by Claire Ward | Aug 15, 2025 | Learning & Development, Wellbeing
Picture this. You’re on a sun lounger, a book in one hand, something cold in the other, with the rhythmic sound of waves or cicadas in the background. The temperature is perfect, your phone is on silent, and for once there’s no one asking you to “just sign this off quickly.” You can feel your shoulders drop a little further with every passing minute.
And yet – like a stray lilo drifting into view – thoughts about your business keep floating into your mind.
You might try to bat them away. After all, you’re meant to be on holiday (and isn’t that what the mindfulness guidance tells you to do??). But here’s the thing: those thoughts aren’t the same as the frantic, reactive chatter of a Tuesday morning at your desk. They’re softer. Bigger picture. Often more creative. And that’s because when we step away from the day-to-day, our brains finally have the breathing space to do some of their best work.
Why rest works harder than you think
We’re conditioned to believe that productivity equals activity. If we’re not sending emails, chairing meetings, or crossing things off the to-do list, we’re somehow slacking. But science tells a different story.
When we’re not laser-focused on a specific task, our brain’s “default mode network” comes online. This is the part that helps us connect seemingly unrelated dots, imagine new possibilities, and see challenges in a fresh light. That’s why some of your most brilliant ideas have probably appeared in the shower, during a long run, or while you’re pottering about in the garden.
On holiday, you’re giving that network the perfect conditions to operate: no deadlines, fewer distractions, and ideally, a bit of sunshine. You’re relaxed enough to see the wood for the trees — which is precisely when the strategic stuff bubbles up.
The poolside problem list
Time away has a knack for revealing what’s really niggling you about your business. Maybe you suddenly realise you’ve been carrying the weight of one underperforming hire for far too long. Or perhaps you see, with fresh eyes, that a convoluted process is wasting your team’s time.
The trick is not to go into full “solution mode” while you’re meant to be unwinding. Instead, keep a small notebook or use the Notes app on your phone to capture the thought. Just a few bullet points will do — enough to jog your memory later. This approach means you can acknowledge the idea without letting it drag you back into work mode.
Over the course of a week away, you may spot patterns in these notes. If the same issue surfaces three times while you’re floating in the pool, it’s probably something worth addressing when you’re home.
Strategic thinking beats firefighting
At home, it’s easy to slip into firefighting mode. You’re dealing with whatever’s loudest or most urgent. But on holiday, you’ve accidentally put yourself into strategy mode.
Instead of “How do I get through today?” you start thinking “Where do I want to be next year?” You might notice bottlenecks to growth — often involving you personally — or start imagining what the team could achieve if you stepped back from certain operational tasks.
This is gold dust for any founder. It’s almost impossible to create that kind of headspace in the middle of your usual schedule, no matter how many productivity hacks you try.
The “don’t-do” list
One of the most powerful outputs from a holiday is not another long to-do list, but a “don’t -do” list. This can be surprisingly liberating.
Think about:
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The meeting that adds nothing to anyone’s week.
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The client who drains your energy and your team’s morale.
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The side project that’s been limping along, consuming time without real return.
Holidays give you clarity about what really matters. Use that perspective to edit ruthlessly. Sometimes, growth isn’t about adding more — it’s about stripping away the things that slow you down.
Bringing it back to shore
The genius of doing nothing doesn’t just happen on holiday — it’s in what you choose to do differently afterwards. That’s the real trick.
Before the tide of emails washes away your poolside clarity, block out an hour in your first week back. Revisit your notes. Look for the issues or ideas that came up more than once. Decide which are worth acting on now, which can wait, and — importantly — which can be delegated entirely.
Turn one or two of your clearest holiday insights into concrete next steps. For example, if you realised your onboarding process is clunky, book time in September to review it with your team. If you spotted a dependency on a single team member, plan how you can cross-train others.
A word on balance
Rest doesn’t just give you better ideas — it models healthy behaviour for your team. If they see you taking genuine breaks, they’re more likely to believe it’s okay for them to do the same. This can make a tangible difference to morale, energy and retention.
