuinely fascinating about AI is how good it is at making sense of messy human conundrums. And when you think about how you optimise for a world of constant change, it leads you to a really important question: what are the skills that endure? What should organisations be investing in right now, regardless of how the technology evolves?

That question is the heart of Corporate Love.

Corporate Love is a philosophy built around a simple idea: organisations that are open about change, and proactive in helping their people prepare for it, build deeper trust, stronger performance today, and lasting loyalty into the future.

Too many organisations wait until restructures, redundancies, or role changes force the conversation. Corporate Love flips that. It’s about investing in your people’s enduring human skills while they’re still with you. Their thinking capability. Their adaptability. Their confidence to navigate whatever comes next.

The outcomes we’re focused on together:

💡 Upgraded Thinking

Helping individuals think more clearly about their work, their value, and their future. Teams that think better generate stronger ideas, make sharper decisions, and move at pace.

🧰 Innovative Ways of Working

Fresh thinking applied to how work actually gets done. Less friction, more momentum. Teams that collaborate with intent and execute with confidence.

🤩 A More Engaged Workforce

When people feel invested in, they show up differently. Greater commitment, stronger loyalty, and the kind of discretionary effort that changes what an organisation can achieve.

Whether employees stay long-term or move on, they leave better equipped: with greater agency, clearer thinking, and a stronger ability to navigate what comes next.

And here’s the thing: better thinking is for everyone. Corporates can show the love by investing in their people through the programme. But if you want to show yourself some cognitive love, the toolkit is there for you too. Supercharged Thinking by Chris Thomason is the workbook that forms the basis of the philosophy, and it’s designed to be used, not just read. Whether you’re leading a team or leading yourself, it’s a brilliant place to start.

Chris brings the methodology around supercharged thinking. I bring the culture, learning design, and ways of working. The way we work together is beautifully analogue and digital at the same time: pocket notebooks, walking meetings, conversations that turn into voice notes, voice notes that go into Claude, and within hours we’ve got structured thinking and iterated propositions that would have taken weeks the old way. The proposition is deeply human. The process of building it is AI-native.

“In a world where work is changing, preparing people early is not kindness. It’s leadership.”

👉 Explore the Corporate Love Philosophy and get in touch if you’d like to chat about how it could work for you and your teams.

Two Sides. One Belief.

At Scail, we help organisations adopt AI with confidence and make sure their people are equipped, curious, and part of the shift. Through Corporate Love, Chris and I help organisations invest in the enduring human skills that will matter regardless of what technology does next.

They sit on different sides of the conversation, but the belief underneath is the same: you can’t invest in technology without investing in people. Both, always.

Beyond the Boardroom

One of the great things about being a Community Chair and Governor at West Country Schools Trust is that the future-of-work thinking extends well beyond corporate boundaries.

I’ve been out on two school visits recently, and the conversations are fascinating. Teachers are navigating new challenges around AI in the classroom, and students are asking big questions about what their futures look like as this new general-purpose technology starts to reshape the world of work. How do we develop a level of AI literacy across our next generation? How do we make sure young people are prepared for a working world that looks very different from the one we entered?

The same principles apply. You create the conditions for people to explore with confidence. Whether that’s a SaaS business in fintech or a school trust in rural England, the human side of adoption is what makes the difference.

What’s Coming Up

A few things on the calendar that you can get involved in.

📻 Engage for Success Radio went live yesterday.

Talking 6 Shifts and how the world of work is evolving, available wherever you get your podcasts

🎙The Future of Management and AI Webinar 11:00am BST15th April

I’m partnering with the Company Culture Awards for a webinar exploring what the future of leadership and management looks like in an AI-enabled world. It’s free, it’s practical, and I’d love to see you there. Register here

🎙 The Workplace Event Birmingham NEC 29th April

Later this month, I’ll be joining Leagh Cater to talk about the human side of workplace technology adoption. Join Us

Let’s Work Together

If any of the above resonates, here are some ways we could explore working together.

