When HR isn't on your side: How to heal and move on
“I can't believe you worked in HR,” she said it at the end of our session, half-laughing, half-disbelieving.
She'd just been through months and months of what I can only describe as a sustained, unfair process at work. It eventually ended with her leaving. Not because she wanted to, but because staying had become impossible and the working relationship had completely broken down. Her confidence was broken and she'd lost faith in HR professionals as a senior HR professional had been involved in every meeting she'd sat in during this process.
By the time we spoke, she hadn't really talked to anyone who understood what had actually happened. Not the technical side, not the emotional weight of it, not what it actually feels like to sit across a table from people who are supposed to support you and realise they aren't on your side.
We had an in depth conversation of all that happened and did an exercise to help her step outside the process entirely and something shifted, which she described as a massive weight lifting off her shoulders.
HR can be good, but it can also be complicit
With my experience I know how good HR operates, and I know what it looks like when it doesn't.
In some organisations, HR genuinely acts as a fair, independent function. It advises managers properly, applies process correctly, and considers the human being in front of it.
In others, HR cuts corners. It protects the organisation at the expense of the individual. It runs processes that look procedurally correct on paper but aren't fair in practice. This doesn't just happen to people outside of HR, but it happens within HR teams too. If organisations are willing to cut corners with their own HR professionals, people who know employment law, who understand process, who know exactly what should be happening, what does that tell you about how they treat everyone else?
So many people people going through a disciplinary, a PIP, or a redundancy have no idea whether the process is being run correctly and that's the gap Klar exists to fill.
You are allowed to talk about what happened to you
If you've been through a disciplinary, a PIP, a redundancy, a grievance, or anything else that left you feeling ground down by a process that should have been fair, you don't have to carry it alone.
Talking to someone who actually understands HR, from the inside, makes a difference. Not to relitigate the past, but to make sense of it, process it, and move forward feeling less like something happened to you and more like you understand exactly what it was.
If you're ready to talk, this is what my coaching package looks like or you can book a discovery call here.
Flexible Working Refusals Are Rising. Here's What the Data Reveals and What's Changing
A new report from Pregnant Then Screwed makes for uncomfortable reading. Since the Employment Relations (Flexible Working) Act came into force in April 2024, flexible working refusals have not fallen. They have risen. For the groups who need flexibility most.
Single parents have seen a 109% increase in rejections. Disabled mothers, 65%. And the consequences go beyond disappointment. 8% of single parents and 10% of parents with a disability have left their jobs following a refusal. These are not abstract statistics. These are people pushed out of employment because an employer said no and faced very little challenge in doing so.
How did we get here?
The 2024 Act was a genuine step forward. It gave employees the right to request flexible working from day one, removed the previous 26-week service requirement, and allowed two statutory requests in any 12-month period. On paper, stronger protections. In practice, refusals are climbing.
Employers can still reject a flexible working request on one of eight statutory business grounds, including cost, performance impact, or inability to reorganise work. The legislation changed who could ask and when. It did not fundamentally change an employer's ability to say no.
What is changing in 2027?
The Employment Rights Act 2025 will raise the bar for refusals, expected to take effect from 2027. The eight business grounds remain, but employers will only be able to refuse if their decision is considered reasonable. They will also be required to explain their decision in writing.
That matters. Right now, employers can refuse without having to justify whether that refusal is proportionate. From 2027, a vague preference for office presence is unlikely to be enough. They will need to demonstrate a legitimate operational reason and show they have genuinely considered alternatives.
It is progress, but 2027 is a long way away for anyone navigating a refusal right now.
What can you do if your request has been refused?
If your flexible working request has been turned down, the first thing to check is whether the employer followed the correct process. They must consult with you before refusing and complete the process within two months. A refusal must cite one of the eight statutory grounds.
If they have not followed the process, or the reason given does not hold up, you have options. That might mean challenging the decision internally, raising a grievance, or understanding whether the refusal could amount to indirect discrimination, particularly if you are a parent, carer, or disabled employee.
You should also look at whether the employer has allowed comparable colleagues to work flexibly. Inconsistent application creates significant discrimination risk, and it is worth knowing where you stand before you decide how to respond.
Where to get support
Navigating a flexible working refusal on your own is stressful, especially when you are already managing the pressures that made you need flexibility in the first place. If you are not sure whether the reason given stacks up, or you want to understand your options before taking any next steps, I can help.
Book a session here to talk it through or you need help to grasp it or challenge it in preparation for an appeal, or download my Flexible Working Toolkit for practical guidance on understanding your rights and preparing your request. If you are dealing with maternity-related issues alongside a flexible working refusal, my Maternity Toolkit explains the support available and how to challenge unfair treatment.
Moving on from a Workplace Grievance or PIP: How Coaching can help you reclaim your Career Confidence
If you have recently been through a PIP, a disciplinary, a grievance, or a redundancy, you are probably not looking for a framework, but for someone who gets it.
These processes are designed to feel formal and procedural, and for most people that is exactly how they experience them from the outside. From the inside, they are exhausting, consuming, and deeply personal in a way that nobody really prepares you for. You go through the meetings, you get the outcome, and then you are supposed to carry on. Go back to your desk, or start the job search, or move to the next role, and most people do just carry on, or at least try to carry on. What they also carry, often without realising it for a while, is a version of themselves that is a bit quieter than before, a bit more hesitant and maybe not quite as confident as before.
That is what a knock to your confidence actually looks like in practice. It is not always dramatic, but you may be second-guessing a decision you would previously have made without thinking twice. It is the way your stomach dips slightly whenever a manager asks to have a quick word, and it can also the job application you started and then closed, because you could not quite make yourself sound as good on paper as you used to believe you were.
Coaching does not fix those things by telling you they are irrational, because they are not irrational. They are a completely understandable response to what you went through. What it does is help you examine them properly, understand where they are coming from, and work out what you actually want to do next.
A PIP tells you your performance is not good enough. Even if you disagreed with every word of it, even if you hit every target and came out the other side, some part of that lands. Coaching gives you the space to separate what was happening in that workplace, with that manager, in that particular moment, from what you are actually capable of.
