When Gemma Glover joined LearnAmp, it was a 37-person employee experience platform. Following its acquisition by Cezanne HR, she transitioned into Head of L&D within a combined business of over 215 people across multiple global offices. Almost overnight, the tight-knit atmosphere of a small startup dissolved into a complex company filled with new management layers and separate team cultures.

Brigid McCormack talks with Gemma Glover, Head of L&D at Cezanne HR, about what happens to culture and credibility when an L&D leader guides their business through a major acquisition while navigating the uncertainty themselves.

Gemma’s early career in operations and HR started when she tackled company culture issues in cybersecurity, shaping her practical approach to training. When her company was acquired, she asked her L&D network for advice, landed quick wins like updating the LMS platform, and built trust with new leadership by being authentic instead of overly polished.

They also discuss how culture splits into micro-cultures as companies scale, why L&D leaders must be present with their teams on the change curve rather than forcing them through it, and the importance of over-communicating key messages. Gemma also highlights why L&D professionals must prioritise their own development and know their personal toolkit during times of high stress.

What you'll learn in this episode

• How to assess whether leadership views L&D as a cost centre, a compliance exercise, or a performance driver
• Practical first steps during an acquisition, from leveraging peer networks to tackling high-impact platform migrations
• How company culture changes when scaling from 37 to 215 people, and how to adapt when you can no longer know everyone individually
• How casual leadership coffee chats and showing personality in company syncs build cross-functional credibility
• Why employees move through the change curve at different speeds and require compassionate, repeated communication
• Why L&D professionals need to protect their own development and personal toolkit during organisational change

🔗 Connect with Gemma via LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/gemmaglover/

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSjW0

👋 Come and connect with us

We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Brigid McCormack - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigidmccormack/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work, plus the AI Confidence Method, a workforce AI change programme that measures what your people really think about AI and then changes it. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSkk0

Privacy & Data

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At Merlin Entertainments, local L&D teams handled everything from seasonal onboarding and safety training to leadership development. Urgent work came first, so longer-term priorities were often pushed aside. Merlin responded by creating global specialist teams to give those priorities more focus. But how could those teams stay connected to what each attraction needed?

For L&D leaders supporting multiple sites, countries or business units, this episode offers a practical look at how to divide work between global specialists and local teams.

Adam Lacey talks with Rob Peacock, Director of Leadership and Development at Merlin Entertainments. Rob’s global team supports more than 30,000 colleagues across 130 attractions, including LEGOLAND parks, SEA LIFE, Alton Towers and the London Eye.

Rob explains how Merlin reorganised L&D around learning academies. Instead of organising the work by geography, each academy builds expertise in one priority area. Regional learning partners connect the academies with attractions and leaders across the business, bringing in local and commercial needs.

The new model was introduced in stages, so essential training could continue. Onboarding and safety remained local. That matters in a seasonal business where a single attraction can grow from 200 or 300 employees to 1,500 within two months.

Rob also explains why L&D cannot own learning at this scale. The central team can set the direction and provide content and systems, but local managers must bring the learning into everyday work. Merlin also uses a platform where subject matter experts can create and share their knowledge.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• How Merlin decides which L&D responsibilities should be global and which need to remain local
• How learning academies and regional partners connect specialist expertise with business needs
• Why managers and subject matter experts must help L&D reach more than 30,000 colleagues
• How storytelling and great conversations can build skills that remain useful throughout a career
• Why performance programmes cannot succeed when pay, incentives, systems and working practices create a low-performance environment

🔗 Connect with Rob via LinkedIn – https://uk.linkedin.com/in/robpeacockuyl

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSjW0

👋 Come and connect with us

We’re always keen to hear what’s resonating or what you’re seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey – https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Brigid McCormack – https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigidmccormack/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work, plus the AI Confidence Method, a workforce AI change programme that measures what your people really think about AI and then changes it. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSkk0

Privacy & Data

This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

When Gina joined Flat Iron three years ago, it had nine restaurants and around 540 employees. It now has 23 locations and more than 1,300 people. The informal ways of working that worked for a small company no longer fit. Managers needed clearer processes, more support and the confidence to handle tough conversations early.

Adam Lacey talks with Gina Knight, who leads all things people at Flat Iron, about how her team is helping managers grow without making things more complicated than they need to be.

Gina shares why development should keep going after someone becomes a manager. Her team looks at people data to see how talent moves through the company and spots where people get stuck. Then, they create simple tools to help managers handle these challenges.

One of these tools is a decision tree for performance issues. It guides managers to check things like probation status, working hours, health and other underlying issues before deciding what kind of conversation to have. The tool doesn't give a final answer, but it helps managers think through the problem, make fairer decisions and feel more confident when talking with their team.

Gina also talks about how Flat Iron builds these tools into induction, development programmes and operational reviews. About 70% of employees now say they've had a review with their manager in the last three months, up from 54%. Hardly anyone appeals disciplinary decisions anymore.

They also discuss using AI to find better insights without replacing human judgement, why polished presentations can fall apart when candidates cannot explain the thinking behind them, and how broadening your perspective, creating access and taking action can shape your career.

