We are a team of workplace psychologists who support individuals, teams and organisations to develop their effectiveness, productivity and wellbeing.
Our approach is to develop people from a whole person perspective, acknowledging that they have lives outside the workplace, multiple roles within their lives and strengths and development areas across all these areas. It’s pointless to ignore who we are outside of work when we’re trying to be our very best when at work.
About UsWe believe in the importance of personalised development. This means ensuring all our clients have an experience that emphasises what they, as an individual professional, can take away and put into practice immediately, taking account of their role, their skills and their personality.
We believe that organisations should be offering high-quality development for all, not just the arbitrary few. We subscribe to a broad, inclusive definition of ‘talent’ and believe that quality, challenging and relevant development is as important for the newly-arrived graduate trainee as it is for the C-suite executive.
The workplace is a veritable breeding ground for fads and fashions when it comes to learning and development. We empathise, but also emphasise the application of the science of psychology. By using evidence-based methods, we avoid falling into the trap of fashions that have no demonstrable impact.
“Richard and the WorkLifePsych team have been an absolute joy to work with and have delivered a massively impactful session on mental health and wellbeing for our team, focusing on dealing with challenging situations.”
“WorkLifePsych have supported our graduate development programme for over nine years. Their team provide a mix of workshops across the programme, and coach each of our graduates. We have found that our graduates really benefit from the objective support provided by WorkLifePsych coaching psychologists. This enables them to successfully navigate challenges like adapting to new work environments, dealing with workload, managing stakeholder relationships and remaining productive while working remotely. Coaching also helps them maintain a focus on their development and the acquisition of the key skills and personal qualities that our business values. We have had consistently positive feedback on the contribution WorkLifePsych makes to our graduates’ experience and would not hesitate to recommend them”
“Right from the start Richard was approachable, accommodating and knowledgeable on the subject matter – and we were very excited to have him in as a speaker within the business.
The presentation and the way it was delivered was extremely well received, with colleagues contacting me after the call to let me know how much they found the call helpful. It was well paced, calm, informative, with really insightful and useful tactics that we could all take away and apply in the real world, to help us all ‘get moving!’.
I would absolutely recommend WorkLifePsych and look forward to working with him again.”
“Richard has worked with DCC Group for over eight years within a variety of organisational contexts so we were delighted to invite him recently to present on the topic of “Coping with Change” to our employees in DCC Vital. Richard has a unique mix of broad experience, an ability to appropriately adapt a message to suit different audiences and is very practical. The feedback from our employees on his session was excellent and they appreciated the tools and techniques he shared through the session. Presenting virtually is a challenge to the best of us, but Richard makes it look easy! There was such a logical flow in his messaging that he hit the right note with our diverse workforce. We couldn’t recommend working with him more highly and we look forward to working with him on other projects going forward.”
Dr Richard MacKinnon is a valued member and contributor to the IIBN network. He recently delivered a webinar on productivity which was thought-provoking, insightful and proved to be very popular with the Members. In addition, we have received so much positive feedback from Members who have worked with Richard directly, either to deliver team training to their employees or 1-2-1 sessions with Directors and Business Owners. His approach to Wellbeing, Productivity and Effectiveness is a winning combination for those seeking to successfully navigate the modern day workplace.
Richard’s talk was insightful, informative and gave me that a-ha moment! Richard listened to our brief for his talks intently and got the material spot on. We wanted a talk that went deeper into the science whilst keeping a clear everyday application. Richard has a skill of talking to a large audience in a very personal, individual way, this has been my highlight of our speaker series so far!
“We recently invited Richard to our first learning festival, to deliver a keynote as well as a workshop on the topic of psychological flexibility.
Working in the public sector brings its own challenges and this is why it was really important to us to offer personal development opportunities centred on wellbeing, and practical tools for us to use on a daily basis when we may be feeling overwhelmed or experiencing anxiety.
Feedback from those taking part was extremely positive and we are already looking at working with Richard on other initiatives.”
Ruxandra Stewart
Learning & Development Lead, Essex County Council
I worked with Richard as my coach across 2016/17 with my goal of being an “intrapreneur” who makes the business I’m taking care of sustainable. I want to innovate to surprise our audiences, foster people around a vision and multiply others’ talent. And in my business, there is a lot of passion and emotions, everything moves very fast and things change constantly. As I was gaining seniority, it was hard for me sometimes to keep a “cool head” when taking decisions. Thanks to Richard, I got way closer to achieving this goal! I became a better leader by clarifying my innate talent, managing my emotions better, understanding the complex system I’m working within and multiplying others to get their best. Richard provided me with tips and frameworks that help me navigate through this system better every day . There has been a before and after Richard for sure!
