PODCAST · education
Learning Uncut
by Michelle Parry-Slater
Learning Uncut is about real conversations around real learning solutions and real experiences with real advice from real people.We're all about keeping it "real."Here's an overview of our approach:Strategy and tactics. We want to unpack the strategy and how-to's of creating great learning solutions, frameworks and teams.CONVERSATIONS, NOT SCRIPTED DISCUSSIONOur podcasts are professional but not so edited and polished that they lose their authenticity. We want our audience to hear real people having real conversations and sharing real examples and advice.PROGRESSIVEWe want to showcase the "unsung L&D heroes" out there doing great work, being brave and trying new things.PRACTICALWe invite our guests to share tips and strategies to help listeners take their solutions to the next level. We aim to provide actionable takeaways for our listeners through show notes, links and downloads wherever possible.
Episodes
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192: Choosing Learning Technology in the age of AI - Audrey Chan and Adam Hepper
Most L&D teams don't choose the wrong learning platform because they're careless, they choose it because the process is confusing, rushed, or driven by shiny demos. In this episode, Audrey Chan and Adam Hepper join Michelle Parry-Slater to explore how L&D teams can make better decisions when...
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191: Team alignment is commitment, not agreement - Lindsay Uittenbogaard and John Dobbin
What does alignment really mean when the stakes are high? Drawing on a global banking case study involving a major regulatory deadline, Lindsay and John share how surfacing different perspectives and working through tensions enabled hundreds of people across multiple geographies to coordinate...
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190: The Education Revolution – Jeff Davis
The choices we make in education today shape the workforce thirty years from now. In this episode Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with Jeff Davis, Executive Head at Hillcrest Christian College on the Gold Coast and author of Leading the Learning Revolution, about what happens when a school decides…
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189: What Happens After the Award, Reflection 18 months on – Millie Law ANZ
What happens after the award, is won? In this episode, Michelle Parry-Slater welcomes back Millie Law, Enterprise Capability Lead at ANZ for an 18-month update on the Better Business Development programme first shared in Episode 161 for reflective practice in action The BD program delivered a...
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188: Minimal Interventions, Maximum Outcomes - Andrew Lawson & Alice Smith
Michelle Parry-Slater is joined by Andrew Lawson (2026 AITD L&D Professional of the Year) and his client Alice Smith, about a deliberately different approach to leadership training. Instead of two days out of the office, where delegates leave with overwhelmed brains but make little change back at...
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Elevate 50: What's next for L&D? Donald Taylor
For three years running, AI topped the list of what's hot in L&D. This year it dipped, and Donald H Taylor is taking it off the survey altogether. Don has run the Global Sentiment Survey for over a decade. In this Elevate episode, he joins host Michelle Parry-Slater to go back across five years…
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Elevate 49: Gari Yala - Speak the Truth | Indigenous Employment and the L&D Responsibility
It will take 118 years, at the current rate of change, before an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander person can go to work without hearing a racial slur. This is not history. This is what is happening in Australian workplaces right now. In this Elevate episode, Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with...
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187: Recognition as a Learning Tool Sarah McVanel & Lisa Anstey
Recognition is often written off as a "nice to have." In this episode, Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with Sarah McVanel, Canada's recognition expert and founder of Greatness Magnified, and Lisa Anstey, manager of Medical Device Reprocessing at Waterloo Regional Health Network, to make the case…
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Elevate 48: Eight Years of Learning Uncut – Michelle Ockers
Eight years. Nearly 200 episodes. One consistent heartbeat. In this special Elevate episode, Michelle Parry-Slater sits down with Learning Uncut founder Michelle Ockers to reflect on eight lessons from eight years of the podcast. From community as the engine that started it all, to the quiet...
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186: Building L&D from Scratch – Elyse Toomey
The brief was simple: we need an L&D function. Go and start one. In this episode, Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with Elyse Toomey, Head of Learning and Development at Ironbark Financial Group, about what it really takes to build an L&D department from nothing in a fast-moving financial services...
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185: Learning as Investment, Not Cost – Tina Schust Robinson & LaTanya Foster
Most leadership programs start with the how; the workshop, the elearning, the coach. The business case often comes later, if at all. In this episode, Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with Tina Robinson, founder of WorkJoy and author of Developing Your Business Leaders, and her client, LaTanya Foster,...
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184: From Darkroom to AI: Reflective Practice Across an L&D Career – Greg Wilton
We rarely stop to look back. One achievement blurs into the next, and before long we've accumulated years of practice without ever taking stock of what we've actually learned. In this episode, Michelle Parry-Slater invites Greg Wilton - a St. Louis-based L&D practitioner with a career spanning...
