Paul Redmond
Five generations now share offices, customer bases, and management lines. Each was shaped by a different economy, a different technology stack, and a different idea of what work is for. Leaders are being asked to engage all of them at once, and the old playbook assumes one workforce, not five.
Dr Paul Redmond is a generational change and future-of-work expert who helps organisations engage, lead, and sell to a workforce now spanning five generations.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Paul Redmond
- He brings a five-generation diagnostic, not a Millennials-versus-Boomers cliche, that gives HR and commercial leaders a working language for friction they can already feel.
- His employability research, built across senior roles at the University of Liverpool, lets him speak credibly to graduate-recruitment, early-careers, and talent-pipeline audiences other generational speakers cannot.
- His Zombie Jobs thesis, anchored in his 2019 TED Talk and 2024 Trotman book on the AI age, gives leadership audiences a sharp, named frame for which roles AI hollows out and which it does not.
- He moves comfortably between commercial keynotes and broadcast work, including BBC and ITV current affairs, which translates into a polished platform presence for high-stakes events.
Biography highlights
- Director of Student Experience and Enhancement, University of Liverpool, with continuing lecturing responsibilities.
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (2010), awarded for writing and research.
- Author of The Graduate Jobs Formula, Talking about my Generation, A Parent’s Guide to Graduate Jobs, and The Graduate’s Guide to Future-Proofing Your Career (Trotman, 2024).
- TED speaker: Zombie Careers: Will You Lose Your Job to AI? (2019).
- Regular contributor to BBC and ITV current affairs; collaborator on the BBC and Tiger Aspect documentary Who Gets the Best Jobs?
- Speaks across financial services, technology, healthcare, and travel, with named clients including Google, Hargreaves Lansdown, Janus Henderson, Royal London, the NHS, and ABTA.
Biography
Five working generations now sit inside the same organisation. Each one learned to work under a different economy, a different communication norm, and a different settlement with the employer. The friction this produces shows up in engagement scores, retention numbers, and customer outcomes. Redmond’s work names that friction and gives leaders a way to act on it.
His vantage is unusual. As Director of Student Experience and Enhancement at the University of Liverpool, he has spent years inside the machinery that produces the next generation of the workforce, and in continuous research conversation with the employers buying that talent. That has made his commentary on Gen Z and the post-Covid graduate market a regular fixture on BBC and ITV current affairs, and a reference point for HR and early-careers teams across UK plc.
The future-of-work strand runs alongside it. His TED Talk Zombie Careers, published in 2019, set out the roles most exposed to AI and robotics, and the cognitive and human skills that survive automation. The Graduate’s Guide to Future-Proofing Your Career, published by Trotman in 2024, extends that argument into a working guide for the AI age. The thesis lands because it is grounded in named research, not in tech-keynote futurism.
His books include The Graduate Jobs Formula, Talking about my Generation, A Parent’s Guide to Graduate Jobs, and Making it Happen. In 2010 he was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts for his writing and research.
Key speaking topics
- The multigenerational workplace
- Gen Z and the post-Covid workforce
- The future of work and AI exposure
- Graduate recruitment and early-careers strategy
- Selling and marketing across generations
- Wellbeing and the staff-customer link
- Employability and career resilience
Ideal for
- CHROs, heads of talent, and early-careers leads designing pipelines around Gen Z and a five-generation workforce.
- Commercial and marketing leaders building proposition and channel strategy across generational customer segments.
- Executive teams stress-testing which roles AI will hollow out and which human capabilities to invest in.
- Boards and leadership conferences in financial services, technology, healthcare, and professional services.
Audience outcomes
- A working language for the five generations now in the workforce and the specific friction points each pair produces.
- A named view of which roles are most exposed to AI and robotics, and which capabilities buyers and employers should be investing in.
- Practical engagement and retention moves calibrated to Gen Z and post-Covid graduate expectations.
- A sharper read on how generational difference shows up on the customer side, in buying behaviour and channel preference.
Talks
A working diagnostic of how Boomers, Gen X, Millennials and Gen Z communicate, lead, and disagree inside the same organisation.
Key takeaways:
- The specific friction points each generational pairing produces at work.
- Digital and emotional intelligence as the operating skills of a mixed-age team.
- Engagement and retention plays that actually land with Gen Z.
A commercial-side view of how each generation buys, what it trusts, and which channels move it.
Key takeaways:
- Generational segmentation as a marketing and channel discipline.
- How Gen Z buying behaviour differs from Millennial and Gen X norms.
- Practical implications for proposition, content, and customer experience.
Based on Redmond’s TED Talk, a named view of the roles most exposed to AI and robotics and the human capabilities that survive automation.
Key takeaways:
- The roles most likely to be replaced or hollowed out by AI.
- The cognitive and human skills that retain value in an AI-heavy economy.
- What this means for workforce planning, recruitment, and learning investment.
A leadership case for treating staff wellbeing as a direct lever on customer experience and commercial outcomes.
Key takeaways:
- The link between staff wellbeing and customer satisfaction scores.
- Generational differences in how wellbeing is experienced and expressed.
- Practical moves for leaders, not wellness theatre.