Delphine Sassi
Senior Games Producer, King
“I have been involved with Richard over the last few years both in receiving personal coaching and being trained as a Manager Coach to coach others in my organisation. Having personally experienced the positive benefits and work results from Richard’s coaching has allowed me to coach people as part of my company’s talent management programme effectively. Given the personal development I have experienced, and the results I have seen in others’ development through coaching, I have no hesitation in recommending Richard to other organisation and professionals.”
Lindsay Norris
Head of Global Project Management at Gestra AG
“We asked Richard and the WorkLifePsych team to assist in the start-up phase of our new business. As a new talent-based creative business, unencumbered from legacy ways of working we were determined to put in place the most contemporary and relevant people strategy.
Richard worked closely with us to develop our people strategy, including how to clarify and communicate our organisation’s values, how to identify and nurture talent and how to create a sustainable people development strategy. Richard continues to support Untold Studios. He is insightful, attentive and challenging in all the right ways. He has been instrumental in our launch and remains a supportive and trusted advisor. I have no hesitation in recommending Richard to other startups – I’ve no doubt Richard and his team will have a huge positive impact on any new business.”
Darren O’Kelly
Co-founder and CEO at Untold Studios
“The workshops have been really well received with delegates highly enthused and leaving the sessions qualified to deliver high calibre coaching to colleagues within the organisation.
The courses have been delivered by engaging facilitators and have been packed full of really useful tools and information. The feedback from all delegates has been positive.”
“We asked Richard to design and run a team development away day, in preparation for an upcoming organisational change. Richard spent time getting to know and understand our requirements, interviewed key senior team members and demonstrated an empathy for our organisational context.
He designed a workshop that ensured everyone contributed, allowed for open and challenging debate and helped us focus on the actionable changes we’d like to make as a team.
We found the session to be extremely valuable and I would be very happy to recommend Richard to any organisation looking for a professionally facilitated team workshop.”
“WorkLifePsych have helped us successfully design from scratch a leadership programme which has been deployed across the Group which is now in its fourth year of delivery.
It has been received extremely well, resulting in delegates making measurable change in their approach to leadership in their role and deployment into their teams.”
“Richard brings a combination of intelligence, robust and evidence-based practices and, above all, practical approach to his work. He is an expert in his fields yet he speaks the language of business and is always pragmatic and commercial.
He is able to diagnose issues and articulate them clearly and simply along with solutions which are innovative, relevant and understandable.
I always feel completely confident in introducing him to the business and I consider him to be very much a trusted business partner.”
“I have used Richard MacKinnon to support me on various development and assessment assignments over the last 7 years.
What you get with Richard is someone who is sharp, intelligent, reflective, and deeply interested in human motivation, mental wellbeing and new models of talent development, backed up by measurable data.
Richard will certainly remain a key strategic supplier of development interventions for years to come.”
“We asked Richard to run a few of his ‘Psychological Flexibility 101’ sessions and 55 of my colleagues signed up for the initial workshops.
I was really impressed with their feedback and their comments in the brief online survey we used afterwards illustrated just how keen they were to learn more and start putting this all into practice.”
“There is a before and an after working with Richard. Once you embark on the coaching journey, be prepared for a tremendous positive change in your daily life.
Thanks to his strong experience, focus, kindness and skills, Richard successfully and gently steers you towards personal breakthroughs and discoveries.
The impact of having Richard as a coach has influenced me to sign up my leadership team for the same programme.”
“We retained WorkLifePsych to design and deliver workshops on essential coaching skills to the delegates on our “Inspire” leadership development programme. Richard worked closely with us to identify our requirements and ensured that he reflected our company’s culture in the final version of the workshop.
Having observed the delivery of one of the workshops, I would say that Richard’s style engaged and challenged the delegates. He responded well to all their questions and provided feedback and support throughout the various practical components of the workshop. He delivered a workshop that met our needs perfectly.
I would have no hesitation in recommending WorkLifePsych as a provider of coaching skills and development interventions more generally and I look forward to working with Richard again.”
“We asked WorkLifePsych to design and run a bespoke management development programme for us. Richard demonstrated a strong drive to understand our unique needs as a business, and to ensure that what he designed was a good fit for us and our employees. Richard and his team developed four, high-quality and interactive workshops for the programme, supported by one-to-one coaching sessions.
We could see improvements in team performance before the programme even finished. Our managers have gained confidence and are more cheerful as they go about their work – despite the day to day challenges of management.
We are extremely pleased with the programme and its impact and wouldn’t hesitate to recommend Richard and WorkLifePsych. They have exceeded our expectations.”