A disciplinary, even one where you are cleared, leaves a residue. You were investigated and your conduct was questioned. For some people that is the first time something like that has ever happened to them, after years or even decades of a clean career, and the dissonance between who they know themselves to be and what that process implied about them is genuinely hard to sit with. This is something we work on directly.
A grievance is complicated whether you raised it or had one raised against you. If you raised it, you did something brave. You named something, put it in writing, and then had to keep showing up while it was investigated. Even when the outcome is the right one, it rarely feels like a clean resolution, and if one was raised against you, you may have felt blindsided, frustrated and had almost nowhere to put any of that. Either way, there is often something unresolved that does not just dissolve when the process closes.
Redundancy is its own particular kind of difficult. Logically, you know it is a business decision. Emotionally, being told your role no longer exists can feel like being told you are no longer needed, and those two things are very hard to keep separate, particularly when you are trying to sell yourself to the next employer while still processing the last experience.
What the coaching I offer actually involves is worth being specific about, because I think people sometimes assume coaching is just someone asking how you feel. That’s not now it works, and instead we work on what you want, not just what happened. That means getting really clear on where your confidence has taken a hit and what beliefs about yourself have formed as a result, challenging the ones that are not serving you, and building a much more accurate picture of your strengths and what you bring. We use structured goal-setting to give the sessions direction, and we work on the specific situations where you feel your confidence most, whether that is speaking up, managing up, interviewing, or just getting through a working week without dreading it.
The coaching I offer runs across three sessions over 4-6 weeks depending on what we need to work with and how much time you need between sessions to get there. It’s 3 sessions and includes check-in time between sessions for when something comes up or you just need a sounding board before the next one. I hold an Advanced Certificate in Life Coaching accredited by the Association for Coaching, alongside my CIPD Level 7 and Mental Health First Aider qualification, and over a decade of HR and employee relations experience. This means I am not just a coach who has read about workplace processes. I have spent over a decade managing them, which means I understand exactly what is happening on both sides of the table.
If any of this sounds like where you are right now, I would love to talk. You can find out more about the coaching package here and also read testimonials from clients I have coached, or book a free discovery call if you want to speak before you commit to anything.
Signs Your PIP is Unfair: What HR and Management Should Be Doing Differently
I spoke with someone recently who had been on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) for nearly a year. There were no warnings beforehand, no informal conversations, no attempt to address any concerns outside of a formal process. They were simply placed on a PIP.
Throughout that year, the objectives kept shifting. What was expected of them changed repeatedly, with no clear rationale and no consistent measure of what passing actually looked like. This individual even struggled to see how these objectives were achievable and worked day and night trying to meet them. One of the measures written into the PIP was positive feedback from their peers and stakeholders.
They got positive feedback from everyone, but management appeared to disagree. That's what they said, as it later came out that management had been having a laugh about this and found it funny - the individual saw actual written evidence that management was trying to get rid of them. HR was in the room throughout every meeting and was involved in the process from start to finish.
In the end, this person left which had been the point all along. It was on their own favourable terms, most likely when management couldn’t sustain or justify this unreasonable PIP any longer.
Even though I only have one side of the story, I struggle to see how HR was playing a neutral or constructive role here, because if they had been, it would not have gone this far. How this impacted the employee and still sits in them is proof of this.
The Real Role of HR in a Performance Process: Neutrality vs. Complicity
A PIP is a formal process and it carries real weight for the person on the receiving end. Used properly, it can be a genuine tool for supporting someone who is struggling. Used badly, it becomes a paper trail towards an exit.
Even if this mainly falls back on management, HR's job in a PIP is not just to sit in meetings and take notes. They are there to make sure the process is fair, which means working with management to set objectives that are realistic, specific and measurable. It means advising on what reasonable timelines look like - being on a PIP for nearly a year is not reasonable! It means asking whether informal support was offered before anything formal began, and generally challenging management when something looks off.
If an employee's stakeholders and peers are consistently saying they are doing well, and management is consistently saying the opposite, that is a red flag. HR should be asking questions, not facilitating the next meeting. It’s important everyone is on the same page in a process like this.
Challenging management is not always easy, and I have worked alongside HR professionals who were doing their best under real pressure from above, but there is a difference between being constrained and being complicit. Sitting in a room while someone is being pushed out through a process designed to look like performance management is not a neutral act.
Some people always argue that HR is there to protect the business, and I don’t disagree, but you are not protecting the business by managing someone out through a flawed process like this. It’s not just ethically wrong, it’s commercially reckless and exposes a company to claims of unfair dismissal and constructive dismissal.
Moving the Goalposts: When a PIP Crosses the Line Into Workplace Bullying
What this person experienced was not performance management, but bullying dressed up in a process.
Bullying at work does not always look like shouting or aggression. It can look like a process that keeps moving the goalposts or being told repeatedly that you are failing when the evidence says otherwise. It can look like a year of your working life spent feeling scrutinised, undermined and disposable, while the people responsible are finding it funny.
This is why some people say they do not trust HR. Not because HR professionals are inherently untrustworthy, but because experiences like this one exist, and they leave a mark. Also, this person has had HR involved in every single part of the process in every meeting, so they will associate HR with this process regardless of how HR has acted during this outside of the meetings.
Navigating an Unfair PIP: How to Protect Yourself and Know Your Rights
This is exactly why I set up Klar. This person deserved support from the start and they deserved someone who could have looked at that process with them, helped them understand what a fair PIP should actually look like, and given them the information they needed to make informed decisions about their options.
If you are on a PIP and something does not feel right, whether the objectives feel unachievable, the goalposts keep moving, or the whole thing feels less like support and more like pressure to leave, I can help you understand what a fair process should look like and what questions you should be asking as well as what documentation you are entitled to.
I also have a PIP toolkit available, which walks through what a proper PIP process should involve and what to look out for if yours does not match that standard.
If you are going through a PIP that doesn’t seem fair, or struggling with something else at work that you’re unsure of how to approach, book in a session with me here.
