HR Coffee Time

Have you ever dismissed something you do brilliantly because it feels easy? Perhaps a colleague has praised you for something and you've thought, "That's nothing special. Doesn't everyone do that?" The challenge is that some of our greatest strengths can be hidden in plain sight because they come so naturally to us.

In this episode, we explore why recognising and using your strengths can have a powerful impact on your wellbeing, performance and enjoyment at work. We also look at why many people spend too much time relying on learned behaviours rather than the things that genuinely energise them.

To help us unpack this topic, I'm joined by chartered psychologists Michele Deeks and Martin Galpin, co-founders of Work Positive and creators of the At My Best strengths tools. Together, we discuss the research behind strengths-based approaches, how to identify your own strengths, and simple ways managers, leaders and teams can help people recognise what they do best.

What You'll Learn

• The difference between a genuine strength and a learned behaviour, and why recognising the distinction matters
• Why the strengths that come most naturally to you can be the hardest ones to spot
• How focusing only on weaknesses can limit development and prevent people from excelling
• Practical ways managers can help team members identify and use their strengths more often
• Why detailed positive feedback is more powerful than generic praise
• How reflecting on times when you've been at your best can help you identify your strengths
• A simple team activity that encourages colleagues to recognise and appreciate each other's strengths

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction: Hidden Strengths

[00:31] Welcome, Guests & HR Planning Day

[03:35] What Are Strengths?

[04:21] Strengths vs Learned Behaviours

[05:47] Fay's Personal Example: Time Management

[06:43] The Impact of Overusing Learned Behaviours

[08:26] Why Focus on Strengths at Work?

[10:28] Fixing Weakness vs Building Strength

[12:16] The Cost of No Positive Feedback

[12:37] How Managers Can Weave In Strengths

[13:06] The Leaving Party Effect

[14:29] The Power of Detailed Positive Feedback

[16:37] The Ripple Effect & Strengths Blind Spots

[21:22] Using Strengths Cards with People Facing Redundancy

[23:08] The Research Behind Strengths

[27:10] Wellbeing & Financial Performance: Oxford Research

[28:37] How to Identify Your Own Strengths

[32:03] The Story Behind the Strengths Cards

[35:24] Team Activities with the Strengths Cards

[39:02] Book Recommendation & Job Crafting

[43:46] Wrap Up

Useful Links and Resources

• Connect with Michele Deeks on LinkedIn
• Connect with Martin Galpin on LinkedIn
• Visit the Work Positive website
• Explore At My Best resources and strengths tools
• Try the free Strengths Self-Reflection Tool
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Treat yourself to a copy of The Essential HR Planner
• Book your ticket for one of the HR Planning Days

Books & Articles Recommended in This Episode

• Personalization at Work: How HR Can Use Job Crafting to Drive Performance, Engagement & Wellbeing, by Rob Baker
• Journal article:Flourishing in New Zealand Workers: Associations With Lifestyle Behaviors, Physical Health, Psychosocial, and Work-Related Indicators (2015),by Lucy C. Hone, Aaron Jarden, Scott Duncan and Grant M. Schofield
• Michelle McQuaid’s research on strengths-based organisational change
• University of Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre:Workplace Wellbeing and Firm Performance, by Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, Micah Kaats and George Ward

HR Coffee Time Episodes to Listen to Next

• Episode 47:Discovering Your Values to Help Your HR Career, with Zoe Hawkins
• Episode 173:How to Build a Better Workplace Culture, So People Thrive at Work, with Aoife O'Brien

Enjoyed This Episode? Don't Miss The Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email

Career progression does not always have to mean securing a promotion or climbing further up the career ladder. You may want to deepen your expertise, move into a different area of HR or explore a completely new path.

In this solo episode, Fay talks you through four possible career directions: growing in your current role, stepping up, moving sideways or stepping out. She also shares practical questions to help you decide which direction feels right for the next stage of your career.

What You’ll Learn

• Why meaningful career growth does not always require a promotion or a new job title
• How growing in your current role could help you develop your expertise, confidence or strategic impact
• Questions to consider if you would like to step up into a more senior position
• How a sideways move could broaden your experience and support your longer-term career goals
• Practical ways to explore stepping out of your current career path before making a major change
• How to identify the work, strengths and experiences you would like more of in your career
• Why choosing a general direction can help you make more deliberate decisions, even if you do not have every detail worked out yet

Chapters

[0:00] Introduction: The Four Career Directions

[01:15] Option 1: Grow in Your Current Role

[03:28] Option 2: Step Up into a More Senior Role

[05:21] Option 3: Move Sideways

[07:03] Option 4: Step Out - Leaving Your Current Path & Exploring New Options

[08:48] How to Choose Which Career Direction Is Right for You

[10:19] Using The Essential HR Planner to Turn Your Decision Into a Plan

[11:37] Closing: What Do You Want Next from Your Career?

Useful Links and Resources

• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Treat yourself to a copy of The Essential HR Planner

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email for useful HR resources, ideas and new episode updates to support you in your HR career.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Managers are expected to handle everything from one-to-ones and development conversations to absence, performance issues and disciplinaries. Yet many step into management without having been properly taught how to deal with these responsibilities. For HR and People professionals, finding a way to build managers’ knowledge and confidence without overwhelming them can be a real challenge.

In this special bonus episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay Wallis is joined by Amy Critchley, Head of People at Indigo Networks. Amy explains how she created a management development programme from scratch after joining an organisation that had not previously had a dedicated HR or People team.

Amy shares practical ideas for combining essential HR knowledge with wider management development, making potentially dry subjects more engaging and helping learning stick. She also explains how the programme strengthened relationships between managers and changed the way they worked with the People team.

