How work gets done, who owns it and how better decisions are made.
Real-world perspectives on workforce governance, operating models, supplier ecosystems and the challenges organisations face when managing increasingly complex workforce ecosystems.
Most organisations don't struggle because they lack governance. They struggle because they haven't agreed what they're trying to govern. A simple analogy explains why clarity comes before governance and why foundations matter more than frameworks.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
There's a number on your P&L that you almost certainly sign off without being able to tell me what's inside it.
Laura Handley
Compliance & Capability Advisor
Five critical questions CFOs must answer to uncover hidden risk, cost, and compliance gaps within their external workforce.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
Three functions sat around the same table for five months, all with concerns about the external workforce, none of them able to agree on where to start. This is the story of what was actually getting in the way — and what it took to get things moving.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
For three years, competing suppliers collaborated openly inside a carefully built COE. Then a single procurement decision undid almost all of it. Here's what we built, what broke it, and what it means for your programme.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
When managers can't find your programme, they don't use it. Here's what happened when a mid-market business lost programme visibility — what we did about it, and why MSPs running large enterprise programmes should pay attention.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
Documentation gaps are endemic across MSP-managed programmes. Most clients don't know what they don't have access to. The MSPs who get ahead of this — proactively, not reactively — create a genuine competitive advantage. This is what that looks like.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
Managers bypassing approved hiring channels is rarely an attitude problem. It's usually a clarity problem. Here's how listening to what managers actually needed led to something built to stick.
Laura Handley
Compliance & Capability Advisor
Your extended workforce doesn't operate in the silos your org chart creates. But most organisations manage it that way — fragmenting data by contract type, optimising budgets department by department, and handling supplier relationships in category silos. These three principles show you where the connections matter and why governance that spans organisational boundaries delivers better outcomes than perfect governance within silos.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
Most organisations have visibility into their workforce. Far fewer have a structure that turns that visibility into better decisions. This is where workforce orchestration becomes the missing layer between governance and outcomes.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
These 10 principles are the non-negotiables for effective workforce governance. They matter as much for extended workforce management as they do for permanent workforce management. They apply regardless of your delivery model or programme maturity. You don't implement all 10 on day one. Start with the building blocks that address your current challenges, then evolve as you learn. Over-engineered governance fails as often as no governance. The goal is lean frameworks that grow with your programme.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor
Most organisations can't answer basic questions about their extended workforce. Who's engaged, through what, at what cost, and who's accountable. That was always a problem. From April 2026, it becomes an expensive one.
Jools Barrow-Read
Founder & Workforce Governance Advisor