Signed Off Sick During a Disciplinary? How to Protect Your Mental Health
When everything at work is happening to you at once, it is hard to see what you can actually do anything about. This is where one of my clients was a few weeks ago. Suspended, multiple processes running at the same time, signed off sick and emails arriving from their employer that were making them anxious just by landing in the inbox.
Through our coaching sessions, they started to figure out what was actually in their control. Not the outcome or what their employer did next, but how they were spending their days and how they were responding to the situation.
They decided to deal with emails on their own terms. Not ignore them, but open them when they felt ready rather than the moment they arrived. They were automatically moved into a separate folder and they gave themselves a time in the week for anything related to the situation, and outside of that it did not get to take over everything else. This may sound like a small thing to, but it took a massive weight of the client’s shoulders.
It also helped them to have someone who understands the processes and why the employer is doing what they’re doing and communicating the way they are doing. Being told that something is just process may not always be helpful, but it’s there and even if it feels like it’s taking over you, for some it helps to think it’s just stuff that’s there running in the background while you do your best to focus on you, what you’re good at, what skills to improve on, get out and go for walks, as well as seeing people that make you happy and who are not attached to this awful process.
They kept doing the things that kept them well. Not because it fixed anything, but because it meant they were in a better state to deal with what came next and it made them feel more like themselves and like getting their identity back rather than being the process at work.
None of it changed what their employer was doing, but it changed how they were experiencing it, and that is not a small thing.
If you are in a similar position and want to work out what you can actually do, I offer confidence coaching for people who are trying to move on from difficult situations at work, and if you are going through a process that seems unmanageable, let’s have a chat as I may be able to help you. Book a discovery call here.
On a final note, if you are going through something similar, there will be days that are worse than others while going through a process, but we also have bad days when life seems to be going great and they all pass, but it helps to accept it knowing things will become better.
Your Job Is Not Your Identity: Recovering From Workplace Trauma
The job market has been brutal for a while now with redundancies that feel rushed and poorly handled and disciplinary processes that leave people shaken, sometimes after decades of unblemished careers. Grievances that drag on, take over your headspace, and make you dread Monday mornings. These things are happening to a lot of people, and yet when they happen to you, it can feel completely isolating.
I set up Klar to support employees navigating exactly these kinds of situations. The HR support side helps people understand their rights, their options, and what to do next. The coaching I now offer does something different but just as important, it helps people separate what happened at work from who they are.
When you go through a formal process at work, especially for the first time, it gets inside your head in a way that is hard to explain to anyone who hasn't been through it. You replay conversations, you second-guess yourself, you wonder what you could have done differently, or whether you were actually ever any good at your job, or whether this makes you unemployable. A redundancy that felt hasty and disorganised can leave you convinced that you must have done something wrong, even when the evidence says otherwise. A disciplinary or grievance can knock your confidence so much that the person who walked into that meeting room doesn't always quite come back out.
I know what this feels like because I have lived it. My whole team went through a redundancy that was poorly managed, with very little empathy and very little room to present a case to avoid redundancy. While our consultations were still happening, management were advertising new roles replacing our team and openly excited about bringing in a brand new one. It was disorganised, it was rushed, and it was deeply difficult to be part of, especially as it seemed they couldn't wait to get rid of us. None of that reflected anything about how good our team was at our jobs. The process reflected the people running it and not the people going through it. That distinction matters enormously, and it is often the hardest one to hold onto.
I offer coaching for people who are trying to find their way back to that distinction.
If you have been through a redundancy, you may be quietly terrified it will happen again. You may be going into job applications or interviews carrying doubt you didn't have before, or struggling to talk about yourself with any confidence. If you have been through a disciplinary or grievance, you may be trying to reconcile the person you know yourself to be with what was said in that process. These sessions are for you.
My coaching is focused and practical and most importantly, non-judgemental. The first thing you'll know when you speak to me is that even if I don't know you, I won't define you by what happened at work. We work across three sessions, and we work on what matters most: rebuilding your confidence, separating the process from your professional identity, and making sure that a difficult chapter in what is likely a long career doesn't get to define the rest of it. A redundancy, a formal process, even a really painful period at work, these are moments. They are not you, but you can reflect on them, learn from them where that is useful, and still walk away knowing they don't tell the whole story.
If that resonates, I would love to hear from you. Contact me here so we can arrange the next steps.
Commuting to a Teams Call? Why It’s Time to Challenge ‘Performance by Presence’
I have worked remotely, I have worked hybrid, and I have worked in offices. What I want is flexibility and to be trusted to do my job.
I do not have a problem with offices when there is a genuine reason to be there. If I am needed for a training session, a brainstorm, or a conversation that is better face to face, I am happy to go in. What does not make sense, and sometimes makes me want to pull my hair out, is sitting in an open plan space with everyone's heads down, scrambling around for a meeting room so I can take a Teams call in private, commuting in to do exactly what I could have done from my kitchen table, but with added noise and less focus.
The places I have worked best have trusted me to get on with it. My output was measured on what I delivered, not where I was sitting when I delivered it. The difference in how that feels, in terms of motivation, focus, and just basic respect, is significant.
I once had a hybrid role where we were trusted to manage our own office and home days. I set Mondays and Fridays as my home days, with the understanding that I would obviously be flexible if I was needed for anything. These were the quietest days, the days I caught up with colleagues in other locations, so being in an office where I would end up in meeting rooms on my own all day made no sense. The response from my manager was, "You can't just sit at home on Mondays and Fridays." Nothing about whether the work would get done or who it would impact. Just the assumption that I was stretching my weekend by working this way.
That response stuck with me, because it revealed exactly what a lot of return-to-office mandates are really about. It is not about collaboration or culture, as they would like us to believe, but about visibility, and the discomfort some managers feel when they cannot see you. To be perfectly honest, it also exposes poor leadership, because it is far easier to keep an eye on people than to actually measure what they are producing.