What You’ll Learn

• How to decide which topics to prioritise when creating a management development programme
• Why combining practical HR knowledge with wider management skills can make training more effective
• Ideas for making subjects such as absence, investigations, disciplinaries and employment law more engaging
• How to accommodate different learning preferences without relying on lengthy presentations or uncomfortable role play
• Ways to support learning beyond the workshop through e-learning, workbooks, drop-in clinics and People Partnering sessions
• How real-life scenarios, discussion and peer learning can build managers’ confidence
• Signs that manager training is working, including stronger peer relationships and a more positive relationship with the People team

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction: Why managers matter

[01:14] The challenge of developing managers

[02:02] The Workforce Success Stories Summit

[02:49] Meet Amy Critchley: building a management development programme

[04:11] How Amy identified the need for manager training

[05:47] Deciding on the training content

[08:28] Combining HR knowledge with management development

[09:50] Designing engaging, brain-friendly training

[13:27] Wraparound support: e-learning and drop-in clinics

[15:28] From drop-in clinics to people partnering

[17:46] Measuring success: executive buy-in and manager engagement

[20:18] Changing the perception of HR

[24:16] Making learning stick: worst-case scenarios and one-to-ones

[29:06] How the programme changed HR's perception in the business

[32:43] Book recommendation and wrap-up

Useful Links and Resources

• Learn more about the Workforce Success Stories Summit
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Treat yourself to a copy of The Essential HR Planner

Book Recommended in This Episode

The Trainer’s Toolkit: Bringing Brain-Friendly Learning to Life, by Kimberly Herr and Larry Reynolds

Amy recommends this practical resource for ideas on keeping training real, recognising the different needs of people in the room, creating multisensory learning and managing the state of the group.

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Episode 129: Five Essential Techniques to Become a Great Manager, with James Rose
• Episode 118: 9 Tips to Unlock Training Success When You're a Busy HR Professional

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email for useful HR resources, ideas and new episode updates to support you in your HR career.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Cancer affects far more people in the workplace than many of us realise. As HR professionals, there may be times when you're supporting an employee with a cancer diagnosis, someone undergoing treatment, a colleague living with the long-term effects of cancer, or an employee who is caring for a loved one affected by it.

Knowing that support matters is one thing. Feeling confident about what to say, what practical help to offer, and how to create the right support across your organisation is another.

In this episode, Fay is joined by Tara Ferguson, Founder of Onward With You. Drawing on more than 20 years in senior HR roles and her own experience of being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2023, Tara shares practical advice to help HR teams and managers better support people affected by cancer at work. Together, they explore the role good line management can play, the reality of living with cancer beyond active treatment, and the steps organisations can take to build greater cancer confidence.

What You’ll Learn

• Why cancer should increasingly be considered a long-term condition rather than a short-term illness
• The scale of cancer's impact on today's workforce, including employees with caring responsibilities
• What Tara's line manager did that made such a positive difference during her diagnosis and treatment
• Why work can sometimes play an important role in someone's recovery and wellbeing during treatment
• What HR professionals need to understand about legal protections and reasonable adjustments
• How to approach the first conversation when someone shares a cancer diagnosis with you
• Practical steps organisations can take to improve awareness, support and manager capability

Chapters

[0:00] Introduction: Cancer at Work

[01:15] Meet Tara Ferguson

[02:50] Tara's Story: From HR to Cancer Diagnosis

[03:48] The Changing Face of Cancer in the Workplace

[05:12] How Tara Is Now: The Ongoing Impact

[08:07] Cancer in the Workplace: The Statistics

[11:36] What Good Line Manager Support Looks Like

[15:32] The Positive Role of Work During Treatment

[17:13] Legal Protections & Reasonable Adjustments

[19:05] Supporting Employees with Hidden Cancer Diagnoses

[21:40] Having the First Conversation About Cancer

[24:20] Organisation-Wide HR Strategies

[27:26] Book Recommendation & Resources

[29:27] How to Reach Tara

[29:55] Key Takeaways & Closing

Useful Links and Resources

• Visit Tara's website:Onward With You
• Connect with Tara Ferguson on LinkedIn
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay's Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Treat yourself to a copy of The Essential HR Planner

Books and Resources Recommended in This Episode

The Leopard in My House, by Mark Steel

Tara also mentions a number of resources available through Onward With You, including:

• A guide covering 12 common questions HR professionals and line managers ask about supporting employees affected by cancer
• The Cancer Confidence Framework
• The Cancer Confidence HR Masterclass

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email for useful HR resources, ideas and new episode updates to support you in your HR career.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Have you ever found yourself going round and round in circles trying to choose between two options?

Perhaps you’re deciding whether to recruit externally or promote someone internally, introduce a new policy or stick with what you already have, invest in a new HR system or make the current one work, or even stay in your current role or apply for something new.

Sometimes the problem isn’t that you haven’t thought hard enough about the two options. It’s that you’ve become so focused on them that you haven’t spotted another possibility.

In this solo episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay shares a real decision she recently struggled with while planning the 2027 edition of The Essential HR Planner, and how an unexpected suggestion helped her realise she had fallen into a common decision-making trap called narrow framing.

Drawing on ideas from Chip and Dan Heath’s brilliant book Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions, Fay explores two practical ways to widen your thinking and get unstuck when a decision feels like an either/or choice.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn

• What narrow framing is and how it can limit your decision-making
• Why the options in front of you may not be the only options available
• How to use theVanishing Options Testto uncover different possibilities
• Why asking someone else for their perspective can help you see what you’re missing
• The questions to ask other people so you don’t accidentally keep them trapped inside the same narrow frame
• How Fay used these ideas to solve her dilemma about whether to bring back the wire-bound version of The Essential HR Planner

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction: Stuck Between Two Options

[00:28] Common Either/Or Decisions at Work

[01:22] The Book: Decisive by Chip and Dan Heath

[02:43] Fay's Dilemma: The Essential HR Planner

[04:27] Should the Wire-Bound Planner Return?

[05:14] Asking for Feedback to Get Unstuck

[06:20] Claire's Game-Changing Suggestion

[07:53] Understanding Narrow Framing

[09:53] The Vanishing Options Test

[12:39] Getting Another Perspective

[13:50] How to Ask Better Questions When Asking for Advice

[14:44] Book Recommendations: Decisive, Made to Stick, and Switch

[15:28] Pre-Order the Wire-Bound Planner

[16:11] Closing Thanks and Sign-Off

Books Recommended

The book links below are Amazon affiliate links, which means I may earn a small commission if you buy through them, at no extra cost to you.

• Decisive: How to Make Better Decisions, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Made to Stick: Why some ideas take hold and others come unstuck, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath
• Switch: How to change things when change is hard, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath

The Essential HR Planner

If you’re watching or listening to this episode close to its release date, you should now be able to pre-order the wire-bound 2027 edition of The Essential HR Planner.

