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Zara Whysall

Professor

Nottingham Business School

Staff Group(s)
Department of Human Resource Management

Role

Zara is a Professor of Business Psychology committed to bridging academic excellence and real-world impact.  She partners with public and private sector organisations to drive change and deliver measurable results. Her consultancy and knowledge-exchange activities are grounded in rigorous research, translating insights into actionable strategies to enhance talent management, unlock culture change, and tackle persistent challenges such as employee presenteeism.  She also teaches on Executive Education programmes such as NTU's Global Executive MBA.

Her ongoing work includes a third Innovate UK-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), having previously led two successful KTPs that delivered transformational improvements by embedding innovative practices and cultural renewal in partner organisations.

Zara’s commitment to social value is evident in projects such as her knowledge exchange initiative with domestic violence charity Juno, where development of staff wellbeing policies and management practices supported employee and organisational effectiveness.

As a strand lead in the Research Centre for People, Work and Organisational Practice, and member of the Centre for Economics, Policy and Public Management, she enjoys helping to develop the research and practice environment at NTU, and collaborating with interdisciplinary colleagues. She supervises a number of PhD and DBA candidates in research areas of relevance to her areas of interest and expertise.

Information and resources relating to Zara's research and consultancy support in the field of organisational culture can be found here:

www.ntu.ac.uk/research/research-reimagined/research-reimagined-podcast/organisational-culture

Career overview

Zara is a Chartered Psychologist and Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society, with over two decades of experience in consultancy and training roles in public and private sector organisations.

In 2022 she received NTU Vice Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Practice and was selected for the 2022/23 NTU Vice-Chancellor’s Future Research Leaders Programme.

In addition to her role at NTU, Zara is Research & Impact Director at Kiddy & Partners Ltd, a firm of Business Psychologists specialising in leadership assessment and development, and part of the Gateley Group.

Zara's previous experience includes several years as Head of Research & Product at Lane4 Management Group (now EY Lane4). Prior to that Zara was a Business Manager for Psychology at COPE Ltd, where she conducted training, research and consultancy with a wide range of clients into areas such as managing presenteeism and work-related stress, and also managing a large multi-service occupational health contract for a defence sector client. She also worked in the Horizon Scanning team at HSL, using research and tools such as scenario planning to identify and understand the implications of emerging trends for managing future work-related risks to health and wellbeing.

She has a PhD from Loughborough University, a Masters in Occupational Psychology from Nottingham University, and a BSc (First-class Hons.) in Human Psychology from Aston University.

Research areas

Zara is a strong advocate of applied research which addresses contemporary business issues, with the aim of improving individual and organisational performance. Her primary research interests include:

  • Organisational behaviour and culture change – understanding the role of organisational culture, social norms, behaviours and practices, implicit and explicit beliefs and attitudes in promoting (or inhibiting) organisational behaviour change in relation to key organisational priorities such as diversity and inclusion, health & wellbeing, learning and innovation.
  • Work, Health & Performance – presenteeism and the reciprocal relationships between work, health and performance.
  • Leadership and Talent Development - applying psychological theory to understand how organisations can develop effective methods of achieving the shift in mindset, skillset and context required to meet the pace of change in modern operating environments.

Zara's PhD focused on the application of the transtheoretical model of behaviour change to organisational change interventions to improve their effectiveness and sustainability. She retains an interest in behavioural and organisational change.

External activity

Zara has a strong track record of leading large, applied research projects which create value for external organisations.  This includes a number of Knowledge Transfer Partnerships (KTPs), including one with Fujitsu Ltd aimed at driving sustainable change in individual and team working practices through an enhanced organisational culture change methodology.  This project was rated as outstanding by Innovate UK.  Other KTPs - both completed and ongoing - support SMEs, in collaboration with operations management colleagues, to reshape and upscale operational processes, talent management practices and evolve organisational culture to support rapid growth and transformation.

Beyond the corporate sector, Zara has delivered innovative, socially impactful knowledge-exchange, leading an internally funded project with a leading women’s aid charity. Through this initiative, she co-designed and embedded a staff wellbeing policy and management practices, strengthening workforce resilience and wellbeing in a vital community organisation.

Zara is an External Examiner for the MBA programme at University of Strathclyde, an Associate Editor for the International Journal for Workplace Health Management, and a reviewer for numerous other academic journals.

Zara is Research & Impact Director for Kiddy & Partners, a firm of business psychologists specialising in leadership assessment and development. She is responsible for producing evidence-based thought leadership outputs and undertaking impact evaluation studies to help understand and enhance the impact of the firm's services on key client outcomes.

Press expertise

  • Talent management and leadership development
  • Employee development and retention
  • Presenteeism and management of work-related ill-health and wellbeing
  • Organisational culture