This is happening at a time when a lot of people feel they cannot push back. The job market is insecure, redundancies are happening across sectors, and workers are quietly aware that they are not in a strong position to make demands. Some employers know this, and they are using it with flexible working being one of the first things that gets pulled back when the power shifts, and right now, for many people, it has shifted. Surely, it’s cheaper to pay less in rent somewhere smaller or not have people in the office all the time??
I have also spoken to people whose bonus structure weights office attendance above performance. You could be delivering strong results from home and earning less than someone who commutes in every day and contributes far less. That is not a productivity strategy, but control and insecurity.
During the pandemic, most of us proved that working from home can increase productivity. The concern at the time was the minority who struggled with it. Trust me though when I say the person who is not productive at home is probably checking football scores or reading the news when they are in the office too. The answer to that is a management conversation, not a blanket policy that punishes everyone. Treat people like adults, manage the ones who need managing, and stop using collective punishment to paper over weak leadership.
What Your Maternity Policy doesn't tell You
I speak to so many people who go on maternity leave with a policy document which covers the statutory stuff: the dates, the pay, the notice periods, and the information is usually correct, but then that’s it, you’re off to have a baby.
It won't tell you what to do when your manager goes quiet during your leave, or how to think about returning to a role that feels like it belongs to someone else now. It probably won't say that it's completely normal to feel uncertain about going back even when you were sure you wanted to, and it won’t tell you how you and your life changes and that you’ll most likely return to work as a different person.
Maternity leave is one of the biggest career transitions there is. It's not just a period of absence and going back to work is not just a couple of weeks of getting adjusted either. It's a completely new way of working alongside a whole new way of living.
The Klar Maternity Guide is free to download for the next couple of months. It covers the practical stuff too, written to sound less like a policy and with more focus on the person than the process.
I cannot tell you how many people I speak to who say it was all fine until they got the flowers when the baby was born, and then felt unsupported and underprepared for how things would actually be. I am always here if you or someone you know is going through something similar. Start with downloading the guide, or if you want to talk through your situation, book a session here.
Facing a PIP? How Preparation leads to better Outcomes
What happens when an employer realises you know your rights and your value?
There's a line in a recent testimonial from a Klar client that's stayed with me. She'd been placed on a PIP unexpectedly, we worked together ahead of her meeting, went through the process, talked about what to expect and what to ask for. She went in prepared. And afterwards, she told me her employer had seemed surprised at how ready she was.
“My outcome has been successful and I felt my employer was surprised at how well prepared I was during the meeting. I can't recommend Liv and Klar enough.”
This detail says a lot because there's an assumption in a lot of these processes that the employee will show up uncertain, reactive, maybe a little rattled. That the employer holds all the cards because they've done this before and you haven't and that the meeting will go the way they've planned it to go. This is why I offer performance support specifically for this.
When you show up knowing your rights, asking the right questions, requesting the support you're entitled to, that assumption falls apart, and this can even be visible in the room.
I don't say that to make it adversarial, because it doesn't have to be, but a PIP meeting doesn't have to be you versus them. Walking in underprepared when the other side has had time to plan puts you at a real disadvantage, and that's worth being honest about.
Being prepared doesn't mean being combative, but knowing what the targets actually mean and whether they're measurable. It means understanding what support you can ask for. It means knowing whether the process has been followed correctly, and what it means if it hasn't. It means being able to engage with the conversation rather than just absorb it.
You don’t have to be aggressive or combative to change the dynamic by holding them just as accountable as they are holding you.
My client described feeling confident going in, which she hadn't expected to feel. She also said the outcome was successful, and I don't think those two things are unrelated.
If you've been placed on a PIP and your first instinct is that this is already decided, I understand why it feels that way. It still matters how you show up in that meeting room and you don't have to figure out how to do that on your own.
A free discovery call is a good place to start, and you can book on here I also have a toolkit on how to manage the PIP process here.
Employee Rights in Small Businesses: What to Do When There’s No HR
If you work for a small company, the chances are there's no HR department. There might not even be an HR person and for a lot of people, that's actually part of the appeal. Decisions get made quickly, there's less bureaucracy, pay increases and promotions don't have to go through three layers of sign-off. You're often closer to the people who run the business, and that can make for a really positive working environment.
However, when something goes wrong, that same absence can feel very loud.
Small companies often don't have the processes and structures that larger organisations do. Contracts can be light on detail and there's often no policy document to refer to. When a situation arises, whether that's a disciplinary, a dismissal, a difficult manager, or just something that doesn't feel right, there's often nobody internally to turn to. So people either suffer in silence, take to Google, or assume they just have to put up with it.
The reality is that your rights at work don't change based on the size of the company you work for. A small employer still has legal obligations. Your contract still means something and the fact that there's no HR function doesn't mean you're on your own.
That's where I come in. I work with employees directly, helping them understand where they stand, what their options are, and how to handle their situation with clarity and confidence. Sometimes that's a complex, ongoing piece of work. Sometimes it's a single conversation that takes 30 minutes and completely changes how someone feels about what they're dealing with, like the client below:
“I came to Liv when I had an urgent issue with work. Despite handing in my notice for 3 months, I was trying to be dismissed within 24 hours.
She had great availability for talking to me as my situation was fairly pressing and talked me through my legal rights and the important parts of my contract.
She was very helpful and approachable and I would highly recommend her for any issues regarding HR. The company I worked for was so small I didn't have an internal HR to go to. In addition, knowing I was going to be starting somewhere new, she provided me with some useful information regarding probation periods. She really went above and beyond.”
If you work for a small company and something at work isn't right, you don't have to figure it out alone, and you can book a session with me here.
Workplace Problems in the UK: When Free Advice Isn't Enough (Grievance and Disciplinary Help)
When something goes wrong at work, like a grievance, disciplinary, or performance issue, most people start by looking for free advice. That usually means ACAS or Citizens Advice. To be perfectly clear, they do genuinely useful work. If you need to understand a process, check your basic rights, or get pointed in the right direction, they are a solid starting point.
There is a limit to what free advice can do, and the limitation isn't effort, it's design. These services are built to handle volume, so what they provide is necessarily general. You get information, but not someone applying that information to your specific situation.