Visit https://essentialhrplanner.co.uk/ to find out more and pre-order your copy.

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

What exactly is employee experience? How is it different from workplace culture, employer brand or your employee value proposition? And what can you actually do to improve it?

In this episode of HR Coffee Time, I’m joined by employee experience expert Chris Manning, People and Culture Portfolio Transformation Lead at Primark.

Chris explains what employee experience really means and why it matters for organisations of every size. He shares practical ways to understand and measure the experience your employees are having, whether you work in a small organisation or a huge global business.

We also explore how design thinking can help you move beyond simply listening to employees and start making meaningful improvements. Chris talks us through a practical onboarding example, showing how journey mapping can uncover friction, identify opportunities and help you design a better employee experience.

And if you need to secure investment for your ideas, Chris shares practical advice on building the business case and getting the buy-in and budget you need.

Whether employee experience is already part of your role, or it’s an area you’d like to learn more about, this episode is packed with practical ideas to help you get started.

What You'll Learn

• What employee experience actually means
• How employee experience differs from workplace culture, employer brand and EVP
• Why employee experience matters in smaller organisations as well as large global businesses
• Practical ways to measure employee experience
• How to gather useful feedback across the employee lifecycle
• Why post-onboarding and offboarding can provide valuable insights
• How employee data can help create more personalised employee experiences
• How design thinking can help you improve employee experience
• The five stages of design thinking: empathise, define, ideate, prototype and test
• How to use journey mapping to improve an experience such as onboarding
• How to build a compelling business case for employee experience improvements
• How to combine qualitative and quantitative evidence to secure buy-in and budget

Chapters

[00:00] What is employee experience and why does it matter?

[02:45] Meet Chris Manning

[04:35] What employee experience really means

[06:25] Employee experience vs workplace culture

[07:10] Employee experience, employer brand and EVP

[08:30] Why employee experience matters in smaller organisations too

[10:40] How to measure employee experience

[14:20] Using employee data to understand and personalise experiences

[18:20] Moving from employee listening to employee experience design

[19:40] Using journey mapping to improve onboarding

[23:30] A free onboarding journey-mapping resource

[25:25] What is design thinking?

[26:50] The five stages of design thinking

[29:45] How to get buy-in and budget for employee experience

[33:30] Chris’s recommended resource

[35:35] How to connect with Chris

USEFUL LINKS

• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn
• Connect with Chris Manning on LinkedIn
• Read Chris’s article about employee experience inThe ELEVATE Hub magazine
• Download Chris’s free employee experience journey-mapping resource:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/resources/
• Find out more aboutThe Essential HR Planner
• Learn more about Fay’s leadership programme –Inspiring HR Leadership

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time emailto be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

🎁 Download your free Personal User Manual template:

https://brightskyhr.co.uk/resources

Taking over the leadership of an HR team can come with a long list of things you want to improve, but one of the most valuable things you can do first is help your team build trust, understand each other and work well together.

In this episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay shares one of her favourite team-building activities: creating and sharing Personal User Manuals.

Personal User Manuals give everyone an opportunity to explain how they work best, the strengths they bring, what helps them thrive and what their colleagues should know about them.

They can make some of the information that is usually invisible within a team much more visible, helping people understand each other’s preferences, avoid misunderstandings and make better use of the strengths and experience already within the team.

Fay talks you through how to run the activity, from deciding what to include in your Personal User Manuals to facilitating the sharing session and turning what you learn into practical changes in how you work together.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• Why investing in relationships can create a stronger foundation when you take over an HR team
• How Personal User Manuals can help your team understand each other’s strengths, preferences and ways of working
• How the activity can help you start building greater psychological safety
• Ideas for useful categories to include in your Personal User Manuals
• Why it’s helpful to ask your team what they think everyone should include
• How to create the right environment for people to share what they’ve written
• Why you, as the leader, should share your Personal User Manual first
• Questions you can use to encourage positive reflections after each person has shared
• How to turn what you learn into practical improvements to the way your team works
• How to keep the learning alive after the activity

Chapters

[00:00] Why relationships matter when you take over an HR team

[01:20] What is a Personal User Manual?

[02:50] Why Personal User Manuals can be so useful

[04:55] What to include in your Personal User Manuals

[06:50] Involving your team in choosing the categories

[07:50] How to run the sharing session

[08:50] Why the leader should go first

[09:30] Encouraging positive comments and reflections

[10:40] What have you learned about yourselves as a team?

[11:35] Keeping the learning alive

[12:35] Download the free Personal User Manual template

Useful Links

• Download your free Personal User Manual template:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/resources
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/faywallis/
• The Essential HR Planner:https://essentialhrplanner.co.uk/
• Learn about the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/hr-leadership-course/

Enjoyed This Episode? Don't Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released - and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

HR professionals have a huge opportunity to shape how, why and when AI is used across their organisations.

Because AI is not only changing technology. It is changing jobs, skills, teams, management and the way work gets done. And HR is uniquely placed to make sure those changes work for both the organisation and its people.

In this episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay is joined by People Consultant Charlotte Goulding to explore how HR professionals can help shape successful AI adoption across their organisations.

Charlotte explains why HR should not wait to be invited into conversations about AI and shares how her Five People Foundations Framework can help organisations put the right people foundations in place as work changes.

Together, Fay and Charlotte explore what each of these foundations means in practice, including why traditional job descriptions may no longer be enough, why managers will become even more important and how performance, recognition and HR operations may need to evolve.