And while you might not be able to live life permanently on a sun lounger, you can recreate moments of that headspace throughout the year. Protect thinking time in your diary. Step away from the screen. Give yourself room to pause before deciding.
Because while you’ll be back at your desk soon enough, a little of that poolside perspective can — and should — stay with you.
📩 Drop us a line or book a call here to discuss how we can help lift somethings off your plate.
You can find us a line at hello@thehrhub.co.uk or call 0203 627 7048
Not a phone or email kind of person but want to get in front of some of these issues? Grab my book, The MAGIC of HR, for more practical tips to build a culture that actually works.
by Claire Ward | Jul 11, 2025 | Learning & Development, Uncategorized
My memories of Wimbledon are seeded (pun fully intended) with my mum — queen of multitasking — perched on a slightly broken sun lounger, half in and half out of the sitting room and attempting to both sun herself at the same time as catch all the action from Sue Barker & co. The visual has a very late 80’s feel to it, however shows a commitment to the cause which I obviously picked up on.
Fast forward a few decades and, despite not having touched a racquet in years (unless you count swatting wasps), I’ve somehow managed to bag back-to-back tickets to Eastbourne and Wimbledon. I’ve contributed approximately £0 in actual tennis play to my local club, but I have paid my annual subs — so obviously the tennis gods smiled kindly in the ballot.
The Wimbledon experience, for the uninitiated, is one part world-class sport, one part meteorological roulette, and one part vintage British tradition. I love the strawberries and cream, the champagne, and – just like the 90s Crowded House classic – the fact that it’s Four Seasons in One Day. Brolly, coat, sunglasses and a hat? Check!
But one of my favourite things? Is that when you spend time watching experts at work like they are, you start to really believe you can do it too.
That 120kph return from Sabalenka? No worries. The flying volley from Emma Raducanu? Piece of cake.
Within days of following Wimbledon on telly, I become one of those people who responded in a post-Olympics survey saying they reckoned — with a bit of training — they could probably make it to the next Games. Er, really??
Watching greatness can trick you into underestimating what it takes.
And that’s the bit that stuck with me. Because it’s not that different from what I see in growing businesses every day.
Talent is great. But it’s not enough.
Behind every breathtaking serve or impossible rally is a mix of things you don’t see straight away: coaching, setbacks, relentless practice, the right mindset… and a team quietly helping it all come together.
It reminded me that building a brilliant business relies on the same core trio: Expertise; Experience; Inspiration
Let’s break them down.
1. Expertise: You can’t YouTube your way to greatness (although you can learn a lot from it!)
Top players have coaches for a reason. Behind every stroke is a foundation of technical skill and constant refinement, with someone there on your team helping you see how you can do better.
Yet in business, many founders still wing it, especially in areas like hiring, HR, operations, or people development. And while Google’s great for recipes or diagnosing strange plant diseases, it’s not exactly a strategy for scaling well.
If you want to grow your business without burning out, you need more than good instincts: you need proper expertise.
2. Experience: The thing that keeps you steady when the pressure hits
It’s easy to look composed when things are going well. But the real test is how you lead when the pressure’s on: whether that’s a tricky employee issue, a redundancy conversation, or the moment your star hire turns out to be a dud.
Great decisions don’t just come from theory. They come from having seen the messy bits before and knowing how to stay calm, clear, and fair.
Experience doesn’t just bring answers. It brings confidence in the unknown.
3. Inspiration: Because people follow energy and not job titles
Wimbledon isn’t just about stats: it’s about belief. The crowd. The momentum. The mental game.
Your team is no different.
People want to feel fired up, clear on the goal, and confident their work matters. But they also want to see you walk the talk. Not just at pitch time or in the all-hands meeting, but in the day-to-day: how you show up, how you treat others, what you prioritise.
So if you’ve been trying to run the business equivalent of Centre Court solo, it might be time to call someone up to the net.
Need someone in your corner? We help founders like you grow teams, tackle people challenges, and build businesses that don’t just survive, but win in straight sets.
