Innovative Work Models for the Future with Simon Hill

**SPEAKER_2** (0:03)
The Bliss Business Podcast, the show about empathy, connection, and consciousness in business. Today's episode is brought to you by Zero Company, your paid search, social media, and programmatic ad experts.

**Stephen** (0:17)
So Simon's in a cast, and you would not recommend electric scooters, is what you're saying. A hundred percent. Welcome, everyone, to the show. We're diving in to the topic that is reshaping how business operated, innovative work models for the future, from remote work to flexible schedules, to companies rethinking traditional structures to boost productivity, engagement, innovation, and employee well-being. Tulio is joining us today. Tulio, introduce our guest, and tell us a little bit more about the conversation today.

**Tulio** (0:53)
Yes. Thanks, Stephen. Joining us today is Simon Hill. He's the CEO of Wazoku, a company that helps businesses drive innovation through crowdsourcing, collaboration, and cutting-edge work models. So Simon has spent his career championing innovation and helping organizations embrace new ways of working that prioritize agility, creativity, and adaptability. As the workplace evolves beyond the traditional office setup, Simon's insights will be invaluable for leaders navigating this transformation. So Simon, welcome to the show. It's good to have you.

**Simon Hill** (1:32)
Thanks for having me, guys. A little bit broken, but thanks for having me.

**Tulio** (1:36)
You know, we're all a little bit broken. It's okay. And somewhere or another, not as broken as you are right now with your arm, but we're all somehow broken. But anyway, to start, can you share a little bit how your journey led you to what you're doing today? It was Zoku, you know, and why? Why workplace innovation? Why is that such a major focus for you? What led you to get there?

**Simon Hill** (2:03)
Yeah, thanks. And look, guys, thank you for having me. And as I said, I had a slight accident, so I'm struggling through with one arm today, but hopefully fixed by the time in the next 24 hours. Look, I accepted the invite into this podcast. I get quite a lot of requests, but I like the mission, right? I like the reason that sits behind what you're doing. Empathy driven, purpose driven, mission driven. It's very much at the heart and soul of the work that I champion and do at Wazoku, which I regard very much as more than just the business, right? Like I spend a lot of my time working on trying to educate business leaders and the market to think and act differently about all the different facets of what it means to run a business, have talents, do good for the world. My journey was somewhat traditional in that I came through a university degree in business into a masters in business and then into consulting, worked for the consulting firms and really cut my teeth in understanding various aspects of how business works, in all these different sides and buy side, sell side, strategy side, new product development side, innovation side, people and talent side, etc.
And that was in the sort of early mid 2000s, as you know, internet was becoming more prevalent beyond the.com boom, though, so I missed most of that as a student rather than as a business person. But I've been through various cycles, boom and bust and lots of business transition in all of that. Out of consulting, I found my way into SAS enterprise software predominantly and have helped to found and build a number of different companies across the enterprise software space, but always driven by collaboration and different ways of working, predominantly trying to connect the inside of organizations better, but more so trying to connect the external world into organizations better as well. And really that's the journey into innovation, right? The challenge is that organizations and the world faces need innovation and need us to get better at driving change, transformation and thinking differently in the way that we tackle problems and in the way that we drive impact and value. And so for the last 13 years now, I've been building a whole new industry, industry category. You know, innovation is as as old as time probably, but as a as a business discipline, it's still fairly immature. And so there's a lot of work to do to really build that, not just as a capability, but actually as a management doctrine and management philosophy at the heart and soul of how businesses work, how value is created and how we best drive that value for the for the people that do it, right? And people sit right at the heart of all of it. So, yeah, there's a lot there's a lot to unpick in all of that. But that's, you know, ultimately people.

**Stephen** (5:07)