A lot of people come to me after speaking to ACAS because they still don't know what to actually do next. That's not a criticism, but ACAS won't have read your grievance, seen the evidence, or understood the full context of what's been happening. Their advice is based on process, not your case, and those are two very different things.
Unions are worth mentioning too. If you're a member and haven't contacted them, you should. I'm a big advocate for unions and the role they play in protecting workers' rights. For collective issues, pay disputes, and wider workplace rights, they are exactly who you want in your corner. Where it gets more complicated is individual casework. The approach can sometimes feel quite process-heavy, and occasionally quite adversarial, even when you're not looking for a fight with your employer and just want to resolve a situation. How much support you get can also depend on your workplace, your industry, and your individual rep. Some people get excellent support, while others feel like they're being guided through a process without a clear strategy.
What I offer is different. When you come to Klar, I look at your actual situation, not a general version of it. Whether you're dealing with a grievance, facing a disciplinary, or trying to handle something difficult at work, we work through what's happening, what it means, and what your options are. More importantly, we look at what those options are likely to lead to, because knowing your rights is one thing, but knowing how to use them is another.
I'll help you prepare for conversations and meetings so you go in knowing what to say and how to say it. If your situation is more complex, I'll review your documents and we'll build a clear approach before you take your next step. If something doesn't feel right, I'll tell you, and if what you actually need is a solicitor, I'll tell you that too. Solicitors are absolutely the right call in some situations, particularly where there's potential tribunal action or significant legal complexity, but they are expensive and not always necessary to get a good outcome. Most people going through a grievance or disciplinary don't need one. What they need is someone who understands the process, knows how employers think, and can help them prepare properly. Part of what I do is help you work out which category you're in.
It isn’t free, but it isn’t generic either, and when you’re dealing with something like a grievance or disciplinary at work, generic advice often isn’t enough to help you make clear, confident decisions about what to do next.
If you're not sure what to do next, or whether Klar is right for you, just get in touch and ask, you can tell me about your case and we can look at how I can help you. You can start with booking a 15 mminutes discovery call here, and then we’ll take it from there.
Flexible Working Rejected After Maternity Leave: Should You Appeal?
A little while ago someone got in touch after their flexible working request had been rejected following maternity leave. They wanted me to look at the outcome letter and talk through where they could go from there.
I’ll be honest, I wasn’t impressed.
The request had been refused, which does happen, but they had also put forward an alternative and the employer hadn’t engaged with it at all. There was no response, no acknowledgement, nothing to show it had even been considered.
They had long service with the company, just had a year off with their baby, and were about to return to work with a completely different life, and all they were asking for was a bit of flexibility to make that work. The employer relied on a few of the business reasons for rejecting it, but it didn’t really line up with what had actually been suggested, and there was nothing to show it couldn’t work in practice. It was all “may”, “might”, “could”.
There was a case for an appeal. The reasoning was vague, it didn’t properly deal with what had been proposed, and the fact they hadn’t engaged with the alternative she’d suggested gave her something real to challenge.
Before getting into any of that, I always ask the same question: what do you actually want from this?
Her answer was that she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go back.
We talked about whether discrimination could be involved. That’s ultimately something a tribunal would decide, but there was a potential argument there. Where someone has caring responsibilities, refusing any flexibility can raise questions under the Equality Act, particularly around indirect discrimination.
Before deciding whether to go down that route, it’s important to be clear on what it actually looks like. That could mean appealing the flexible working decision, raising a grievance as well, and potentially appealing that outcome too. Alongside that, there’s the decision about whether to stay or leave, and if leaving, whether to go to tribunal or try to negotiate a settlement.
It’s a long road which takes time, energy and resilience, and there are no guarantees at the end of it.
Not everyone wants to go through that, and that’s completely fine.
Some people do, but choosing not to doesn’t say anything about you other than you’re making a decision that works for your life. In this case, she didn’t want the stress. She wanted to be there for her baby and to work somewhere that would understand her situation and give her the flexibility she needed. Being able to walk from that takes a lot of strength as well.
The next time we spoke, she was applying for jobs. She’d come to terms with not going back and was focused on moving forward, which was the right outcome for her.
Sometimes that’s what this is about. Not fighting every battle, but helping you work out what you actually want, what your options are, and what decision you can live with.
If your flexible working request has been rejected and you’re not sure where you stand or what to do next, that’s exactly the kind of conversation I am here for.
Book a session here if you want to discuss your options. I also have a flexible working toolkit here
Should I raise a grievance at work? Why waiting too long can backfire
Should you raise a grievance? It's one of the most common questions I get, and the answer is almost never straightforward. There's a case from my HR career that illustrates what happens when the answer gets delayed for too long.
A member of a management team had been feeling excluded, left out of decisions that should have involved them, sidelined in ways that were hard to put your finger on but impossible to ignore once you'd noticed. They didn't say anything, but instead they kept a log.
For two years, they documented everything. Every meeting they weren't in and every decision made around them. Every moment that confirmed what they were feeling, but for two years, from the outside, they just seemed to be getting on with it.
Then they raised a grievance and two years of material arrived in a formal process all at once. The people named in it hadn't seen it coming, so memories of specific incidents had faded. Context that might have explained some things was gone and what could have been a difficult but manageable conversation, had it happened close to the time, became something nobody in that room knew how to handle. Relationships that had been strained broke completely and there was a massive breakdown in the team.
Some of the more recent things were partially upheld, which in some ways made it harder, and not easier. It confirmed that something had been going on, but by that point the process had already done its damage and there was nothing left to salvage and in addition to this, the person who raised the grievance didn’t want to move on from it despite parts being upheld.
The log wasn't the problem - keeping records is sensible and I always recommend it. The log had become a strategy though, and two years of silence had turned something that might have been fixable into something that wasn't. Whatever the intention, the outcome wasn't good for anyone.
There are lots of reasons people don't raise things at work when they happen. Sometimes it is fear, sometimes it's uncertainty about whether something is serious enough, but sometimes, as in this case, it's more calculated than that. Whatever the reason, waiting rarely works in anyone's favour. The longer something sits unraised, the harder it becomes to resolve, and the more damage it tends to do when it finally surfaces.