Fancy a doubles partner? Drop us a message. We’ll bring the strawberries.
Contact us on hello@thehrhub.co.uk or call on 0203 951 1208
Not a phone or email kind of person? Grab my book, The MAGIC of HR, for more practical tips to build a culture that actually works.
by Claire Ward | Jun 9, 2025 | Learning & Development
When you started out, HR probably wasn’t top of your to-do list.
You hired smart people, moved fast, shared a Google Doc here and a “quick chat” there, and generally made it work. If someone was half-decent and had a pulse, they got the job. Maybe they got a handbook. Maybe they didn’t.
And it worked. Until it didn’t.
Now you’ve hit 15, 30, maybe even 50 people. You’re still growing. But something’s changed. The cracks are showing. And the people stuff – once just an admin niggle – is now eating your time, your energy, and sometimes, your will to live…..
Welcome to the teens: that awkward middle bit of growth!
There’s a moment in most growing businesses where the way you’ve done things just doesn’t stretch anymore: People start stepping on each other’s toes; roles blur; managers emerge by accident rather than design and you find yourself answering the same questions on repeat, fixing the same issues again and again. Your team might still be great — but something feels stuck. And you’re the one holding the glue.
Growth isn’t just about headcount
Hiring more people doesn’t fix this kind of feeling either. In fact, it usually makes it worse. Because growth isn’t just about headcount, but instead is about creating the right infrastructure to support that headcount. Otherwise, you’re just scaling chaos.
Many founders resist adding structure because they worry it’ll make things ‘corporate.’ But we believe very much that structure doesn’t kill agility, chaos does. What growing teams need is clarity: about who does what, how decisions get made. About how to handle performance, feedback, onboarding, and, yes, the occasional tricky conversation.
What you needed when you had five people around one desk is wildly different from what you need with a hybrid team of 25 spread across Slack, Zoom, and a coworking space. The stakes are higher now and you’ve got salaries, expectations, real clients and real consequences if things start to wobble.
This is where great HR steps in. Not the beige kind that turns everything into a form. The kind that helps you scale your team the way you’ve been scaling your business: deliberately, clearly, and in line with your values.
So what does great HR look like at this stage?
It’s structure that supports, not suffocates. Clear roles and reporting lines that reduce friction. Job descriptions that actually mean something. A hiring process that helps you avoid the last-minute panic. Onboarding that sets people up properly, so you’re not firefighting performance issues two months in.
It’s systems that give you rhythm. Regular 1:1s. Light-touch feedback loops. Ways to capture what’s working — and fix what’s not — without endless paperwork. It’s a culture that’s actually lived: your values, behaviours, and expectations embedded in the everyday, not buried in a slide deck or ignored until the next offsite.
It’s supporting your managers (especially any accidental ones!). You know the ones? Promoted because they were excellent individual contributors, but now expected to lead people with zero training or guidance & you’re wishing that they were able to focus again on what they were brilliant at in the first place.
This kind of structure gives your people what they need to grow, and gives you what you need to step back from the daily people-drama spiral. It’s how you build meaning into their roles, accountability into their actions, and growth into their development. It’s inclusion in practice, not just policy. It’s care that’s real, not just reactive.
In other words, it’s HR that creates MAGIC, the kind we talk about a lot here at The HR Hub. But whether you call it a framework or just “getting your house in order,” the result is the same: calm, capable teams and a founder who can actually lead again.
If this sounds like a big leap, take heart: you don’t have to fix everything at once.
Start by reviewing your team structure. Who does what? Are responsibilities clear? Are you relying too heavily on one or two people? Look at how you hire and onboard. Is it consistent, or do you reinvent the wheel every time? Are you having regular performance conversations, or just awkward “can I grab you for a sec” moments?
None of this is about adding red tape. It’s about reducing decision fatigue. It’s about giving people enough guidance to move forward without constantly needing you in the room. And it’s about setting up a culture that performs without burning people out.