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Elevate 47: The Craft of Conference Chairing – Niall Gavin, Helen Palmer & Anit Mahay
Most conference chairs open with applause and slip off stage. At Learning Technologies, chairing starts two months before anyone sets foot in the room. In this Elevate episode, Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with three Learning Technologies 2026 chairs: Niall Gavin, Helen Palmer, and Anit Mahay.…
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183: Hearing Loss Awareness Designing for Empathy at Scale (HSBC) - Georgie Cooke, Louise Bassiri and Michelle Parry-Slater
Hearing loss is more common than most workplaces acknowledge. Around one in six Australians, one in eight Americans, and one in five UK adults lives with some form of hearing loss, tinnitus or D/deafness. Yet at HSBC UK, only a handful of colleagues had formally disclosed a hearing loss before…
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182: The Power of Evolution in Learning Transformation (Girlguiding UK) – Arnika Knight and Michelle Parry-Slater
Arnika Knight and Michelle Parry-Slater share the decade-long journey of modernising L&D for 80,000 volunteers at Girlguiding UK. From navigating change resistance to building a multi-modal learning ecosystem, their story is packed with practical lessons for any L&D professional working at scale....
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181: Beyond Role Play: Using AI to Build Real Skills – Ryan Byrne and Dr Nathan Moore
Sydney Trains frontline staff face customer aggression daily. They knew the de-escalation models. Applying them under real pressure was another matter entirely. And they'd made one thing clear: no more role play. In this episode, The Two Michelles speak with Ryan Byrne from Sydney Trains and Dr...
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180: When Leaders Lead the Leadership Programme – Matthew Peade
Matthew Peade from TFE Hotels discusses their award-winning People Leaders Program, a 12-month leadership development initiative that's seen 300 graduates and an impressive 86% promotion rate. Matthew shares how the program weaves together a blend of three learning streams of on-the-job…
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Elevate 46: The Learning and Development Handbook – Michelle Parry-Slater
Michelle Ockers speaks with Learning Uncut co-host, and author, Michelle Parry-Slater about her book, The Learning and Development Handbook, A Learning Practitioner's Toolkit. Sharing ideas from within the book, Michelle talks through why practitioners "…must be advocates of the right solution…
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179: Blood Processing Centre Virtual Tour – Liz Seskus and Kate Schulze
Liz Seskus and Kate Schultz from Australian Red Cross Lifeblood discuss their development of a virtual tour to support the induction of new hematology registrars. They share how they applied learning science, user testing, and a co-design approach to create a practical, cost-effective learning…
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Elevate 45: The L&D Leader: Navigating to Business Value – Laura Overton and Michelle Ockers
Michelle Parry-Slater speaks with co-authors Michelle Ockers and Laura Overton about their book, The L&D Leader. Principles and practice for delivering business value, released in October 2025. They reflect on the collaboration behind the book, the research and evidence that informed it, and its...
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178: Sodexo Academy: Facilitating Flexible, Practical Onboarding – Peter Brace
Peter Brace from Sodexo Australia shares how his path into L&D, including training under trees in Papua New Guinea, shaped his practical and learner-centred approach. Hosted by Michelle Ockers and co-host Michelle Parry-Slater, this episode explores adapting learning to diverse environments,...
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177: 2025 End of Year Review – Michelle Ockers and Michelle Parry-Slater
In this year-in-review episode, Michelle Ockers and Michelle Parry-Slater reflect on 2025 through the lens of Learning Uncut. They discuss professional highlights, patterns emerging across the podcast's case studies, and what the year revealed about relevance, value and the human role in L&D. The...
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176: Mentoring That Works: Lessons from Construction – Jana Clyde and Jo Farrell
This episode explores NAWIC ACT's award-winning mentoring programme for women in construction. Jo Farrell from Build Like a Girl and Jana Clyde from Wisdom Learning discuss addressing gender equity challenges through structured mentoring. They cover participant matching, workshops, psychological...
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175: AI in L&D: Race for Impact – Donald H. Taylor
Donald H. Taylor joins Michelle Ockers and co-host Michelle Parry-Slater to unpack findings from the latest instalment of his multi-year research on AI in L&D, conducted with Eglė Vinauskaitė: The Race for Impact. They discuss how AI has reached an inflection point, becoming a standard part of…
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174: Crafting a Learning Culture – Hannah Ryan
Hannah Ryan, Learning and Capability Manager at Versent, joins Michelle Ockers to share how she helped shape a vibrant learning culture at the Australian technology consultancy, recognised with the 2025 AITD Excellence Award for Best Learning Culture. As Versent's first and only L&D professional,...
