Agency
Why Agency is the Key to Loving Your Work
When people feel they have real choice and influence over their working lives, everything changes. Here's why agency matters more than perks, titles, or salary.
Read More →When your people switch off, that is where my work starts.
I've spent twenty years asking why some people engage fully with their work and most do not. I share the thinking through two books, and bring it into organisations through speaking, workshops and advisory with leadership teams who want to shift things from the inside.
Hello, I'm Rebecca
My work comes down to one question, which is why some people engage fully with their work and most do not.
Two years interviewing people who genuinely love their work showed me one clear pattern, which is that they were agents of their own careers. Agency only sticks when the leaders, systems and culture around it support it, and that is the AgencyBACkbone® framework, which sits at the centre of my work with leaders and organisations today.
I'm a business psychologist, writer and speaker. My two books are a pair, which is Let's Love To Work for individuals building a career they love, and Let's Build Agentic Workplaces for leaders, HR and people teams building the organisations around them. Beyond the books I work with organisations through speaking, workshops and advisory, which is where the ideas get translated into something specific to the people and the business in front of me.
What Clients Say
"Rebecca has a real talent for making complex ideas simple, relevant, and actionable, inspiring people to think differently while giving them practical tools they could apply immediately."
Liz Buckley
Head of Associate Engagement, ADP Global Payroll
Work with me
Four ways to work together
Beyond the books, there are four ways I work with organisations, depending on where you are and what you need.
Speaking
When your organisation wants an outside voice to open the conversation about why people engage with work, why they do not, and what builds the kind of place people want to be. Delivered at conferences, leadership offsites, internal events, all-hands and university lectures.
See speaking topics →Workshops
When a leadership team, management group or HR function wants to work through what engagement and motivation look like inside their own organisation, rather than listen to someone talk about it in the abstract. Half or full day, shaped around the real questions the group is sitting with.
See workshop formats →Advisory
When a leader or small team is stuck on a specific people challenge and wants someone outside the organisation to think with them. Usually around motivation, engagement, team dynamics or culture, across however many conversations are useful rather than a fixed length.
More on advisory →Writing
When your organisation wants a thought-leadership piece, white paper or article on engagement, culture or how people are showing up at work, written for a specific audience and signed off under your name or the organisation's. Shaped around what you already know and what you are trying to say to your market.
More on writing →
The new book, out now
Let's Build Agentic Workplaces
A leader's guide to building workplaces where people think and thrive
For leaders, HR, L&D and people teams.
Agentic organisations grow people who can think, decide, and act. The ones that don't, slowly erode the very thing they say they want.
People want agency and control over their working lives, and most organisations are still designed to suppress exactly that. This book gives leaders and people teams a practical framework for designing a workplace that builds agency rather than erodes it.
Let's Love To Work
How people create careers they love.
The individual's companion to Let's Build Agentic Workplaces: practical steps anyone can take to reclaim agency over their own career. Read more →
Free download
The Agency Diagnostic
One of the questions I get most from leaders is some version of: 'We talk about agency at work, but how would we even know how much our people have?'
So I built this. Nine questions across the three core areas of agency. A simple scoring scale shows you where your organisation sits right now, and where the biggest shift is waiting.
An extract from the full diagnostic in my new book, Let's Build Agentic Workplaces.
The Podcast
Let's Love To Work
The Let's Love To Work podcast features conversations with leaders, thinkers, and changemakers about what it really means to love your work. A new series is coming soon. Past episodes are available on Spotify now.
Listen on Spotify →Ideas & Thinking
Insights on Agency at Work
Articles, reflections and resources to help you rethink the way you work and lead.
Leadership
What Great Leaders Do Differently
The best leaders don't just manage. They create the conditions for people to thrive. A look at what separates good leadership from great leadership.
Read More →Culture
Building a Culture People Don't Want to Leave
Retention isn't about bean bags and free lunches. It's about creating a workplace where people feel valued, challenged and genuinely connected to their work.
Read More →Let's Work Together
Book a free 20-minute call to talk through a talk or workshop for your event, team, or organisation.
Or email letslovetowork@gmail.com