So if your team is getting bigger but everything still feels like it’s stuck to you with Blu Tack and goodwill, you’re not failing. You’re just in the messy middle. And that’s a sign of progress.
You’ve built something good. Now build the structure to keep it growing. Think of HR as the scaffolding, not the straitjacket.
That’s what we do. Get in touch and we’ll show you how to make the messy middle a lot less messy.
Reach out to us at hello@thehrhub.co.uk or call on 0203 951 1208
Not a phone or email kind of person? Grab my book, The MAGIC of HR, for more practical tips to build a culture that actually works.
by Claire Ward | May 22, 2025 | Hiring, Learning & Development
For when ‘they just felt right’ doesn’t feel so right anymore…
It starts innocently enough. A CV lands. The interview feels good. You get a decent handshake, some eye contact, and a bit of shared banter about the football or family dogs. They feel right. They’re in.
Fast forward a few months, and you’re quietly wondering if you missed something. Not a disaster, exactly. But not quite what you hoped for either. Maybe they’re struggling to manage the team. Maybe the shine wore off after week two. Maybe you’re back to quietly stepping in again.
Hiring with gut instinct is fast, familiar, and often feels like a strength. Especially in a business built on trust, loyalty and hard-won experience. But it can also be a blind spot.
Because the higher the stakes, the less reliable gut instinct becomes.
Instinct is not a strategy.
There’s a confidence that comes with trusting your instincts: it cuts through the admin, speeds up the process, and it can absolutely play a role in how you choose people.
But when instinct is the only thing driving decisions, it leaves too much to chance.
Instincts are built on your own preferences and experiences. That’s fine when picking lunch or deciding on a new coffee machine. Less fine when shaping the leadership of a growing team.
At best, instinct-only hiring leads to a few underwhelming choices or getting it right to the same degree that a random guess would. At worst, it creates deeper cracks in performance, culture, and morale that take months to surface and even longer to fix.
The hidden cost of guesswork
One mis-hire doesn’t just knock confidence. It quietly chips away at the business.
- Time and energy spent onboarding the wrong person
- Disruption to teams and morale
- Exit costs and re-hiring expense
- Missed opportunities for growth or improvement
- And a subtle but growing sense of frustration
It doesn’t mean people are being careless. Often, it’s the opposite. Many leaders care so much that they rely heavily on their own judgment, thinking it will protect them from making a mistake. But good people decisions need a teensy more than that.
Smarter decisions (without the red tape)
I’m not suggesting that you do what one of my first bosses did when she wanted some more rigour to her selection process i.e ask her interviewees to take a graphology test *
Nor am I suggesting adding layers of bureaucracy or burying your team under forms. But instead are going to suggest some simple tools that sharpen your decisions and reduce the chance of a poor fit.
Here are some light-touch ways to get smarter with how you hire, promote and retain people:
- Create a basic scorecard
Decide on the three or four things that truly matter for the role. Not just generic phrases like ‘good communicator’ or ‘team player’, but things like ‘can give clear feedback under pressure’ or ‘builds trust quickly with clients’. Score every candidate against the same criteria. Patterns emerge fast.
- Ask for examples, not hypotheticals
Behavioural questions like “Tell me about a time you…” are far more useful than “What would you do if…”. People’s actual past behaviour tells you much more than what they say they would do.
- Don’t do it alone
Bring in a second pair of eyes for interviews. It helps balance bias and gives another perspective, especially useful when you’re hiring into senior roles or unfamiliar areas.
- Reflect on past hires
Keep a light-touch log of who you’ve hired and how it worked out six months later. Look back at your notes. Were there early signs you missed? Did your favourites always perform best? It’s a useful exercise for improving your own judgement over time.
When people decisions are based on clarity rather than just chemistry, the likelihood of your newbie succeeding skyrocket. There’s science * to support this and everything!
You build teams with more consistency. Leaders are more confident in their roles. The culture strengthens because it’s not resting on the shoulders of just you. And yes, it saves time and money in the long run too.
