Dear HR & People Professionals,

It’s time. 

It’s time to put your needs first.

It’s time to be top of the list, numero uno, the headline act. 

When we locked down, The Chrysalis Crew opened up our online platform, The HR Hub with full and free access to over eighteen months of content. Not a penny in payment did we ask for this (it’s usually a paid subscription service), because that was the right thing to do. 

We knew that HR would join the ranks of the unsung heroes of this global crisis. We knew that HR would be called upon to lead people through the pandemic, facing into furlough, redundancies and no doubt an endless barrage of questions. 

We also knew that The HR Hub would provide so much more than copy and paste templates... that’s not what The Hub is all about. 

It’s a safe place to learn how HR can be done differently, but putting the HR Professional at the very core. It’s a journey of self development and confidence. We also focus specifically on the mental health and wellbeing needs of HR and People Professionals. We understand the effects of burnout only too well, and we wanted to do everything in our power to prevent others in the same field suffering the same fate. 

But after talking to a great many of the people we shared this opportunity with, one phrase has been repeated... “I did mean to have a look, but I’ve been too busy.”

Being ‘too busy’ is the black hole we stumble into over and over again in our HR world. We’re too busy putting everyone else first (and I say this as a lifelong ‘people pleaser’). It took some tough love and invaluable personal coaching from Kelly Swingler after the first few weeks of lockdown for me to stop, breathe, and start to prioritise my own needs over everyone else’s. 

At first, I didn’t, I simply couldn’t because I thought I’d be letting everyone down. 

Absolute crap! 

By looking after and investing in myself, I became a better partner, daughter, sister, auntie, friend, pet owner and colleague. I’m better read, I’m better connected and I’ve learned so much about myself these past few months. 

I worry that so many people in our profession will emerge from lockdown absolutely exhausted, burned out and disillusioned, at a time when HR should be leading the way into a new world of flexibility and possibility. 

If you’ve signed up to The HR Hub, please, please set aside a little time before the end of the month to take a look. You’ve not got long! 

There really is some bloody awesome content in there, stuff that may be just what you’re looking for. Everything we do is solution focussed, and we make the journey to that solution just that little bit different! 

But I’m not here to ‘hype the hub’, I’m simply asking you to stop, breathe, and put yourself first. You can’t power ahead if you’re running on empty! 

You are the advance party out of lockdown. Now is the time to get fighting fit.