Charlotte also explains how HR can help organisations make thoughtful decisions about AI while keeping people, trust and culture at the heart of them.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why HR shouldn't wait to be invited into conversations about AI
• The difference between “AI for HR” and “HR for AI”
• How the Five People Foundations work together
• Why skills and capabilities could become more useful than job descriptions
• How managers can support people through AI-related change
• How performance, recognition and HR operations may need to adapt

Chapters

[0:00] Introduction: Why HR must lead AI adoption

[2:01] Welcome, Charlotte Goulding

[2:24] HR for AI, not just AI for HR

[4:41] From pandemic hero to recent criticism

[6:31] How the Five Foundations framework came about

[10:42] Overview: The Five People Foundations

[11:35] Foundation 1: Identity

[15:34] Example: Values in your AI hiring process

[19:13] Foundation 2: Clarity

[23:28] Applying skills-based roles in HR

[26:31] OKRs and quarterly goal-setting

[28:05] Foundation 3: Enablement

[29:12] Managers: the most overlooked foundation

[36:51] Foundation 4: Recognition

[39:01] Rethinking career progression and rewards

[40:42] Foundation 5: Operations

[42:22] Mapping your most critical processes

[43:38] Working with Charlotte

[45:37] Book recommendations

[47:05] Wrap-up and outro

Useful Links

• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Essential HR Planner
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Complete Charlotte’s free Five People Foundations diagnostic.
• Visit Charlotte's website:The People Thread
• Connect with Charlotte Goulding on LinkedIn

Books Recommended in This Episode

• HR Disrupted by Lucy Adams
• Built for People by Jessica Zwaan

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 164:Becoming More Strategic as an HR Team: Three Ways OKRs Can Help
• Ep 166:The Biggest HR Strategy Mistake and How to Fix It, with Dean Corbett
• Ep 172:How One Company Helped Employees Embrace AI, with Laura Maffucci
• Ep 173:How to Build a Better Workplace Culture (So People Thrive at Work), with Aoife O’Brien

Enjoyed This Episode? Don't Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released - and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Does it feel hard to make time for strategic work when you’re already so busy?

Welcome to Day 5 of The Strategic HR Sprint, a free five-day learning experience designed to help you strengthen your strategic thinking and build your confidence about being strategic.

🧭 Sign up for free at https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint to receive all five episodes, worksheets, AI prompts and resources.

In this final episode, Fay explores how to create and protect time for strategic work, even when your diary is full and urgent tasks keep competing for your attention.

You’ll use the Day 5 worksheet to design your ideal strategic week by considering when you think most clearly, where you can focus and what you could delegate, automate, shorten or stop to create more space.

You’ll also think about the boundaries and accountability that could help you protect your strategic time and follow through on the work you’ve started during the sprint.

By the end of the episode, you’ll have a realistic plan for making strategic work a regular priority.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• How to choose and protect time for strategic work
• Why your energy levels and working environment matter
• Practical ways to create more space in your working week
• How boundaries and accountability can help you follow through
• How to use AI as a thinking partner and accountability coach

Chapters

[00:00] Welcome to Day 5 of The Strategic HR Sprint

[00:48] Why strategic work gets pushed aside

[01:39] Making deliberate space for strategic work

[02:18] Designing your ideal strategic week

[02:40] Working with your energy levels

[03:11] Choosing the right environment

[03:31] Creating more space in your diary

[04:03] Protecting your focus and staying accountable

[04:46] The Essential HR Planner

[05:42] Using AI as a thinking partner and accountability coach

[06:29] One final thought about strategy

[07:31] Sharing your experience of the sprint

[07:54] What happens next on HR Coffee Time

Useful Links

• Join the free Strategic HR Sprint:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint/
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faywallis/
• The Essential HR Planner:https://essentialhrplanner.co.uk/
• Learn about the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/hr-leadership-course/

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 174 | Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint (Struggling to Be Strategic? This Will Help)
• Ep 176 | (Day 1) The Strategic HR Sprint - Building Your Strategic Confidence
• Ep 177 | (Day 2) The Strategic HR Sprint - Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Ep 178 | (Day 3) The Strategic HR Sprint - Finding Your Strategic Focus
• Ep 179 | (Day 4) The Strategic HR Sprint - Look Beneath the Surface

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

When you spot a problem at work, how quickly does your mind start coming up with solutions?

Welcome to Day 4 of The Strategic HR Sprint, a free five-day experience to help you build your confidence and skills in being strategic in your HR role.

👉 Join the sprint for free and access all five episodes, worksheets and resources here: https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint

One of the most important parts of being strategic is taking the time to understand what is really driving a challenge before deciding how to respond.

It is easy to assume that the answer is training, a new policy, more people or better pay. But if you have not explored what is really causing the challenge, you could invest time and energy in an idea that only treats the symptoms.

Getting to the root cause helps you make better decisions about where HR can have the greatest impact and identify actions that are more likely to create lasting improvements.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to stay curious for longer and use a simple technique called the Five Whys to explore the challenge you identified during Day 3.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why understanding the root cause is an important part of being strategic
• How to use the Five Whys technique
• How to avoid treating a symptom instead of the underlying cause
• Why involving people who are close to the challenge can lead to better insights
• How to ask “why” without sounding critical or pushy

Your Day 4 Activity

Today’s worksheet will help you explore the challenge you chose during Day 3 and identify what may be causing it.

You’ll work through the Five Whys, think about where HR could have the biggest influence and note down your first ideas for how the challenge could be addressed.

You might also find it helpful to talk the challenge through with someone who sees or experiences it day to day, as they may notice things that are easy to miss from your perspective.

Once you have completed the worksheet, you can also use the optional AI prompt to suggest practical HR and People initiatives, including quick wins and longer-term ideas.

Before using the prompt, remember to remove or change anything that could identify your organisation or the people involved.

Access all the sprint resources here:

https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint

Chapters

[00:00] – Welcome to Day 4 of The Strategic HR Sprint

[01:09] – A recap of the sprint so far

[01:42] – Why we jump straight to solutions

[02:41] – Staying curious for longer

[03:03] – How the Five Whys works

[03:37] – Finding the right starting point

[04:45] – The employee turnover example

[06:10] – Your Day 4 worksheet

[07:18] – Involving other people

[07:43] – How to ask “why” without sounding critical

[08:51] – Using the optional AI prompt

[09:34] – Protecting confidential information

[10:42] – What to expect from Day 5

Useful Links

• Join the free Strategic HR Sprint:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint/
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/faywallis/
• The Essential HR Planner:https://essentialhrplanner.co.uk/
• Learn about the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/hr-leadership-course/

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 174 | Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint (Struggling to Be Strategic? This Will Help)
• Ep 176 | (Day 1) The Strategic HR Sprint - Building Your Strategic Confidence
• Ep 177 | (Day 2) The Strategic HR Sprint - Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Ep 178 | (Day 3) The Strategic HR Sprint - Finding Your Strategic Focus
• Ep 179 | (Day 4) The Strategic HR Sprint - Look Beneath the Surface
• Ep 180 (Day 5) The Strategic HR Sprint - Making Strategic Work a Priority

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up to the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

When there are dozens of things you could be working on, how do you decide what deserves your attention most?

