Episode 168

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Published on:

25th Nov 2025

The Psychology Behind Learning That Makes Change Happen

This episode is sponsored by Deel.

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In this episode of the HR L&D Podcast, host Nick Day is joined by behavioural science expert Georgie Cooke, Co-Founder at Lima Delta, to explore why most organisational change fails and what HR and L&D can do to make change stick. The conversation explains how human psychology shapes employee resistance, how culture and micro cultures influence adoption, and why traditional training alone does not create real behaviour change.

You will hear practical frameworks including the Inspire, Train, Sustain method for designing change, the psychological headwinds that block adoption, and simple ways to analyse your culture before launching any transformation. The discussion also covers how to turn values and leadership expectations into lived behaviours, how to support managers as key influencers, and how to sustain change through nudges, tools, environment design, and ongoing reinforcement.

Whether you work in HR, learning and development, organisational design, or leadership, this episode offers a clear roadmap for creating lasting behaviour change. Expect actionable steps to increase adoption, reduce change fatigue, strengthen engagement, and build learning experiences that actually shift habits, embed culture, and deliver long term impact across your organisation.

Whitepaper: https://bit.ly/4nwnITd

Lima Delta's Company Website: https://bit.ly/4pJ54ZP

Connect with Georgie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgina-cooke-ld/

Nick Day’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nickday/

Find your ideal candidate with our job vacancy system: https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/919cf6b9ea

Sign up to the HR L&D Newsletter - https://jgarecruitment.ck.page/23e7b153e7

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About the Podcast

The HR L&D Podcast

Leadership, recruitment, culture. Conversations with HR's best

HR gets handed the problems nobody else wants to own. The restructure, the grievance, the engagement survey that came back badly. And then gets asked why people are leaving.

I'm Nick Day. I run an HR recruitment agency, which means I spend most of my week on the phone to HR directors, HR leaders and people leaders talking about what the job is actually like rather than what's written on the job spec. This HR Podcast came out of those calls. I kept hearing things worth repeating, and nobody was repeating them.

Every week I sit down with HR leaders, chief people officers, L&D specialists and the occasional academic who has changed how I think about work and people engagement. We get into leadership, and what happens when someone brilliant at the technical side gets promoted into managing humans.

Employee engagement past the survey score. Diversity, equity and inclusion in a climate where saying those words out loud has become a decision in itself. Pay transparency, talent management, reducing bias in hiring, HR digital transformation and the HCM systems everyone is being sold. And of course we cannot forget HR AI tools and platforms that are flooding the landscape as AI in HR becomes a hot topic every people leader is keen to understand and leverage.

Wellbeing comes up constantly, and it usually turns into the same question. Who looks after the HR team.

I'm not an HR practitioner and I don't pretend to be. I'm the person who hires them, which puts me in a useful position. I get to ask the obvious question that everyone in the room already knows the answer to and nobody says.

No script and no polite version. Mostly it's the conversation you'd have with someone doing your job at a different company, if you ever got the chance to sit down with them.

If you work in HR, people management or L&D, or you're building a career in it, start by subscribing to The HR L&D Podcast. We have had guests including Stephen Covey, Alan Stein Jnr, Andrea Wareham and Dr. Thom Mayer among other HR Leaders who are shaping the future of work and leadership.

Need HR staff? I run JGA Recruitment, an HR and payroll recruitment agency. www.jgarecruitment.com or info@jgarecruitment.com

Want to be on the show? Nick@jgadigital.com

If payroll is closer to your world, I also host The Payroll Podcast, the most listened to payroll show in the world.

Topics include HR leadership, workplace culture, retention, people management, employee engagement, diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI strategy, AI for HR, AI recruitment tools, talent management, HR digital transformation, HCM, staff wellbeing, pay transparency, reducing bias, L&D and HR recruitment.

About your host

Nick Day