By Nicky Jolley, Founder and MD, HR2day Limited
When people ask me what I’ve learnt after more than sixteen years of running HR2day, they usually expect the answer to be something about employment law.
It isn’t.
Employment law matters, of course. Businesses need to stay compliant and legislation continues to evolve. But if there’s one lesson that has stayed with me throughout the years, it’s that people are remarkably predictable. Not because everyone behaves the same, but because human behaviour follows patterns. Once you understand those patterns, you stop reacting to problems and start recognising them much earlier.
One of the biggest misconceptions about HR is that our job starts when something goes wrong. In reality, it shouldn’t go wrong if you have the right foundations in place.
Take grievances for example. Over the years, I’ve found that formal grievances rarely uncover just one issue. They often reveal a chain of smaller moments that, on their own, didn’t seem significant enough to act on. The problem is, by the time a concern becomes formal, the issue itself has often grown far beyond the original matter.
I don’t believe the most valuable question is, “How do we deal with this grievance?” A far better question is, “What allowed it to become necessary?”
For me, that’s where good leadership begins.
One thing I’ve noticed is that many leaders spend their time looking for certainty before taking action. This is understandable as nobody wants to overreact, but people rarely communicate in neat, obvious ways. Often, the signs are much more subtle. A change in behaviour doesn’t always mean something is wrong, but it can be a signal that something has shifted and is worth understanding. And this is an opportunity to become curious rather than make assumptions.
Curiosity is probably the most underrated leadership skill there is.
The best leaders I’ve worked with don’t have all the answers. They simply ask better questions. They create environments where people feel comfortable being honest before frustration turns into conflict. They don’t assume silence means everything is fine, and they don’t see difficult conversations as something to fear, they see them as part of building trust.
Perhaps the biggest surprise for many business owners is that good HR isn’t just compliant paperwork and records. Policies, contracts and procedures matter because they provide clarity and consistency, but they don’t build relationships. People do. The conversations managers have every day will shape your business culture far more than any document ever could.
At HR2day, we’re often brought into organisations when an issue has already become formal, but most of the work I’m proudest of never reaches that stage. It’s helping a manager have a conversation they were nervous about. Giving a business owner the confidence to deal with an issue early, or helping leaders understand not just what happened, but why. That’s the work that strengthens teams in the long term.
If there’s one thought I’d leave you with, it’s this: don’t judge the health of your organisation by the absence of problems. Judge it by whether your people feel able to talk about small problems before they become big ones.
After sixteen years and thousands of conversations, that’s still one of the most useful pieces of advice I give to clients. You won’t build a strong team by avoiding the truth, but by creating cultures where those conversations happen early, openly and with trust.
It’s always worth paying attention to the conversations that are, or are not, happening in your own organisation, and staying curious enough to catch issues before they escalate.
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