Welcome to Day 3 of The Strategic HR Sprint, a free five-day learning experience designed to help you strengthen your strategic thinking in just 10–15 minutes each day.

👉 Join The Strategic HR Sprint for free: https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint

In today’s episode, you’ll identify one important challenge to focus on for the rest of the sprint.

Drawing on an insight from Richard Rumelt’s book Good Strategy/Bad Strategy, Fay explains why good strategy isn’t a long list of everything an organisation could do. It requires focus: understanding the challenges being faced and directing time and energy towards the ones that matter most.

You’ll explore different ways to identify a worthwhile challenge, whether that means looking at your organisation’s strategy, reflecting on what you discovered about the external environment during Day 2, reviewing HR data or noticing the frustrations that repeatedly arise in conversations with managers and employees.

Your chosen challenge doesn’t have to affect the entire organisation. If you’re earlier in your HR career, it could be something closer to your own role that you can influence. What matters is choosing an area where you have the opportunity to make a positive difference.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why being strategic includes deciding what not to focus on
• How to identify the challenges behind your organisation’s strategic priorities
• Where to look for ideas if your organisation doesn’t have a clear or up-to-date strategy
• How external trends, HR data and recurring workplace frustrations can highlight important challenges
• The question that can help you decide which challenge to prioritise
• Why there isn’t an optional AI prompt for today’s activity

Chapters

[00:00] Welcome to Day 3 of The Strategic HR Sprint

[01:09] Recapping Days 1 and 2

[01:30] What good strategy looks like in practice

[02:52] Identifying one challenge worth focusing on

[03:42] Using your organisation’s strategy

[04:43] What to do if the strategy isn’t helpful

[05:14] Learning from data and recurring frustrations

[05:34] Choosing the challenge with the greatest potential impact

[06:15] Why today’s activity doesn’t include an AI prompt

[06:38] Share how you’re getting on

Resources Mentioned

Join The Strategic HR Sprint for free: https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint

Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why It Matters by Richard Rumelt

Useful Links

• Join the free Strategic HR Sprint
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn
• The Essential HR Planner
• Learn about the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 174 | Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint (Struggling to Be Strategic? This Will Help)
• Ep 176 | (Day 1) The Strategic HR Sprint - Building Your Strategic Confidence
• Ep 177 | (Day 2) The Strategic HR Sprint - Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Ep 179 | (Day 4) The Strategic HR Sprint - Look Beneath the Surface
• Ep 180 (Day 5) The Strategic HR Sprint - Making Strategic Work a Priority

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up to the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

If you’re taking part in The Strategic HR Sprint, Fay would love to hear how you’re getting on. Leave a comment underneath the YouTube video, share your progress on LinkedIn and tag Fay, or reply to one of your daily sprint emails.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

What does it really mean to be strategic in HR?

One of the biggest shifts you can make is to stop looking only at HR and start paying much more attention to the world your organisation operates in.

In Day 2 of the free five-day Strategic HR Sprint, Fay Wallis explores why strategic HR professionals develop an "outside-in" perspective. Drawing on insights from HR From the Outside In by Dave Ulrich and colleagues, she explains why understanding your industry's challenges, opportunities and emerging trends can help you anticipate what's coming next and make a greater strategic contribution.

You'll also discover a simple habit you can build into your routine to strengthen your commercial awareness, along with an optional AI prompt that can quickly generate an executive briefing about your sector.

Whether you're early in your HR career or already leading a people function, this episode will help you become more curious, more commercially aware and more confident about contributing strategically.

👉 Join The Strategic HR Sprint for free: https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint

Chapters

[00:00] Welcome to Day 2 of The Strategic HR Sprint

[01:09] Why understanding your organisation's world matters

[02:39] The "outside-in" approach from Dave Ulrich & colleagues

[03:47] How external trends shape strategic HR priorities

[04:38] Today's worksheet: building your outside-in awareness

[05:55] Using AI to understand your industry more quickly

[07:10] Building a lasting strategic habit

[08:14] Looking ahead to Day 3

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 174 | Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint (Struggling to Be Strategic? This Will Help)
• Ep 176 | (Day 1) The Strategic HR Sprint - Building Your Strategic Confidence
• Ep 177 | (Day 2) The Strategic HR Sprint - Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Ep 178 | (Day 3) The Strategic HR Sprint - Finding Your Strategic Focus
• Ep 179 | (Day 4) The Strategic HR Sprint - Look Beneath the Surface
• Ep 180 (Day 5) The Strategic HR Sprint - Making Strategic Work a Priority

Useful Links

• Join the free Strategic HR Sprint
• Connect with Fay Wallis on LinkedIn
• The Essential HR Planner
• Learn about theInspiring HR Leadership Programme

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up to the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Want to become more strategic in HR, but not sure where to start? This episode is Day 1 of my free five-day Strategic HR Sprint.

Over five short episodes, I'll help you build your strategic confidence one practical step at a time through bite-sized lessons, downloadable worksheets and optional AI prompts.

👉Join the free Strategic HR Sprint here: https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint

When you sign up, you'll receive 5 daily emails, containing each day's:

• Podcast episode
• Practical worksheet for each day
• Optional AI prompt to deepen your learning

Even if you're discovering this episode months or years after it was first released, you can still sign up and work through the sprint at your own pace.

About this episode

One of the biggest challenges I hear from HR professionals isn't a lack of strategic ability. It's a lack of confidence.

Many people assume strategy is something reserved for CEOs, senior leaders or people with MBAs. But what if you've actually been thinking strategically for years without realising it?