A keynote or talk at your event or offsite / High-energy, highly visual learning experiences on any of the six shifts, AI-enabled culture, or the future of work. Conferences, leadership away days, or internal events.

Run an experiment with your team / A focused session designed around your specific challenge. Culture shift, AI adoption, leadership alignment. Hands-on and practical.

A fixed-time engagement / Whether that’s a few weeks or a few months, we design sprints that fit your pace. Coaching, facilitation, and accountability built in, with the flexibility to go deeper where it matters.

Coaching for leaders and Solopreneurs / I work one-to-one with leaders navigating AI-enabled change, and with Solopreneurs who want to get the most out of working with AI in their day-to-day. If you’re leading through a shift or building something solo, let’s Chat.

Sometimes the best place to start is a chat over a virtual coffee, just exploring what’s going on in each other’s worlds right now and sharing notes. Think of it as the virtual water cooler. book in or drop me a DM and we’ll get one set up!

🧩

Tom

Chief Activation Officer | People, Culture and Learning Partner at Scail

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The last time we were this disengaged at work was in the middle of a pandemic.

So what does that say about the state of work today? I’ve been looking at the new Gallup State of the Global Workplace 2026 report this morning.

The headline: Global engagement has dropped to 20%

BUT

The biggest drop? Manager engagement, which is down 9 points since 2022. Interestingly a lot of this data cuts across the 6 shifts I’m seeing play out in the world of work at the moment, but two shifts in particular stand out when looking across the Gallup insights.

🧩 Intentional Leadership

As the structure and dynamic of teams change, we have managers reporting more negative emotions and lower engagement. Leaders also report higher stress, more anger, more loneliness than the people they lead.

Perhaps this is because we have unintentional managers who acquired teams that have now grown in spans of control, who never wanted to be leaders in the first place?

Or perhaps middle management has become a weary place to be situated within a company. Pressure to adopt new tools, embarrassment of personal knowledge gaps, scepticism, or maybe even a bit of the old ‘change fatigue’.

The thing is though, high engagement in leaders and managers changes that entirely, making coaching, developing and co-creating the leadership and management practices for an AI-enabled world more urgent than ever. In a world of constant change there is no place for change fatigue, leaders must build change fluency.

🧩 AI-Enabled Culture

Individual productivity gains from AI are real, but organisational gains still aren’t showing up yet.

Employees whose manager actively supports AI adoption are 8.7x more likely to say it’s transformed how work gets done. However Less than a third of managers are doing that right now.

The Gallup CEO says: “Winning the AI revolution will depend not just on the technology you deploy but also on how well you lead the people using it.”

It’s also worth thinking about employee engagement as a measure of readiness for change. The more engaged you are, the better you typically handle disruption. And there’s no shortage of that in 2026.

So where does that leave us?

We have organisations investing heavily in AI, but the people responsible for making it land with teams are increasingly checked out.

The solution then is engagement. Co-creation. Building together. Inspiring curiosity about your work in a human way.

Right now has the potential to be an exciting time of creation, of shaping the new management and leadership behaviours we need for the future of work.

Let’s bring our managers in and show them some love, let’s co-create the future with them and develop the skills and behaviours to lead an AI-enabled culture where humans thrive alongside tech.🧩

Is this resonating with what you’re seeing in your teams?

Being a digital nomad isn’t just a niche lifestyle for tech founders in Bali anymore, it’s actually more of a glimpse of where work is going. And it cuts right across demographics and generational lenses.

Over the past few months, I’ve worked from Nairobi, Bangkok, Chiang Mai, and Phuket. Two continents. Four cities. Four very different vibes of what “work from anywhere” actually looks like in practice.

What struck me most wasn’t just the cafe working culture or the co-working spaces — it was the infrastructure. 65+ countries have already created digital nomad visas and the list is growing. Cities are building touch-down culture into their DNA. Communities are forming around this way of living and working. It’s becoming a key piece of the architecture for flexible work.