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173: Frontline Leadership Development in a Tech Environment – Matthias Nauwelaers
Matthias Nauwelaers, Learning Experience Lead at Imec, joins Michelle Ockers to discuss how Imec is building the capability of its frontline people leaders. In a fast-growing, highly technical R&D environment, consistent leadership is key. Matthias shares how Imec replaced ad hoc, inconsistent...
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172: Human-Centred Approach to AI Literacy – Christine Gaynor-Patterson
Christine Gaynor-Patterson joins Michelle Ockers to share how she and her L&D team enabled 10,000 professionals in a large US-based organisation to support workforce AI literacy. Drawing on her blend of experience in education, change management and learning design, Christine approached AI as a...
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171: AITD L&D Capability Framework – Ben Campbell and Lisa Elias
Michelle Ockers is joined by Ben Campbell, CEO of the Australian Institute of Training and Development, and organisational capability expert Lisa Elias to discuss the development of AITD's first-ever L&D Capability Framework. In addition to being our podcast host, Michelle was the Project Lead on...
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170: Rethinking Learning: Autonomy Over Content – James Swift
When James Swift moved from Sales into his L&D role at Leyton UK, he started as many do—trusting the 'L&D experts', buying content, and chasing engagement. But it didn't deliver results. So he flipped the script. In this episode, James shares how he built a culture of accountability, motivation,...
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169: Empowering Peer Learning at One Zealand – Angela Forde, Lane Hannah and Dan Hibberd
Lane Hannah and Ange Forde from One New Zealand, alongside Dan Hibberd from Makeshapes, discuss how One New Zealand transformed its learning model to enable consistent, scalable, and engaging learning. The shift was driven by the need to support a diverse workforce across locations and roles,...
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168: KPMG's AI Learning Academy – Amy Vig
How do you equip a workforce for an AI-enabled future? Amy Vig from KPMG Australia joins Michelle Ockers to share the story behind KPMG's AI Learning Academy. Amy discusses how her team fostered innovation, psychological safety, and continuous learning while navigating rapid technological change....
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Elevate 44: Stretching Your L&D Budget Further
In this episode, Michelle Parry-Slater returns to Elevate to explore how L&D professionals can make their budget stretch further. With the current environment of budget constraints and rising business expectations, Michelle and Michelle Ockers share practical approaches to prioritising spend,...
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167: Inside the Design of a Learning Design Qualification – Keith Heggart
Keith Heggart from the University of Technology Sydney joins Michelle Ockers to discuss the creation of the Graduate Certificate in Learning Design. He takes us behind the scenes of the design process—how he spent months consulting with industry experts, developing learner personas, and…
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Elevate 43: Current Practices in Leader Development
In this episode of Learning Uncut Elevate, Michelle Ockers speaks with Catherine Lombardozzi about her latest research with the Learning Guild, which explores how leadership development strategies are evolving. Catherine set out to understand what's changing in leadership development and how...
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166: Building Real World Skills for Structural Engineers – Alex Jovanovski and Moly Ashtari
Australia has a critical structural engineering skills shortage, yet many qualified graduates and migrant engineers struggle to find jobs. In this episode, Michelle Ockers talks to Moly Ashtari and Alex Jovanovski, co-founders of Learnpedia. Moly shares her personal challenges as a migrant…
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Elevate 42: Bridging the Gap: Reskilling Women in Tech
Australia's tech sector faces a critical skills gap. Women – who make up just 30% of the tech workforce – represent the largest untapped talent pool to close this gap. Michelle Ockers speaks with Kade Brown from RMIT Online and Rhiannon Yetsenga from Deloitte Access Economics about their latest...
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Elevate 41: L&D Global Sentiment 2025
The 2025 Global Sentiment Report has been released, capturing the pulse of L&D professionals worldwide. In this episode, Michelle Ockers speaks with Donald H Taylor about the key findings and what they reveal about what L&D is paying attention to in 2025. AI continues to dominate conversations…
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164: Customer Service Performance Campaign – Ryan Byrne
Ryan Byrne, Senior Manager of Capability and Learning at Sydney Trains joins host Michelle Ockers to discusses the "First Impressions Count" performance campaign. This campaign focused on enhancing customer service through station cleanliness, uniform standards and empowering and engaging staff....