In Day 1, you'll discover a simple way of thinking about strategy that completely changed the way I see it. You'll also complete a practical reflection exercise to help you recognise the strategic strengths you already have, giving you evidence to build your confidence throughout the rest of the sprint.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why so many HR professionals underestimate how strategic they already are
• A simple definition of strategy that makes it much easier to understand
• How everyday experiences can demonstrate strategic thinking
• How to recognise the strategic strengths you've already demonstrated
• How today's worksheet and optional AI prompt can help build your confidence
• Why building evidence of your strengths is the first step towards becoming a more confident strategic HR professional

Chapters

[00:00] Welcome to Day 1 of The Strategic HR Sprint

[02:35] A simple definition of strategy

[03:18] You're already strategic

[04:38] Today's worksheet

[05:44] Examples of strategic thinking in everyday life

[07:24] Using the AI prompt

[09:54] Share your strategic strengths

[10:32] Coming up in Day 2

Resources mentioned in this episode

The Strategy Book by Dr Max McKeown

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 174 | Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint (Struggling to Be Strategic? This Will Help)
• Ep 176 | (Day 1) The Strategic HR Sprint - Building Your Strategic Confidence
• Ep 177 | (Day 2) The Strategic HR Sprint - Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Ep 178 | (Day 3) The Strategic HR Sprint - Finding Your Strategic Focus
• Ep 179 | (Day 4) The Strategic HR Sprint - Look Beneath the Surface
• Ep 180 (Day 5) The Strategic HR Sprint - Making Strategic Work a Priority

Useful links

• Join the free Strategic HR Sprint:https://brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint
• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/faywallis
• Learn more about The Essential HR Planner:https://www.essentialhrplanner.co.uk/
• Find out about the Inspiring HR Leadership Programme:https://www.brightskyhr.co.uk/inspiring-hr-leadership-programme

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up to the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

🎁 Download your free Mid-Year Reset activity here: https://brightskyhr.kit.com/a2ea9eb841

Have you reached the halfway point of the year wondering where the time has gone?

If you'd like to feel more focused, intentional and excited about the months ahead, this episode is for you.

In this solo episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay shares a simple but powerful Mid-Year Reset exercise that will help you pause, reflect and decide where you'd like to focus next, instead of simply drifting through the rest of the year.

Using the simple Stop, Start, Continue framework, you'll reflect on what's helping you, what's holding you back and the changes that could make the biggest difference during the second half of the year.

In this episode you'll discover:

• Why halfway through the year is the perfect time to pause and reflect
• How the Stop, Start, Continue framework can help you gain clarity
• Reflection questions to identify what you should stop doing
• Ideas for what to start doing to have more impact and enjoyment at work
• Why recognising what's already working is just as important as making changes
• How to turn your reflections into practical actions you'll actually follow through on
• Simple ways to finish the year feeling more focused, fulfilled and proud of what you've achieved

Chapters

[00:00] Why a mid-year reset matters

[02:10] Introducing the Stop, Start, Continue framework

[04:00] Stop: What needs to change?

[06:26] Start: What will make the biggest difference?

[07:41] Continue: What's already working well?

[09:28] Turning reflection into action

[10:15] Final thoughts

Useful Links from This Episode

• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Essential HR Planner
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Download your free Mid-Year Reset activity

Other HR Coffee Time episodes you might enjoy

• Ep 125:Create Your Perfect Professional Development Plan in 8 Simple Steps
• Episode 85:6 Questions to Prioritise What Matters for Your HR Career
• Episode 80:How Quarterly Reviews Can Help You Thrive in Your HR Career
• Episode 170:Constant Interruptions at Work? 4 Ways to Take Back Control

If you're enjoying HR Coffee Time, I'd be so grateful if you could follow the show, leave a rating or review, or share this episode with another HR or People professional who might enjoy it too.

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up to the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Registration is now open for my Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint, and I'd love you to join me!

If you've ever wished you felt more confident about being strategic in HR, this free sprint is for you.

Starting on Monday 13th July 2026, you'll receive a short daily video (or audio if you prefer to listen), a practical worksheet and an optional AI prompt to help you build your strategic HR skills. Each day's activity takes just 10 to 15 minutes, making it easy to fit into a busy working week.

In this special bonus episode, I'll explain why I created the sprint, what you'll learn over the five days and how you can sign up.

In this episode you'll learn:

• Why so many HR professionals find it difficult to be strategic.
• What's included in the Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint.
• How the sprint will help you build your confidence with strategic thinking.
• Why each day's activities take just 10 to 15 minutes.
• How you can complete the sprint with a colleague or your HR team.

Join the Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint

Sign up here: Strategic HR Sprint

The sprint includes:

• A short daily video or audio lesson.
• A practical worksheet every day.
• An optional AI prompt to deepen your learning.
• Activities that take just 10 to 15 minutes a day.

The sprint begins on Monday 13th July 2026, and I'd love you to join me!

Podcast Chapters

00:00 Welcome

00:19 Why so many HR professionals struggle to be strategic

02:29 Introducing the Strategic HR Sprint

03:22 What's included in the sprint

04:17 How to join the sprint

04:49 Take part with a colleague or your HR team

06:01 Thank you for listening

Helpful HR Links

Join the sprint

Connect with Fay on LinkedIn

Questions? Email Fay at: hello@brightskyhr.co.uk

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 176 | (Day 1) The Strategic HR Sprint - Building Your Strategic Confidence
• Ep 177 | (Day 2) The Strategic HR Sprint - Seeing the Bigger Picture
• Ep 178 | (Day 3) The Strategic HR Sprint - Finding Your Strategic Focus
• Ep 179 | (Day 4) The Strategic HR Sprint - Look Beneath the Surface

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Many organisations want a positive workplace culture, but creating one is easier said than done.

How do you know what your culture is really like? What role do leaders play? And why do some organisations create environments where people thrive, while others struggle with engagement, retention, and performance?

In this episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay is joined by workplace culture and leadership expert Aoife O'Brien, founder of Happier at Work and author of the bestselling book Thriving Talent: How Great Leaders Drive Performance, Engagement and Retention.