Raj Choudhury from the London School of Economics believes “work from anywhere” is the next big concept to shape how we work as a society and has been talking about it for some time now. I’m inclined to agree. We’ve spent years talking about hybrid — days per week, office versus home — when actually the real shift is much bigger. Work is becoming the thing you do, not the place you go.

But what remains critical in remote teams perhaps even more so than in teams that are together all the time is Human Connection and Community.

IDENTIFY: FIELD NOTES FROM THE FUTURE OF WORK

I talk a lot about my Work:Lab method — Identify, Co-Create, Activate. Last edition was about activation: launching SparkShift, going solo, starting this newsletter.

This edition is about Identify — going into the field, observing, testing, learning. Treating travel not just as a holiday but as an opportunity to test what it’s really like creating work life harmony, balancing a family holiday with research and an opportunity to exercise my own curiosity of what it’s like to work in another country and connect with a different community and understand how people are designing work and life on their own terms.

Here’s what I found across two continents and four cities.

TWO CONTINENTS, FOUR CITIES, FOUR FLAVOURS

Nairobi, Kenya

The vibe: Africa is a continent on the rise. Kenya is a core hub in the east and the energy of growth is everywhere.

Nairobi is part of the “Silicon Savannah“ huge tech growth, multinationals establishing bases, co-working spaces like Ikigai where I worked from when I was there in October, Nairobi Garage and just southeast of the Nairobi is Konza Technopolis a flagship “Silicon Savannah” 5,000‑acre smart city that’s now completing phase‑one infrastructure to anchor the country’s future digital economy.

I have deep connections to Kenya (I’m half Kenyan, my sister lives there), and seeing the changing face of Nairobi was genuinely exciting.

Whilst I was there I sat down with Mwaf on the popular Iko nini podcast to talk about the future of work and what it means for Africa.

The takeaway: Africa is going to be a major digital nomad destination. Close to European time zones. Young population. Growing infrastructure. Watch this space.

Bangkok, Thailand

The vibe: A city built for touch-down culture. Fast, connected, full of options.

Bangkok surprised me. You can walk into a coffee shop, pay a small minimum spend, and access meeting rooms. Hotel lobbies double as co-working spaces. And then there’s the shopping malls!

I spent time at Siam Paragon and found co-working spaces, innovation hubs, and event spaces — all free to use, all inside one building. I went to Nextopia, which was an exhibition on how to create communities and then I popped down to the SCBX developer lounge for a few calls a great space and the first of its kind in Thailand to cater to the growing work from anywhere trend set up included adjustable workstations advanced coding monitors and these cool meeting pods that I used.

Eat, work, meet, explore, all under one roof. The shopping mall might be having a moment as an all-in-one destination for digital nomads.

I also joined a digital nomad Meetup group and went to one of their regular events where I met people from tech law, TV production, startups — from the US, Ukraine, Singapore, Russia and many other countries. People building lives across borders. That’s where the real connection and learning happens, you never know where those conversations and connections may lead so make the most of connecting use meetup, Skool communities to see what’s going on.

The takeaway: Use the geography of a big city. Touch down in different places depending on the task. And get involved in the Meetup scene — you’ll meet people and learn faster than any blog or podcast can teach you.

Chiang Mai, Thailand

The vibe: Slow mountain energy. Café culture. Community over hustle.

Chiang Mai is different. Less frenetic, more grounded. I explored three co-working spaces:

• Alt — a co-living and co-working space designed for community. If you’re in the city for a while, this is where you live and work together all about connection

• YELLOW — more of a buzzing tech hub. Energy and vibe.

• PUNSPACE — one of the OG co-working spaces in Chiang Mai. Garden areas, great cafés nearby, a real mix of environments. My fave.

All of them offer day passes, so you can try before you commit. That model — test the vibe, find your fit — feels right for how nomads actually work.