So back to the question. Should you raise a grievance? If someone came to me now with a situation like this, the first thing we would do is look at what had actually been done to try to resolve it. Had any conversations happened? Had anything been raised informally? Was there still a realistic chance of opening things up before going formal? In a lot of cases, even where the issues are real and serious, there is still a window to try to sort things without a process that leaves everyone worse off. That window is worth using because waiting can create more damage for all parties.
Most grievances can be resolved by talking to each other. The formal process exists for when that genuinely isn't possible, not as a first move. Sometimes though, even starting that conversation takes more confidence than people feel they have in the moment. If that's where you are, I'm happy to give you a bit of a push in the right direction. I can help build a personal strategy on how to approach and handle a difficult conversation at work. Book a free 15 minute discovery call here so you can get support today.
How to Prepare for a Disciplinary Hearing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Your Employee Rights
If you have been invited to a disciplinary hearing, the first thing to know is that you have more control over this than it probably feels like right now.
What is a workplace disciplinary hearing?
A disciplinary hearing is the formal meeting where your employer puts the allegation to you and gives you the chance to respond before any decision is made. No outcome should be decided before that process is complete. You have the right to be accompanied by a colleague or trade union representative, and you should have been given the allegation in writing along with any evidence being relied on.
If you have not received those things, ask for them before you go in.
How to prepare for a disciplinary meeting effectively
The employees who feel most in control going into a hearing are the ones who have done the groundwork beforehand. That means understanding the allegation fully, gathering any evidence or correspondence that supports your position, identifying mitigating circumstances, and thinking clearly about what you actually want the outcome to be.
I have supported enough disciplinaries to have a pretty good sense of where a case is heading. I have been wrong in both directions where cases I thought would end in a final written warning ended in dismissal because there was no mitigation and the person did not seem to care, and cases that looked serious ended differently because the person came in with evidence and genuine mitigation.
How you show up matters, but the outcome always depends on the disciplinary chair and no one can guarantee what they will decide. Going in prepared, with a clear account and the right evidence behind you, gives you the best possible chance. It also means managing the mental side of it, because a disciplinary is one of the most stressful things that can happen at work and your headspace going in matters.
Get the Disciplinary Toolkit
I created the Facing a Disciplinary at Work toolkit specifically for this. It covers every stage of the process, what to check, what to prepare, what to ask, and how to stay clear-headed throughout. There is a dedicated section on suspension, a preparation checklist for the hearing itself, and a record-keeping timeline.
You can buy it on its own, or if you want proper support alongside it, book a session with Klar and it is included free.
Why Your Probation Period Matters More Than Ever in 2026
Most people start a new job focused on making a good impression, learning the ins and outs, and getting through the first few weeks. Probation feels like a formality and often like something that just passes.
However, your probation period is one of the most important stages of your employment, and how you approach it can make a real difference to how things go.
The law is changing
The Employment Rights Act 2025 will reduce the qualifying period for unfair dismissal from two years to just six months, coming into force on 1 January 2027. This will apply for anyone starting from June 2026 onwards and anyone employed now. This is a significant shift meaning employees will gain stronger protections much earlier in their employment.
This doesn't mean we should all just go out and take our employers to tribunals next year. The change does go both ways. Employers know it is coming too, and many are already tightening how they manage probation as a result. If you are starting a new job, or currently in your probation period, being prepared matters more now than it ever has.
Probation runs both ways
It is easy to think of probation as something your employer does to you, like an assessment or a trial. Don't forget this is also your opportunity to assess them.
Is the role what you were told it would be? Is the support and onboarding you were promised actually being delivered? Are you getting clear feedback and regular check-ins? These things matter, and if they are not happening, it is worth noting.
Being prepared is not about being paranoid
Taking your probation seriously does not mean expecting the worst. It means setting yourself up properly from the start.
That looks like understanding what success looks like at the end of your probation, keeping a record of your achievements and any feedback you receive, making sure you come to review meetings prepared, and asking for anything important to be confirmed in writing.
If concerns are raised
If your employer raises concerns about your performance during probation, it is not automatically the end. What matters is how you respond.
Stay calm and ask for specific examples. Make sure you understand exactly what is expected of you going forward. Ask what support will be put in place and if something does not feel right, whether targets have shifted, feedback has appeared from nowhere, or the process feels unfair, you do not have to just accept it.
You have rights from day one
Being on probation does not mean you have no protections. Rights around discrimination and reasonable adjustments apply from the very first day of your employment, regardless of how long you have been there.
The bottom line
Probation does not have to be something that just happens to you. Going in with a clear understanding of what to expect, what your employer should be doing, and what to do if things do not go as planned puts you in a much stronger position.
If you want a straightforward guide to help you navigate your probation with confidence, you can download my probation toolkit here. (Please note that it will ask for your billing address. This does not mean you’re being charged for the toolkit)
Redundancy: a few things that are good to know
There's a phrase you'll hear a lot during a redundancy process: "it's not personal." I went through redundancy myself, and I can tell you that at the time, it absolutely felt personal. That's not a character flaw or an overreaction. When your job is going, your income is threatened and you're thrown into uncertainty, of course it feels personal. Anyone who tells you it shouldn't is not being very human about it.
The emotional weight of redundancy is real, and your employer can choose to handle the process with sensitivity and genuine support rather than just reciting the right legal phrases. If yours isn't, that's worth naming. I remember going through a consultation via Teams where one of the people leading it was late because they couldn't find a meeting room. Not illegal, but when you're at risk, that kind of thing signals how little care is being taken and I gave them feedback on it. How the employer handles it and how they treat you through says a lot about them.
One thing that trips a lot of people up is the assumption that if you're at risk, you're definitely going. That's not always true. The role is at risk, not automatically you. Employers are required to consult with you, and if you want to stay, it is completely reasonable to make that case. Make sure you ask question, ask what other roles might be available, ask what the selection criteria are and ask for time off for interviews. It is absolutely a good idea to engage with this process rather than just wait for an outcome.