Aoife shares her Thriving Talent framework and practical advice to help organisations create cultures where people can thrive. Together, Fay and Aoife explore psychological safety, leadership, values, strengths, employee needs, and practical ways to improve the experience of work for everyone.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• The framework Aoife uses to help organisations create cultures where people thrive
• Why psychological safety is the foundation of a thriving workplace
• Why culture is not HR's responsibility alone
• The role leaders play in shaping workplace culture
• How to identify what your workplace culture is really like today
• Practical ways to involve employees in shaping culture
• Why many organisations have "accidental leaders" - and the impact this can have on engagement and retention
• How HR can build the business case for investing in leadership development
• Why values, strengths, and employee needs play such an important role in helping people thrive at work
• Practical ways to identify your strengths and understand what helps you do your best work

Chapters

[00:00] - Why workplace culture matters

[01:34] - Introducing Aoife O'Brien

[04:14] - Why Aoife wrote Thriving Talent

[07:09] - The Thriving Talent framework explained

[10:00] - The research behind the framework

[13:55] - Why psychological safety matters

[14:27] - Is workplace culture really HR's responsibility?

[17:28] - How to define the culture you want

[19:15] - The challenge of accidental leaders

[25:27] - Making the business case for leadership development

[30:03] - What helps people thrive at work?

[35:22] - Values, needs and strengths

[39:27 ]- Book recommendations

[40:44] - How to connect with Aoife

[41:49] - Closing and book giveaway reminder

Special Offer for HR Coffee Time Listeners

Aoife has kindly arranged a 10% discount on her book, Thriving Talent: How Great Leaders Drive Performance, Engagement and Retention. Use this link to access the discount.

Useful Links

• Connect with Aoife O'Brien on LinkedIn
• Visit Aoife's Happier at Work website
• Learn more about the Thriving Talent book
• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Essential HR Planner
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme

Books Recommended In This Episode

• Thriving Talent: How Great Leaders Drive Performance, Engagement and Retention - Aoife O'Brien
• Insight: How to succeed by seeing yourself clearly - Dr Tasha Eurich
• Dare to Lead - Brené Brown
• Your Best Meeting Ever - Rebecca Hinds

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 47:Discovering your values to help your HR Career, with Zoe Hawkins
• Ep 107: The Impact of Imposter Syndrome at Work and How to Tackle It Head-On, with Aoife O'Brien
• Ep 136: How to shape a winning workplace culture when you work in HR, with Annabelle Lawson and Paula Brockwell
• Ep 114: What Workplace Culture Is, How to Measure It, and a Surprising Way to Improve It, with Arend Boersema
• Ep 76: HR Insider tips on how to create an amazing remote working culture, with Claire Cathcart

Enjoyed This Episode? Don't Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released - and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Laura Maffucci has played a key role in helping her organisation embrace AI. The surprising part? She doesn't actually like AI.

In this episode of HR Coffee Time, Laura, Head of HR at G-P, shares her honest perspective on AI, how her organisation has approached adoption, and the practical lessons she's learned along the way.

We discuss everything from creating AI champions and governance processes to helping employees feel comfortable experimenting with AI. Laura also shares her thoughts on job loss fears, the importance of human oversight, and why the reality of AI at work can be very different from what many leaders expect.

Whether your organisation is already embracing AI or you're just starting to think about what it might mean for your workforce, this conversation is packed with practical insights and thought-provoking ideas.

In This Episode, You'll Learn:

• Why Laura has mixed feelings about AI despite using it extensively at work
• How GP approached AI adoption across the organisation
• The role of AI champions and internal advocates
• Creating psychological safety around AI
• How to encourage experimentation without creating fear
• The importance of governance, security and guardrails
• Why prompting skills matter
• The risks of relying too heavily on AI outputs
• The growing importance of discernment and critical thinking
• The disconnect between executive expectations and employees' experiences of AI
• Practical examples of how AI is being used within HR and across the business

Chapters

[00:00] Why I Finally Decided to Cover AI

[01:57] Meet Laura Maffucci

[02:51] Laura's Surprising View of AI

[04:45] How AI Is Being Used at G-P

[05:37] The AI Council and Governance

[06:40] AI Champions, Training and Adoption

[09:09] What's Had the Biggest Impact?

[10:05] Finding Your AI Champions

[11:33] Addressing Fear of Job Loss

[11:47] Creating Psychological Safety Around AI

[13:41] The Disconnect Between Leaders and Employees

[16:06] The Number One Skill – Discernment

[16:27] Cautionary Tale

[17:19] The Right Way to Introduce AI

[17:54] The Benefits of AI Adoption

[18:57] Using Gemini Gems and AI Workflows

[23:13] Creating AI Personas for Senior Leaders

[24:17] AI Security and Confidential Information

[26:15] Book Recommendation: Dare to Lead

[28:13] Key Takeaways from the Conversation

Useful Links

• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Essential HR Planner
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Connect with Laura on LinkedIn
• G-P article:Why your best 2026 AI strategy is still human

Helpful HR Coffee Time episodes to listen to next

• Ep 181: HR in the AI Era - The 5 Foundations Every HR Leader Needs (with Charlotte Goulding)
• Ep 171: How to Build Trust & Get Buy-In Through Brilliant Employee Communication

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up to the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

You can design the best HR strategy, introduce brilliant benefits, or roll out an important change - but if people do not understand it, engage with it, or take action, none of it matters.

That is why employee communication sits right at the heart of your impact in HR.

In this episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay is joined by Nik Nawaaz, Head of Employee Communications at Barnett Waddingham (now part of Howden) to unpack exactly how HR professionals can communicate in a way that builds trust, gets buy-in, and encourages people to take action - whether that is using their benefits, completing an engagement survey, preparing for a performance review, or navigating organisational change.

With over 20 years of experience in employee communications, Nik shares practical, immediately actionable advice — no jargon, no fluff.