The coffee culture in northern Thailand is special too. A lot of the coffee is grown locally, and it shows. Great cafés everywhere. If I needed to do deep, focused writing work, Chiang Mai is where I’d go. And for the best coffee go to GRAPH. Think Global Act Local. Good mindset. Good Coffee.

The takeaway: Match the city to the work. Chiang Mai is for depth. Bangkok is for speed.

Phuket, Thailand

The vibe: Resort energy, but pockets of quiet focus.

I only worked one day in Phuket, but I found a gem: Grandma Jazz — a roadside Jazz café & dispensary run by UK ex-pat Ac & his Thai partner Joy.

Both are passionate about turning sustainability from a habit to a trend. The idea started when they found the venue with dusty furniture and decided to upcycle the whole space into what it is now . Their story is simple, honest and intentional and just happens to be super stylish too.

I took a few calls from the Balcony overlooking the mountains. Great coffee. Relaxed, stylish, perfect for catch-up calls and lighter work.

The takeaway: Even in resort destinations, you can find spaces that work. Look for places with outdoor space, good coffee, and the right energy for what you need to do.

☕ VIRTUAL COFFEE

If you’re exploring the digital nomad scene — whether you’re living it, building for it, or just curious about what “work from anywhere” could look like — I’d love a virtual coffee.

I’m particularly keen to connect with people exploring Africa who are seeing this unfold. The growth there feels significant, and I want to understand it better.

Let’s chat. DM me on LinkedIn or grab a virtual coffee with me!

THE TIME ZONE CONUNDRUM

Here’s the thing nobody tells you about working across continents: time zones will shape your days more than you expect.

When I was in Kenya, I was close to UK time — easy. My afternoons became my meeting time, mornings were free to explore.

Thailand was different. Seven hours ahead of the UK meant my calls happened in the evening. I recorded the Adventures in Learning podcast with @Charlie Kneen (in London 4pm) & @Nick Shackleton-Jones (in Mexico 11 am) and for me it was 11pm. Three time zones, one conversation. This laptop propped up on the balcony of the villa worked as the podcast studio for me!

You can check out our conversation here which went from Digital Nomads to AI pretty quickly as Charlie noted! But we also talked about breaking rules, starting good fires, reading books in different ways, the power of human connection and how it all fits into the future of work!

The learning: Before you go anywhere, map your working hours against the people you need to connect with. Think about your circadian rhythm. When are you sharpest? When do you need to be “on”? Build your days around that, not the other way around.

THE RETRO: NOTICED, WONDERED, WILL TRY NEXT

Inspired by Creative Acts for Curious People

What I Noticed

• The infrastructure for digital nomad life is far more developed than I expected — visas, co-working, co-living, communities.

• Shopping malls in Asia are becoming all-in-one work/life hubs. Unexpected but real.

• People are doing this from every industry — not just tech. Law, TV, education, consulting.

• The Meetup scene is where real learning happens. Online research only gets you so far.

What I Wondered

• Is Africa about to become the next major digital nomad hub? Time zones, growth, infrastructure — it’s all lining up.

• Is the shopping mall having a moment? Could it become the default “third place” for flexible workers in certain cities?

• What does “work from anywhere” look like at genuine scale — not just freelancers, but teams, organisations, entire workforces?

What I’ll Try Next

• Deeper immersion in one place — a week or more in a single city, rather than hopping.

• More intentional community building — not just attending Meetups, but collaborating where I can.

• Connecting more with the African digital nomad scene. That’s where I want to learn next.

STUFF TO READ

Powered by Projects: A Guide for Leaders in the Transformation Age

This book tracks the shift from operations-driven organisations (efficiency, stability, control) to agile organisations (speed, iteration) to what’s emerging now: project-driven organisations (mission-focused, fluid, bringing the right people together at the point of need).