Ask your employer whether they offer outplacement support. This is coaching provision, usually provided through an external organisation, designed to help you figure out your next step. It might mean exploring a different direction entirely, refreshing your CV, working on interview confidence, or just having space to think. Use it if it's available, but go in knowing what you want to get out of it. Said by someone who absolutely wasted it. Redundancy, while it feels like a door closing, is one of those moments where you might find something better than what you had, and for many people it ends up being that blessing in disguise.
The confidence knock is real too. Even when you know that redundancy is usuallyabout structure and cost, it has a habit of making people doubt themselves. If that's where you are, it's worth getting some support around that specifically rather than pushing through and hoping it resolves itself. Book a free 15-minute discovery call if you're not sure where to start.
70% of employees don't trust HR. Are they blaming the wrong people?
A TeamBlind survey of over 11,000 employees found that 70% or more do not trust HR. At some companies it's even higher: 83% at Intel, 79% at Amazon, 75% at eBay.
That's a striking number, but having spent over a decade in HR, I think it needs a bit more context.
Most HR professionals I know got into this work because they care about people. I've seen colleagues advocate hard behind closed doors for employees: pushing for a final written warning instead of dismissal, arguing for a welfare meeting for a grieving mother instead of a performance investigation, pushing back on managers who wanted to discipline parents for leaving to collect a sick child and telling them to have a proper conversation about flexibility instead.
That work happens. More than people realise.
It also comes at a cost. HR burnout is real, and most people wouldn't expect the reasons why. The emotional weight alone is heavy, but sometimes HR is also expected to absorb work far outside its expertise. At the height of furloughing 80 staff during Covid, I was asked to sign off a health and safety inspection I wasn't qualified to carry out. I refused, but that kind of demand is more common than people think.
On top of that, HR is often on the receiving end of abuse, from angry emails to deeply distressing workplace situations, while being blamed for decisions that were never theirs to make. Some even experience this outside of work.
That said, HR is not without fault. There are absolutely times where policy overrides common sense, where process is followed at the expense of basic decency. When that happens, distrust is justified. It should be challenged, and unfortunately just because something feels unfair, it doesn't mean it's illegal.
But the bigger issue is structural. HR works for the organisation, and leadership decides how it is used. The CEO announces the new benefits and the amazing company performance. HR delivers the mass redundancy announcement. So while leadership takes the credit, HR delivers the fallout and employees notice.
When pressure comes from the top, HR becomes the vehicle for decisions they didn't make and don't always agree with. It doesn't stop there. I once spent time preparing a manager for a difficult conversation with an underperforming employee, walking through exactly what to say and how to say it. We went through it together beforehand. When the meeting happened, the manager said nothing. Just sat in silence and looked at me to deliver the message instead. Afterwards, they claimed they hadn't known what to do. HR ends up carrying what managers won't, and employees are left to draw their own conclusions about who is really responsible.
Sometimes the distrust is fair, but very often, it's aimed at the wrong place.
The reality is that HR sits in the middle, but they're employed by the company. They can and often do push for better outcomes behind the scenes, but that position shapes what they can actually do for you.
That's where Klar comes in.
If you're dealing with a disciplinary, redundancy, grievance, or a manager pushing boundaries, I'll help you understand what's actually happening, what your rights are, and where you can push back. You don't have to just accept what you're told and you don't have to figure it out on your own. You can book in a call with me if you're facing something that doesn't seem right.
Grievances at Work: When to Raise One and When Not To
Very few problems at to work need to become a formal grievance. You may not have thought someone who makes a living a out of supporting people through these would say so, but it's true. In my experience, one of the most important things you can do when something goes wrong at work is work out early on whether formal is actually the right route.
Raising a grievance is your right, but it is also a significant step, and before raising anything, have a hard think on what you want to gain from it.
A formal grievance makes sense when something serious has happened and informal routes have genuinely failed or aren't appropriate. Discrimination, bullying, a significant breach of your contract, or a situation where speaking directly to the person involved isn't safe or realistic. These are situations where a formal process exists for good reason and where using it is entirely justified.
It also makes sense when you have raised something informally and nothing has changed, or when the issue is serious enough that you need it on record.
Some grievances should never become grievances and in all honesty, a majority of grievances I have been involved in should never have become a grievance.
I remember one clearly. An employee raised a formal grievance about the way a manager had handled an investigation they'd been involved in a month earlier. After a lot of back and forth it was agreed it would be investigated formally. This did nothing good for anyone. What usually happens here is that several people had time taken out of their schedules. The manager who'd conducted the original investigation had a direct tone, and it's possible the meeting had felt abrupt, but nothing had been raised at the time and this person was devastated to find out how they'd been perceived. They wanted to apologise and the employee raising the grievance didn't want to speak to them.
Looking back, what that individual needed was a way to give feedback and be heard. What they got instead was a formal process that didn't resolve anything and created more tension than it relieved. The specific situation solved itself a few months later as there was a restructure, so the individuals didn’t have to work together.
If someone came to me with that situation now, I'd help them think through what they actually wanted as an outcome. If it was to be heard and for things to change, I'd help them find a way to do that directly. If they weren't willing to do that, I'd be honest with them that a formal process was unlikely to give them what they were looking for.
The cost of unnecessary grievances
Formal grievances take time. They take time from you, from the people being investigated, from managers, from HR. They create tension and they go on record. In most cases they also damage working relationships, sometimes irreparably, even when the outcome is technically resolved.
That cost is worth it when the situation genuinely warrants it. When it doesn't, it can make things worse for everyone, including the person raising it.
The question worth asking first
Before you raise a formal grievance, it is worth sitting with a few questions. What outcome do you actually want? Is there a realistic way to get that outcome without going formal? Have you tried, or does it genuinely feel impossible? If the situation was resolved, what would that look like? What would make the outcome better by raising it formally rather than just speaking to the person?