What you'll learn in this episode

• Why managers need ongoing development, even after they get promoted
• How simple decision trees can help managers have fairer and more confident conversations about performance
• How people data can show where problems come up in hiring, development, promotion and retention
• How Flat Iron makes management tools part of daily work, not just a one-time rollout
• Why AI should support people's judgement rather than do their thinking for them
• How broadening your perspective, creating access and taking action can open up more career opportunities

🔗 Connect with Gina via LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/ginamarieknight

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSjW0

👋 Come and connect with us

We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Brigid McCormack - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigidmccormack/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work, plus the AI Confidence Method, a workforce AI change programme that measures what your people really think about AI and then changes it. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSkk0

Privacy & Data

This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

Most organisations know what their employees have done at work. They know far less about what those same people learn through hobbies, volunteering and life outside the job. Useful skills can stay hidden until someone thinks to ask.

That gap is the subject of Adjacent Learning, a book about recognising the knowledge and skills people gain outside an organisation and bring back into work. Adam Lacey speaks to co-author David Hayden about where that knowledge comes from, why employers miss it and how L&D can make better use of it.

David has worked in learning since 1988, with roles at Royal Mail, in manufacturing and at the CIPD. He is also co-author of the fourth and fifth editions of Learning and Development Practice in the Workplace. Through Talent Delivers, he now supports people who are new to organisation design and organisation development.

For Adjacent Learning, David and Steve George asked around 40 contributors one question: “What do you do outside of work that makes you a better employee in work?” Only one person said they had consciously made that connection before. Their answers covered rock climbing, fishing, parkrun, a book club and a community of women going through menopause.

David argues that the usual workplace systems make this knowledge easy to lose. Recruitment may uncover it, but induction focuses on what the organisation needs the new employee to know. One training coordinator, for example, had built his own website and knew enough about technology to help with a system problem. Nobody had asked him.

His advice is to start with conversation, not a company-wide survey. Add “What have you learned this week?” to an existing meeting or training session. Use a World Café for a larger group. Let people choose what they want to share, especially where trust is low. As David puts it, L&D does not own people’s learning.

David and Steve also include a framework for L&D teams that want to use Adjacent Learning. It starts by defining the development question they need to answer. From there, they can look for relevant knowledge, decide what might help and work out how to use it. The same questions can help an individual think more broadly about their own development.

What you’ll learn:

• What Adjacent Learning means, and why life outside work can change how someone performs at work
• The question David and Steve used to uncover skills that contributors had never linked to development
• How recruitment finds useful experience that a “steamroller induction” can quickly leave behind
• Why David recommends conversations, meetings and World Cafés instead of another mass survey
• How the book’s framework helps L&D teams and individuals think beyond formal workplace learning
• Where organisation development goes beyond L&D, plus four lessons for new practitioners

🔗 Connect with David via LinkedIn - https://uk.linkedin.com/in/david-hayden-8176919

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSjW0

👋 Come and connect with us

We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Brigid McCormack - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigidmccormack/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work, plus the AI Confidence Method, a workforce AI change programme that measures what your people really think about AI and then changes it. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSkk0

Privacy & Data

This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

You have a disability inclusion policy. The hard part is making a disabled colleague actually feel the difference. That part costs nothing, and most of it sits with your line managers.

Esi Hardy has spent almost ten years turning disability inclusion policies into practice. Her company, Celebrating Disability, trains line managers to spot the barriers a disabled colleague faces and fix them. At Homes for Students, the UK's largest student accommodation provider, disability disclosure rose by 91% in the first 18 months of that training.

Brigid McCormack sits down with Esi Hardy, Managing Director of Celebrating Disability. They ask what a policy can and cannot do, and how to run training that includes every person in the room.

Esi is a disabled leader herself, and Celebrating Disability was named Best Disability Inclusion Consultancy 2026 in South West England by Corporate Vision.

For Esi, a policy puts your intentions in writing, and nothing more. The real work is testing it against the working day. She also draws a line between accessibility and inclusion. Accessibility is the tools that get a disabled person to a meeting. Inclusion is how they feel once they are in it.

Her message is simple: be inclusive even when you think no one is looking. There are a billion business cases for disability inclusion, but the main reason is why not.

What you'll learn:

• Why over 80% of disabled people have a disability you cannot see
• What separates accessibility from inclusion, and why you cannot do one first and the other later
• How to stress test a policy against a real working day
• Small changes to any training session that cost nothing, from reading slides aloud to sending codes early

🔗 Connect with Esi via LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/esihardy/

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSjW0

👋 Come and connect with us

We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Brigid McCormack - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigidmccormack/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work, plus the AI Confidence Method, a workforce AI change programme that measures what your people really think about AI and then changes it. https://eu1.hubs.ly/H0xWSkk0

Privacy & Data

This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

Most L&D teams know the frustration: you run the workshop, people enjoy it, the feedback is positive… and then everyone goes back to work and nothing really changes.