It aligns closely with something I talk about a lot — the shift from roles to missions. In a constantly evolving world, we need to think in bursts of focused activity, not enduring programmes. Bring people with the right skills together, deliver, then disperse them back into the ecosystem.

This is a practical playbook for that shift. Recommended.

STUFF TO LISTEN TO

Spatial Attraction — Redefining Work (With Jeremy Myerson): Beyond the halfway house

I loved the honesty and reflection in this conversation between Kursty and Jeremy. Exploring how many have adopted a hybrid approach to work but haven’t taken the time to continue to iterate ways of working further, the hidden costs of distributed work and why the office is still psychologically central, even when we work from anywhere

WHAT’S NEXT

Next edition, I’m shifting from Identify to Co-Create.

I’ve developed an immersive experience to help leaders evolve the way of work and which brings to life the 6 big shifts in 26 that are emerging in the world of work — what’s changing, why it matters, and how organisations can start navigating it. I’ll share a practical canvas that’s helping leaders map where they are and where they’re heading.

🧩 I work with leaders to spark shifts in how their teams work, lead and collaborate

💬 Curious about evolving your ways of working? Let’s Chat - grab a virtual coffee with me!

Tom Chief Activation Officer | SparkShift

Going Solo is a monthly newsletter about building a different kind of work life.

Work no longer arrives. You get to shape it.

This is the single biggest shift when going from corporate to solo.

In a large organisation, work finds you. Meetings appear. Projects land. Priorities are set by others. The rhythm is external. And although sometimes that is great there is something very liberating about being able to decide who you work with, what you work on, how you work on it and where you work.

Going solo flips that entirely. You become the architect. Nothing arrives unless you create the conditions for it.

What I’m learning: it’s all built on curious conversations. The work comes from genuine interest in other people’s problems, not from pitching, not from waiting. From asking good questions and listening properly.

Build your network. Shape your own path. Stay curious.

THE JOURNEY: IDENTIFY → CO-CREATE → ACTIVATE

I talk a lot about my Work:Lab method, Identify, Co-Create, Activate. It’s how I’ve always helped teams move through change at pace and have fun whilst doing it.

And actually I have such confidence in this method so much that I decided to use it to activate a new life for myself!

Identify — 21 February 2025

I took this picture just after I’d made the call because i wanted to timestamp and remember exactly where I was at the time I decided to make what is probably the biggest shift of my life to date. Fifteen years in one organisation. Countless experiences, but all within the same walls. I have talked about the power of disruption for a while but it was finally time… I needed to disrupt myself. Try a different kind of life. Seek out more and different experiences.

That was the moment I decided. Not when I handed in my notice. Not when I left. A canalside in Amsterdam, almost a year before any of it became real.

Co-Create — February to October 2024

I spent the next eight months building alongside the day job. Testing ideas with trusted advisers. Having conversations with people who’d made the leap before me. Investing in a business coach to learn the operational side of building something from scratch.

I felt a duty to an organisation that enabled so much growth to craft a departure that i felt proud of and could leave as a real advocate. This was a very intentional departure whilst I was still at Lloyds, during the 9-5 I was still delivering, still bringing in my successor and ensuring a full handover. During the 5-9 I was also shaping what came next.

Activate — January 2025

And now, here we are. SparkShift is live and a new life Going Solo begins.The activation phase in any shift like this isn’t an ending, in fact its usually just the starting point.

The future of work is likely to see the rise of freelancing and portfolio style careers and as I move to that model I’ve found reflection to be very helpful for me as I’ve made this transition, and I’ve always been a fan of working in the open and so I’ve decided to share my own personal reflections as i wrap up each month of 2026 as I document this evolution journey. Both as a way of keeping myself accountable but also in case it is helpful for others who may find it useful.

THE RETRO: LIKED, LEARNED, LACKED

I’m a fan of retrospectives. FunRetrospectives.com has been a go to for a while for me and that has many different Simple frameworks that force honest reflection. So here’s my first monthly retro.