Sometimes the honest answer is that what you want is for someone to acknowledge they got something wrong, or for a dynamic to change, or simply to feel heard. Those things are sometimes achievable without a formal process, and often more achievable that way.
That doesn't mean you should put up with things that aren't right. It means being clear on what you're trying to achieve and choosing the route most likely to get you there.
Where I come in
This is exactly the kind of conversation I have with people at the start of working together. Not to talk anyone out of raising a grievance they have every right to raise, but to help them think it through clearly before they do. What happened, what they want, what their options are, and what the likely outcomes of each route look like.
If you're in a situation at work that feels wrong and you're trying to work out what to do, that's a good point to talk it through. You can reach out via the contact page or you can book in a discovery call so we can chat it through.
Disciplinary Process at Work: What Your Employer Must Tell You (and What to Do If They Don’t)
"I was told it was a fact-finding meeting and next thing I'm in a disciplinary hearing."
This was a client I spoke to this week. They'd worked for their employer for a decade, had never been through a formal process before, and were given no explanation that a fact-finding meeting is an investigation, what that meant, what could follow, or what their rights were. They walked in unprepared and were left to piece together what was happening as it unfolded around them.
The communication that followed was no better. Emails throughout the process, then an outcome letter sent by post that hadn't been received before the employer moved things forward nearly two months later. This person didn't know they were on a final written warning until the next stage had already begun. When they asked for timeframes, the answers were vague.
By the time they came to me, several processes were open, legal advice was involved, and the working relationship had effectively broken down. A situation that might have been manageable had become something much harder to come back from.
This isn't unusual. And it almost always comes back to the same thing: nobody told the employee clearly what was happening, why, and what came next.
What employers should communicate at each stage
When an employer invites someone to an investigation meeting, they need to be clear that this is what it is. Calling it a "fact-finding meeting" or a "chat" without any further explanation isn't neutral, it's confusing. The employee should know it's a formal investigation and what it relates to.
The same applies at the disciplinary stage. The invite should set out the allegation clearly, confirm it is a formal disciplinary hearing, explain the potential outcomes including the range of sanctions that could follow, and confirm the right to be accompanied. An employee should never walk into a disciplinary hearing without understanding what they are walking into.
Outcomes need to be communicated directly and promptly. Sending a letter by post when the entire process has been conducted by email is not reasonable. Neither is leaving weeks or months between a decision being made and the employee being told. If someone is being issued a formal warning, they need to know that clearly, in writing, through a channel they actually have access to, with enough time to understand their right of appeal before anything else moves forward.
Timeframes matter too. Employees are entitled to ask how long a process is likely to take and to receive a genuine answer. Vagueness isn't neutral either. It just adds to the stress and uncertainty of an already difficult situation. This person asked for timeframes and was just told it would take some time to go through it all, but if you’ve not been through something like this before, it can be hard to tell what your rights actually are.
What to do if you're in this situation
If you've been invited to a meeting and you're not sure what it is, ask. You are entitled to know whether it is a formal meeting, what it relates to, and whether you have the right to be accompanied. If you're not given a clear answer, put the question in writing.
Keep a record of everything. Every meeting, every email, every conversation where something significant was said. If communication has been inconsistent or things have been handled in a way that doesn't seem right, that record matters.
If you receive an outcome and something doesn't add up, whether that's the decision itself, the way it was communicated, or the process that led to it, you usually have a right of appeal. Check your employer's disciplinary policy and use it.
If you're feeling overwhelmed by a process you've never been through before, that is completely understandable. These situations are stressful even when they're handled well. When they're handled badly, the impact on someone's confidence, wellbeing, and sense of control can be significant.
Where I come in
What struck me in our conversation was how different things might have looked if they'd known what was available after that very first meeting.
You don't have to wait until a situation has escalated before getting support. If something at work doesn't feel right, whether you've just been invited to a meeting you don't understand, you're partway through a process that feels chaotic, or you're trying to work out what your options are, that's exactly when it helps to talk it through with someone who knows this area.
If that's you, or someone you know, please do reach out. You can also get my Disciplinary Toolkit here.
Flexible working and reduced hours: you're not asking to do less work. You're asking to stop doing work that doesn't belong to you anymore.
Returning from maternity leave and thinking about reducing your hours can be a bit nervy.
You know you can't go back to exactly how things were before you left, but you may worry you’ve created a problem before it even started.
Your role hasn't stayed still while you've been away and has been covered in one way or another. Some parts will have been picked up by other people, some things will have been paused, and some things will have quietly stopped altogether because there simply wasn't capacity to keep everything exactly as it was.
You're not necessarily walking back into a fixed role that's waiting for you, but back into something that's already shifted.
This is where a lot of people get stuck. The instinct is to make everything fit into fewer hours. Same workload, same expectations, just compressed into less time. It feels responsible, but it's usually what creates the pushback, because it immediately raises concerns about what will drop, who will pick things up, and whether the quality of work will suffer.
The more effective approach isn't to protect everything. It's to accept that some of what you used to do probably no longer needs to sit with you at all.
Think about how your work was covered while you were away. Not defensively, but practically. Because it often becomes clear that certain tasks have already been absorbed elsewhere or quietly deprioritised, without the business collapsing as a result. That tells you something important about what's genuinely core to your role and what's simply accumulated over time. It may be that even before you went on maternity leave, parts of your role needed delegation, but you never got round to doing this. Returning from maternity leave may be the perfect time to start your role from a fresh.
A lot of employer resistance to reduced hours comes from the assumption that it will require additional resources or a major reorganisation. But in most cases, the reorganisation has already happened informally during your leave and the work is already sitting somewhere different. The question is whether it actually needs to come back to you in the same way, or at all.
That's why a strong request isn't about keeping everything intact, but about being clear on focus. What you're continuing to own, what no longer sits with you, and how the work is realistically structured given the hours you're returning on.
When you approach it that way, the conversation shifts. It stops being about whether the business can accommodate a reduction in hours and becomes about whether the current shape of the role actually makes sense anymore.
If you’re considering submitting a flexible working request, but you’re not sure where to start or how to angle it out, let’s have a chat.