Kira Squire is taking a different approach. When LastPass identified continuous feedback as a significant organisational challenge, she didn't just build a training programme. She designed an ongoing system around it, combining pre-work, live practice, conversation guides, quarterly feedback cycles, manager briefings and continued reinforcement.

Adam Lacey sits down with Kira Squire, award-winning Learning and Development professional at LastPass, to explore how she's using L&D to help create a culture where feedback becomes part of everyday work rather than something reserved for annual performance reviews.

Kira was named the 2025 winner of the Unsung Hero (Vendor/Distributor) category at the CRN UK Women & Diversity in Channel Awards, and the LastPass Learning & Development team is a finalist for the OnCon Top 100 Learning & Development Team Award 2026.

Kira's starting point was simple: understand the problem before creating the solution. Following feedback from LastPass's annual people survey, she worked with senior leaders, People Partners, managers and employees to understand what was getting in the way. What emerged wasn't a motivation problem. People wanted to have better feedback conversations, but many lacked the skills and confidence to know how to approach them.

She explains how she built the business case, why leadership was already behind it before she started, how she designed for a global remote-first organisation across different cultures and time zones, and how she deliberately built reinforcement into the programme from the beginning.

For Kira, workshops are a catalyst, not the destination, and the real measure of success is what happens when nobody from L&D is watching.

What you'll learn:

Why continuous feedback needs to become part of everyday work rather than something reserved for performance reviews

How to identify the real problem behind an L&D request before jumping into solution design

Why leaders buy solutions to business problems, not training, and how to approach senior stakeholders when you're new to an organisation

Why a workshop is a catalyst, not the destination, and how reinforcement can turn learning into lasting behaviour

Why confidence, not willingness, is what usually stops people from having feedback conversations

🔗 Connect with Kira LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kira-squire/

📮 The Assembly Debrief A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter

👋 Come and connect with us We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Brigid McCormack - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brigidmccormack/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com

Privacy & Data

This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

Most L&D is built for a captive audience: employees who have to attend whether the training is any good or not. Emma Ackers builds for the opposite, an audience that can walk away. Her learners are external insurance brokers, free to ignore her work entirely, and that one difference sharpens how she designs it.

Adam Lacey sits down with Emma Ackers, Learning and Development Manager at Aviva and President of the Insurance Institute of Manchester. Emma is not a typical in-house L&D lead. She designs learning for Aviva's broker partners, the firms who sell insurance out in the market. It is offered to those brokers as a service, which means they only take it up if it genuinely helps them.

With 21 years in insurance, starting out as a broker herself before moving into learning, Emma knows first-hand the day job her learners are trying to do.

She explains why the first question is always the business problem the broker is facing and never the course itself, the ambassador model she uses to test an idea with a trusted group of brokers before rolling it out to everyone, and why she judges success by whether people apply the learning back at work more than by how many turned up.

What you'll learn:

1. Why building for an audience that can walk away makes learning sharper and more useful for everyone
2. How starting from the business problem, rather than the training, builds the value in from the first conversation
3. The ambassador model: testing a new idea with a trusted group of customers before you roll it out to everyone
4. Why the best insurance professionals need both technical knowledge and people skills, and how Emma develops both
5. How volunteering, including leading the Insurance Institute of Manchester, builds skills your day job never will

🔗 Connect with Emma

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmaackers/

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter

👋 Come and connect with us

We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world.

Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com

Privacy & Data

This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/

If the value conversation happens at the end of your projects, the only question left is how to justify what you have already built.

Adam sits down with Tom McDowall, who through Evolve LD helps organisations upskill their L&D, training and HR teams in practical ways of working, to unpack a distinction that changes how a function operates: the difference between proving you were valuable after the fact and asking how you can be valuable before anything gets made.

From managing a sales team, to delivering the same induction week after week for a year and a half, to leading digital teams and chairing the Learning Network, Tom brings a practitioner's lens to measurement, with a fully worked example and real numbers to go with it.

He breaks down the metric chain that connects an intervention to a board-level objective, why line managers are already doing the observation L&D is not capturing, and where AI has finally become good enough to do the statistical work.

What you'll learn:

1. Why proving value after the fact is a conversation no other business function has to have, and what to ask instead
2. How to build a metric chain from intervention to behaviour to KPI to organisational objective, and how certain you should expect to be at each link
3. Why every learning asset needs a sunset date, and how zombie content survives in most catalogues
4. How to get closer to your own business, from reading the annual report to what to say when you ask for an hour of the C-suite's time

🔗 Connect with Tom LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/tom-mcdowall/

📮 The Assembly Debrief

A short, practical email unpacking the best ideas from each episode, designed for modern learning leaders who want insight without the noise. https://www.assembleyou.com/the-assembly/newsletter

👋 Come and connect with us

We're always keen to hear what's resonating or what you're seeing in your world. Adam Lacey - https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamlacey/

Richard Ward - https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardpward/

More from The Assembly & Assemble You

Learning that feels more like great content than training. Explore podcast-style lessons, video shorts, and series designed for real work. https://www.assembleyou.com

Privacy & Data

This podcast is hosted by Transistor. For more information on how your data is handled, please visit: https://www.transistor.fm/privacy/