Gut feel should still be in the room. It just shouldn’t be running the show.
If you want to chat about boosting your hiring strategy, then drop us a line at hello@thehrhub.co.uk or call 0203 951 1208.
Not a phone or email kind of person? Grab my book, The MAGIC of HR, for more practical tips to build a culture that actually works.
* Honestly, it still amazes me that I ‘passed’ that test, despite having the handwriting of a 5 year old. But what can I say? I lasted about 9 months – not great either!
by Claire Ward | May 15, 2025 | Learning & Development
This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, and chances are, your inbox is full of wellbeing platitudes.
“Take a break.” “Go for a walk.” “Just talk to someone.” All valid. All well-meaning. And all things I also think are eminently sensible btw. But let’s be honest. When you’re running a business, juggling a team, trying to hire, trying to keep the plates spinning, and trying not to cry into your third coffee of the day… it doesn’t always feel that simple.
Often instead it can feel like you’ve got to be the calm in the storm, the one with all the answers. When the truth that many don’t like to say out loud is: you don’t have to have it all together. Not all the time.
The pressure of “holding it all together” can be your biggest challenge
Many of the leaders we work with are brilliant: visionary, driven, compassionate. But they’re also exhausted. They carry a quiet load: the payroll worries at 2 am, the tension between two team members they’re not quite sure how to handle, the guilt over missed kids plays, and the nagging sense that everyone else seems to be doing it better.
They also carry a belief, spoken or not, that they should be coping better. That showing vulnerability would undermine their leadership. That burnout is a sign of personal failure, not a warning sign from a system that isn’t working.
But if you’ve ever thought, “I’m not sure how much longer I can keep this up”, you’re not alone. And more importantly, you don’t need to keep soldiering on solo.
Wellbeing isn’t just for ‘them’
Much of what’s shared during Mental Health Awareness Week is geared towards your team. And rightly so. But the bit that often gets missed is that your well-being matters too. When leaders neglect their own mental health, it doesn’t put them in their best position, as well as setting the tone for everyone else.
Think of it like this. If you never take a lunch break, not only will you wilt with exhaustion, but your team learns that’s what success looks like. If you reply to emails at midnight, will you be at your most clear-headed? And do you want them to do the same? And if you never admit when things are tough, they won’t either.
You don’t need to become the poster child for mindfulness if it’s not in your wheelhouse. But a bit of honesty? A boundary here or there? A willingness to say “I’m stretched right now, we’re going to need to park this for another time”? That’s leadership.
Three small things that actually help
We’re not going to give you a list of 20 self-care rituals to practice, as there are plenty out there online and many, much more qualified to share than we are. But if you’re wondering where to start with your team without overloading yourself, here are three practical things we see working:
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Swap “How are you?” for “How’s your energy this week?” It’s a gentler way to check in that opens the door to honesty and lets people answer in a way that feels safe.
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Model boundaries you’d want your team to have. Take a proper lunch. Book a half-day without guilt. Say “I’ll come back to you tomorrow.” You’re not lazy, you’re human.
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Make wellbeing part of your rhythm, not a one-off (& start small). Whether it’s a monthly team check-in, mental health training, or just a reminder that it’s OK to not be OK, make it ongoing. Not just a one-week PR moment.
You’re allowed to be human
Running a business is hard. Leading people is hard. Doing both while trying to support everyone else’s mental health is really hard. So if you feel like you don’t have it all together this week, here’s your permission slip: that’s OK.
Sometimes, the strongest thing you can do for your team is show them what looking after yourself looks like, even when that means stepping back, slowing down, or just saying, “Actually, I’m struggling a bit too.”
And if today, you haven’t? That’s OK too.
You build teams with more consistency. Leaders are more confident in their roles. The culture strengthens because it’s not resting on the shoulders of a few dependable individuals. And yes, it saves time and money too.
This isn’t about removing human judgment. It’s about supporting it.