This month im using The 3Ls

✓ LIKED

Curious conversations. I’ve spoken to so many people this month people building things, people navigating change, people thinking differently about work. Every conversation has sparked something. This is the best bit of going solo: the freedom to follow curiosity wherever it leads.

Deeper flow states. My productivity has become almost addictive. I’m accessing deeper focus than I ever could in corporate. Part of that is the lack of interruptions. Part of it is Testing and learning using many different AI tools properly, they’ve become collaborators in how I think and build. I find myself wanting to keep making, keep developing, Interesting to notice.

The maker’s identity returning. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been a maker of things. Certified LEGO child. Meccano king. That energy got channelled into corporate life hackathons, innovation events, experiential learning, human-centred design. Now it’s mine again. I’m building for myself as well as creating spaces for others to build and grow - this is really fun!

✓ LEARNED

Relationships before brand. I’ll be honest, I did some things back to front. I built the SparkShift brand before I’d had enough conversations. I designed the website before I’d tested the proposition properly. The learning: focus on relationships first. Have the conversations. Let the brand emerge from what people actually need.

Clarity creates momentum. One of the anchors I’ve taken from The Octopus Organization (if we’ve been on a call you will know this is probably my most recommended book right now!) is the power of clarity. When you’re solo, nobody sets your priorities. You have to create your own clarity about what you do, who you serve, and what you say no to. Without it, it can be very easy to drift.

Ownership is energising. Another anchor from the book: ownership. In corporate, ownership often gets diluted across committees and sign-off chains. Solo, it’s all yours. That’s terrifying and liberating in equal measure. But mostly liberating.

✓ LACKED

Ready-made community. This is what I miss most from corporate. The people in the kitchen. The WhatsApp groups. The colleagues who became friends. Going solo means actively rebuilding that from scratch. It takes intention.

A settled rhythm. I’m still finding my pattern. When to work, when to rest, when to create, when to connect. Energy management matters more than time management now but I haven’t cracked it yet.

WHAT I’VE BEEN UP TO

Devon Chamber of Commerce I’m collaborating with the team to activate their Future of Work strategy for Devon. Five pillars: Global Devon, Digital Devon, Skills for Growth, Green Innovation, Devon Means Business. It’s about helping regional talent compete on the global stage.

Jobs Foundation South West — I’ve joined the steering group. We’re focused on creating pathways for young people into working life. With five generations now in the workforce, helping the next one find their footing feels like essential work.

Storytelling Mastermind — Delivered my first session on storytelling as a leadership skill. with the Scottish HR Leadership Group Part of a series I’ve created on future-of-work capabilities. Storytelling is becoming a superpower. The ability to make sense of change and bring people with you. Critical for leaders navigating change. In a high tech, low trust climate the ability to bring people with you is a real differentiator

Westcountry Schools Trust governance — This one’s personal. I’ve become a community chair for two secondary schools local to me: Coombe Dean & Plymstock helping them deepen relationships with local employers, the community and prepare young people for what’s coming next.

Another lovely connection is that the trust CEO is Nat Parnell who used to be my teacher at the school I went to which is also a part of the trust so it was a great opportunity to reconnect! Another curious connection is also the last Lloyds branch that I was the bank manager at before moving to head office roles. Quite the full circle moment for sure. It doesn’t get much more local than that.

WHAT I’M READING

The Octopus Organization — A guide to thriving in continuous transformation. I’m recommending it to everyone. As well as being spookily aligned to the way I have worked for many years it is also brilliantly practical with levers and tools to break the antipatterns holding you back from thring in an evolving world

The shift: From Transformation > Evolution

The three ideas outlined:

Clarity (creating focus when everything’s shifting)

Ownership (giving people agency to act)

Curiosity (inspiring adaptation, empathy and exploration of what’s possible.)

These are becoming anchors for how I think about the work I do with clients as well as how I’m building my own business and offering.