In This Episode, You’ll Learn:

• Why employee communication is the “connective tissue” of an organisation
• Why HR can sometimes feel like a faceless department - and how to change that
• The common mistake HR professionals make when writing employee communications
• Why your message needs to answer “So what?” within the first few seconds
• How to shift from explaining features to showing benefits
• Why phrases like “HR is pleased to announce” or “Please be advised” can stop people engaging
• How to make your communication feel more human, conversational and direct
• Why reading your message aloud can help you spot corporate language
• How to use Microsoft Word’s read-aloud feature to improve scripts and written communication
• Why a one-size-fits-all approach rarely works for benefits communication
• How to tailor messages for different groups and generations in your workforce
• Why line managers are so important when you want messages to land
• How a simple manager toolkit can make communication more effective
• Why listening for the first five minutes of a meeting can help build trust
• How to communicate during times of fear, uncertainty and change
• Why silence can lead people to create their own “horror story”
• How to be honest when you do not yet have all the answers
• Why storytelling and real-world proof can be more persuasive than project updates
• Why employee communication needs support from across the organisation - not just HR

Chapters

00:00 - When great HR work goes unnoticed

03:24 - What employee comms really means

04:20 - Why HR can feel "faceless" — and how to fix it

06:19 - The #1 mistake: writing for yourself, not your audience

08:49 - Quick win: delete your opening line

09:49 - Drop the corporate speak — write like a human

11:35 - The Word trick that makes your writing sound natural

13:04 - How to get people to actually use their benefits

17:30 - Tailoring messages for different generations

20:58 - Line managers as your communication allies

22:59 - The "First Five" technique

24:01 - Communicating through change and uncertainty

25:58 - Use storytelling, not project updates

28:06 - Resource recommendation: Simon Sinek's Golden Circle

Useful Links

• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn
• Learn about Fay’s Essential HR Planner
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Take Fay’s freeHR Leadership Impact Assessment.
• Connect with Nik (Nikolas) Nawaaz on LinkedIn
• Find out more about Barnett Waddingham’s employee communications work
• Watch Simon Sinek’s TED Talk:How Great Leaders Inspire Action

Helpful Episode to Listen to Next

If you enjoyed this episode and would like more support with writing clear, effective communication at work, listen to:

Ep 32: How to write work emails that get results, with Kim Arnold

Kim shares brilliant advice that complements Nik’s tips in this episode, especially if you want to make your emails clearer, more persuasive and easier for people to act on.

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Are constant interruptions at work stopping you from getting through your most important tasks?

If you work in HR or a People role, you’ll know how quickly your day can be taken over by “have you got a minute?” moments - making it difficult to focus on the work that really matters.

In this episode of HR Coffee Time, Fay Wallis shares practical ways to protect your time, reduce distractions and create more space for focused work, helping you step up with more confidence and control in your role.

You’ll learn how to:

• Set clear boundaries without feeling unhelpful
• Reduce interruptions across your organisation
• Create uninterrupted time for deep work
• Stay focused on your most important priorities

This episode is designed to support HR and People professionals who want to feel more confident, effective and in control of their time at work.

Chapters

[00:00] Do you get interrupted at work?

[00:16] Interruptions – a big time management problem

[00:55] Why HR gets pulled in

[01:35] Episode goal and boundaries

[01:56] Welcome and host intro

[02:33] Four tips overview

[03:00] Tip one: open door hours

[03:35] Scripts and signage

[04:06] Red sign boundary lesson

[05:07] Tip two: company focus time

[06:15] Deep work explained

[07:11] No meeting Wednesday example

[07:28] Tip three: working meetings

[10:21] Tip four: block a deep work day

[12:26] Recap and next steps

Useful Links from This Episode:

Connect with Fay on LinkedIn

Learn about Fay’s Essential HR Planner

Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme

Take Fay’s free HR Leadership Impact Assessment.

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 7:What to Do When You Don’t Have Enough Hours in the Day
• Ep 45:6 Ways to Stop Procrastinating & Find Time for Important Projects at Work
• Ep 52:Two Ideas to Help You Bounce Back From a Tough Day at Work
• Ep 67:How to Get on Top of Email Overwhelm When You’re in a Busy HR Role
• Ep 138:Can’t Find Time for Strategic Work in HR? 5 Tips to Help

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee

Have you wondered what ‘being strategic’ actually looks like? In this episode, you’ll hear a real, step-by-step example of what being strategic can look like in your day-to-day work.

Host, Fay Wallis, is joined by Harriet Mewis, Head of People and Development, who shares how she spotted a small pattern in employee behaviour – and used it to uncover a much bigger issue affecting the business.

What makes this conversation so powerful is how practical it is. You’ll hear how being strategic doesn’t require a big budget, a senior job title, or complicated frameworks. It starts with curiosity, observation, and asking thoughtful questions.

By the end of the episode, you’ll have a much clearer sense of how you can apply this way of thinking in your own role – in a way that feels realistic and achievable.

Chapters

[00:00] Introduction with guest host Sarah Archer

[01:00] Why “being strategic” can feel vague and frustrating

[01:24] Introducing Harriet and her approach to strategy

[02:14] What being strategic actually means in practice

[03:02] Beginning of the interview with Harriet & Fay

[04:18] Defining what ‘being strategic’ means

[05:48] Why you can be strategic in any role

[07:22] Harriet’s example of being strategic in her role

[21:30] Learning about other departments & building trust

[23:39] Becoming an ‘apprentice’ for the day

[27:35] Introducing Lean Six Sigma thinking

[34:46] Harriet’s book recommendation

[37:12] Final reflections & close

Useful Links from This Episode

• Connect with Fay on LinkedIn
• Connect with Harriet Mewis on LinkedIn
• Connect with Sarah Archer on LinkedIn
• Listen to Sarah’s Podcast – Unstuck & Unstoppable
• Learn about Fay’s Essential HR Planner
• Learn about Fay’s Inspiring HR Leadership Programme
• Take Fay’s freeHR Leadership Impact Assessment.

Helpful Episodes to Listen to Next

• Ep 166:The Biggest HR Strategy Mistake – And How to Fix It, with Dean Corbett
• Ep 164:Becoming More Strategic as an HR Team – 3 Ways OKRs Can Help
• Ep 163:3 Ways to Prove You’re Strategic in Your HR Leadership Job Interview
• Ep 108:HR Leadership – How to Create a Powerful One-Page Strategy, with Dr Max McKeown
• Ep 98:HR Insider Insights – How to Create a Powerful People Strategy for an SME, with Kelly Vincent

Enjoyed This Episode? Don’t Miss the Next One!

Sign up for the free weekly HR Coffee Time email to be notified each time a new episode is released – and get free career tips, tools, and resources.

Exclusive offer from HR Coffee Time’s sponsor, C-me

HR Coffee Time listeners can book C-me’s 90-minute High Performing Team Workshop, with five High Performance profiles and a Team Wheel, for £499 (saving more than £2,500). Ideal for a Christmas team day or end-of-year get-together. Places are limited, so find out more and apply at https://colour-profiling.com/hrcoffee