PS If you’d like help building smarter, simpler systems for hiring, growing and leading the right people – without losing the personal touch we’re here to help. No jargon. No nonsense. Just practical support that works for growing businesses. Let’s talk via hello@thehrhub.co.uk or call 0203 627 7048
Not a phone or email kind of person? Grab my book, The MAGIC of HR, for more practical tips to build a culture that actually works.
by Claire Ward | Apr 17, 2025 | Internal Communications, Learning & Development, Uncategorized
“They’re just not doing what I want them to.”
If I had a pound for every time I’ve heard that from founders and managers… well, you get the idea.
And it comes in all sorts of flavours:
“They showed such promise in the interview, but they’ve turned out to be a turkey.”
“But they knew I needed that info for the client meeting!”
“They should just know where to find that kind of thing.”
And the classic: “They should just know!”
Here’s the hard truth. It’s probably not them. It’s you. (Sorry. But someone had to say it.)
Communication Is Everything (And You Might Be Overestimating Yours)
When a founder vents that their team “just isn’t delivering,” I always ask: “What did you actually tell them ( and how did you say it?)”
More often than not, it turns out expectations were vague, rushed, or… not actually communicated at all.
One manager even said, “I pay them to know what to do,” when asked why they hadn’t set clearer expectations. Sound familiar?
But paying a salary isn’t the same as transferring knowledge. And assuming someone “should just know” is usually the start of a whole lot of missed deadlines, tension, and rework.
Vague Instructions Lead to Vague Results
Even if you think you were clear, ask yourself:
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Did I explain the why, not just the what?
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Did I check their understanding or just assume they got it?
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Did I tailor the conversation to how they work best?
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And did I follow up — in writing — to lock in clarity?
Because every team member is wired differently. Some need verbal clarity. Others prefer a checklist or a visual. Some nod and smile… but don’t actually understand what you meant.
Your job isn’t to bark orders: it’s to lead like a coach: Create the vision, support the execution, and make it inspiring to follow.
So What’s Really Going Wrong?
It’s usually not about skill. It’s typically about a whole host of other things including:
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Poor onboarding (“They’ll figure it out” never works.)
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Weak briefing (You think you gave the brief. You didn’t.)
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Unclear goals (They don’t know what success looks like.)
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No feedback loop (So they keep guessing.)
And it all feeds back into your own stress, bottlenecks, and frustration.
What To Do Instead: 5 Ways to Be Crystal Clear
Want your team to step up? Here’s how to make sure they know what’s expected — and can actually deliver:
1. Set clear expectations from Day One: Job descriptions aren’t just HR fluff. They’re your first chance to define success. Talk about what good looks like during the interview, not just after onboarding.
2. Support early and often: Don’t just drop a new hire in the deep end. Show them what “good” looks like. Share your methods. Check in regularly. They’ll learn faster — and you’ll stress less.
3. Focus on WIIFT (What’s In It For Them): People want to succeed — for themselves, not just for you. So link their goals to what motivates them. Recognition, ownership, growth… whatever it is, use it.
4. Give real-time, honest feedback: Don’t wait until a probation review to say what’s not working. Try: “That campaign got great reach, but we missed our signup goal. Let’s unpack it together.” Constructive, timely feedback builds trust and improvement.
5. Keep talking: Weekly check-ins aren’t micro-management. They’re relationship-building. They stop surprises, catch misunderstandings early, and help everyone feel part of the mission.
Even the Pros Get It Wrong Sometimes
And yes, even I fall into the trap. I’ve tutted more than once when something arrived half-done… only to realise I wasn’t clear on the outcome, timeline, or importance.
Almost every single time, the issue wasn’t capability. It was communication.
Clarity Creates Calm
When your team knows what’s expected — and how they can win — performance improves, stress reduces, and you get your time (and sanity) back.
You don’t need more people. You need more clarity.
To access a deeper system for building a team rhythm that actually works, ping us at hello@thehrhub.co.uk, or ring us on 0203 951 1208. Not a phone or email kind of person? Grab my book, The MAGIC of HR, for more practical tips to build a culture that actually works.