One of the shifts it proposes from “run or change the business” to “run and change the business” feels exactly right for where many organisations are now.

WHAT I’M LISTENING TO

Squiggly Careers — I’ve listened for years, but it’s become essential as I navigate my own squiggly transition.

This month I did their Skills Sprint on “Learning Like a Lobster” — the idea that growth requires shedding your shell and sitting in vulnerability before you can expand. Felt very appropriate for where I am right now.

WHAT’S NEXT

In February, I’m heading to Thailand.

Part holiday. Part research. I want to understand the digital nomad scene firsthand — how people are building work and life on their own terms, and what that means for the future of work more broadly.

I’ve always been fascinated by global patterns in how work is evolving. Africa as a rising skills hub. The youngest continent on the planet. The uptick in portfolio careers. I want to see it and be there!

Next edition: Going Solo from Thailand.

WHERE TO FIND ME

I work out loud. It’s part of how I learn and share the journey.

TikTok & Instagram — Where I think out loud. Quick insights, reflections, ideas in progress.

LinkedIn — Where I translate those ideas into business context.

So maybe this is my new diary

🧩 I help leaders and teams solve the puzzles getting in the way of the future of work.

💬 Curious about evolving your ways of working? Let’s have a conversation.

Tom

Chief Activation Officer | SparkShift

Going Solo is a monthly newsletter about building a different kind of work life. If someone forwarded this to you and you’d like to receive it directly, subscribe here.

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Over the last few weeks I’ve participated in some interesting discussions following the release of the Keep Britain Working review:

The workforce is getting older.

The health system is strained.

And work is becoming a frontline for wellbeing.

What was previously seen as perks are becoming highly prized benefits for the workforce

Employees will be looking more and more to their employers to do what the system can’t:

keep people healthy, keep people moving, and keep people in work.

Interesting Insight

The review showed:

• 1 in 5 working-age adults are now out of work.

• 800,000 more people since 2019 due to health conditions.

• After 4–6 weeks, return to work is 96%. After a year, it drops below 50%.

• Poor workplace health costs employers £85bn a year.

• The national cost = £212bn.

And behind all of that sits a key consideration:

Workplaces - specifically offices aren’t typically designed with health in mind.

They’re still designed for sitting at desks .

That era is ending.

Why it matters for leaders

1. An aging workforce needs different design

More than half of workers reach 60 with a long-term health condition.

The NHS is struggling to absorb the growing demand.

Prevention won’t happen out there.

It has to happen in here inside your organisation.

A healthy workplace becomes a competitive advantage.

2. Health benefits are becoming retention superpowers

NHS delays have made private care one of the most prized employee benefits.

But there’s a gap.

• 32% of employees highly value private health insurance

• Only 15% receive it

That mismatch is where employers can win talent.

3. Movement is becoming a new productivity lever

Office gyms, standing desks, walking meetings, run clubs, micromovements across the day.

start to become essential infrastructure for healthy working environments.

Here’s the Stats - the wellness ROI is clear:

• £1 invested → £6 saved

• Up to 20% higher productivity

• Up to 10% higher retention

• 35% lower healthcare costs for people who exercise five times a month

4. Nutrition becomes a preventative measure and performance driver

Less Pizza Parties more healthy choices

Healthy menus. Subsidised fresh food.

Live cooking demonstrations.

Dietitian-led education.

Colour-coded food choices.

Companies trying things like this are seeing up to 10% productivity gains.

Food = culture + care + capability.

5. From perks to practice

The next wave of workplace health goes beyond fruit bowls and pilates.

Think:

• Flu jabs

• On-site screenings

• Body health scanners

• Annual check-ups

• Digital GPs

• Menopause support

• Mental health pathways

• Sleep programmes

• Personalised wellness journeys

These signals tell people:

You matter to us. We want you well. We need you well.

And employees stay where they are cared for.

Is your organisation healthy by design?