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163: McKinsey's Feedback Skills Surge – Lisa Christensen
In this episode of Learning Uncut, Michelle Ockers and co-host Laura Overton are joined by Lisa Christensen, Director of Learning at McKinsey, to explore the organisation's innovative approach to enhancing feedback skills. Lisa introduces the Receive to Grow program, a targeted initiative…
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Elevate 40: Shift Your Thinking
Michelle Ockers is joined by Dr. Cathryn Lloyd, founder of Maverick Minds, to explore how L&D professionals can shift their thinking and support others to shift their thinking. Cathryn shares how her own experiences of personal and professional transformation led to her work in helping…
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162: Driving Engagement with Microlearning and Gamification – Catherine Sharpe and Mark Eggers
In this episode of Learning Uncut, Catherine Sharpe (Blackmores) and Mark Eggers (Yarno) join Michelle Ockers to discuss their award-winning learning solution. Recognised at the AITD 2024 Excellence Awards for both Best Use of Technology for Learning and Best Use of Gamification or Simulation,...
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161: Blended Learning with Business Impact at ANZ – Millie Law
In this episode of Learning Uncut, Millie Law discusses a highly successful blended learning initiative at ANZ Bank that won the 2024 AITD award for best blended learning solution. The program focused on developing business development capabilities among home lending specialists. The solution...
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160: Playbook – Artificial Intelligence in L&D
In this special episode of Learning Uncut, Michelle Ockers presents an AI playbook for Learning and Development professionals. Drawing from conversations with industry practitioners throughout 2024, she distills key principles and practices for implementing AI effectively in L&D. The episode...
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159: 2024 End of Year Review – Michelle Ockers and Chemène Sinson
In this special end-of-year episode, Michelle Ockers and Chemène Sinson reflect on the key themes explored in the 2024 Learning Uncut podcast episodes and connect them to broader trends and conversations in L&D. This year's standout themes include moving from talk to action with AI, adopting...
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158: A Self-Directed Learning Experiment – Matthew Murray and Sydney Cannon
This episode of Learning Uncut offers a rare 'before and after' look at the design, execution, and outcomes of a workplace learning campaign. Michelle Ockers speaks with Matthew Murray, VP of Digital Learning, and Sydney Cannon, Senior Manager of Learning Engagement at Bain & Company, about their...
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157: APS L&D Community of Practice – Adam Le Nevez and Adrian Manning
In this episode of Learning Uncut, Michelle Ockers is joined by Adam Le Nevez and Adrian Manning from the Australian Public Service (APS). They explore how the APS L&D Community of Practice (CoP) fosters collaboration amongst L&D teams across over 100 agencies. They discuss the unique challenges…
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156: Skills Portfolio Management at Scale – Cameron Hedrick
Michelle Ockers speaks with Cameron Hedrick, Chief Learning Officer at Citi, about the complexities and opportunities of skills portfolio management. Cameron shares his insights on moving beyond traditional job roles to focus on skills as organisational assets, and how this shift can enhance...
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155: Innovating with Generative AI in Education – Brad Hodge
In this episode of Learning Uncut, Michelle Ockers is joined by Brad Hodge, health innovator and educator at La Trobe University, to explore the role of generative AI in modern education, particularly in the rural health sector. Brad shares his journey in health innovation and how he is using AI,...
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154: Universal Design for Learning – Thomas J. Tobin
Michelle Ockers is joined by Dr Thomas J. Tobin to explore the application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) in an organisational context. They discuss how Learning and Development can act as a catalyst for fostering a culture that prioritises inclusivity in both design and content delivery....
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Learning Uncut is about real conversations around real learning solutions and real experiences with real advice from real people.We're all about keeping it "real."Here's an overview of our approach:Strategy and tactics. We want to unpack the strategy and how-to's of creating great learning solutions, frameworks and teams.CONVERSATIONS, NOT SCRIPTED DISCUSSIONOur podcasts are professional but not so edited and polished that they lose their authenticity. We want our audience to hear real people having real conversations and sharing real examples and advice.PROGRESSIVEWe want to showcase the "unsung L&D heroes" out there doing great work, being brave and trying new things.PRACTICALWe invite our guests to share tips and strategies to help listeners take their solutions to the next level. We aim to provide actionable takeaways for our listeners through show notes, links and downloads wherever possible.
HOSTED BY
Michelle Parry-Slater
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Learning Uncut have?
Learning Uncut currently has 289 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Learning Uncut about?
Learning Uncut is about real conversations around real learning solutions and real experiences with real advice from real people.We're all about keeping it "real."Here's an overview of our approach:Strategy and tactics. We want to unpack the strategy and how-to's of creating great learning...
How often does Learning Uncut release new episodes?
Learning Uncut publishes regularly with 289 episodes available. Check the episode list for the typical release schedule.
Where can I listen to Learning Uncut?
You can listen to Learning Uncut on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Learning Uncut?
Learning Uncut is created and hosted by Michelle Parry-Slater.
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