Most leaders aren’t asking this yet, but they will:

• Does your workplace reduce illness or create it?

• Are people moving enough during the day?

• Is nutrition helping or harming performance?

• Do your benefits actually match what people value?

• Are you designing for the workforce you have now as well as the one you’ll have in five years?

The organisations that shift early will win talent, loyalty and productivity.

Those that don’t will pay for it later through absence, turnover and declining performance.

What you can do next

Start with what your people actually need.

Start small and Start now.

Here are some practical entry points ranging from cultural nudges to full redesign of facilities and Workplace Experience:

1. Run a health needs assessment

Understand your organisation’s specific risk profile.

2. Redesign for movement

Standing zones, collaboration areas, walking routes, on-site fitness access, run clubs.

3. level up your food story

Healthy menus, education, food demos, affordable options, snack swaps.

4. Integrate basic preventative care

Flu jabs, screenings, GP access, check-ups.

5. Make wellbeing visible in leadership behaviour

Your leaders need to model recovery, movement and healthy work rhythms.

Go Deeper

If this shift is resonating, explore:

📄 Keep Britain Working Review

📹 3 Ways to keep Britain Working

Let’s Chat

If you want to build a workplace culture that feels like a healthspace where people stay well, stay connected and stay in work I can share some frameworks and practical steps that I’m organisations are using right now.

💬 Drop me a message and let’s chat about what this could look like for your team.

#WorkplaceCulture #Leadership #FutureOfWork #SparkShift

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We have a conversation problem.

I’ve spent years designing cross generation Wisdom Exchanges. These are structured, energising conversations that help people learn from each other, not about each other. Every time, they deliver connection, curiosity and collaboration. With five generations now working together this exchange is now more important than ever

But stereotypes persist. And the latest insight shows why this matters more than ever.

The reality: Gen Z isn’t one group, it’s two

The Edelman Gen Z Lab highlights two distinct sub-cohorts in its latest report:

Gen Z 1.0 (ages 23 to 29) - More trusting, values-led, shaped by Obama-era optimism.

Gen Z 2.0 (ages 13 to 22) - More sceptical, shaped by Covid, political chaos and hyper-curated TikTok feeds.

These groups show different expectations of leaders, different ways of engaging and different triggers for trust. Yet both share a universal pressure: they are navigating a world that feels fast, fragmented and overwhelming.

74% have experienced financial hardship in the past year

72% worry about paying their bills

75% are concerned about climate change

This pressure shapes their relationship with work and with leaders.

Why it matters for leaders

1. Retain knowledge and learn new tricks

A huge wave of institutional knowledge is about to retire. At the same time, Gen Z brings fresh thinking, digital fluency and cultural intelligence.

The win is in the mutual exchange, not the divide.

Generational Exchange makes learning flow both ways and builds belonging faster than any traditional engagement initiative.

2. Talk, don’t tell

Gen Z do trust leaders, but only when leaders feel accessible.

The data is clear, Gen Z trust the brands and leaders they use more than they trust institutions. And that trust is conditional on transparency and two-way dialogue.

When they can speak, they can trust. When they can’t, trust collapses.

3. Gen Z want to love where they work

Despite being the most online generation in history, Gen Z is craving human connection. Why?

83% say they have an unhealthy relationship with their phones

72% want brands to help them feel good

58% want community

65% want optimism

This isn’t a disengaged generation. It’s a lonely one that wants depth, meaning and connection. Exactly what generational exchange unlocks.

What you can do next

Go Deeper

📄 Edelman Gen Z Lab Report

📘 Five Generations at Work by Robbins and Dunne

🎧 Eat Sleep Work Repeat featuring Jackie Cooper on the Gen Z Lab insights

Let’s Chat

If you want to build a workplace where generations learn from each other instead of talking about each other, I have a playbook of exchanges, rituals and team experiences that create connection fast and spark genuine culture shifts.

Drop me a message and let’s chat about what this could look like for your team!