SunStone HR

04/03/2026

My brain is wired a little differently than most.

I am foggy in the morning, but the evening clears; that's when I focus and churn out lots of detailed work in a short space of time, it's like magic.

Once I am in these magic hours, I have no clue what is going on around me.

I don't hear anyone, have no concept of time, and zone out entirely - then there is my 8-year old, Norah-Bea.

Norah-Bea takes after her Daddy. She is a 24/7 live podcast.

She doesn't stop talking from the moment she wakes up until she is fast asleep.

Friday night Daddy had to nip out so she decided to sit with me on her iPad in my office.

However given there was someone to talk to, the technology was quickly dumped and she decided my 'deep work' session was the perfect time for an engaging debate.

You can't placate her with vague answers - she makes you stop and engage properly, so it was a tools down situation.

It reminded me of days when I had to endure the challenge of an open-plan office , although on this one my colleague was
much cuter and way more persistent

Whilst I love my silence, she loves talking at 100mph.

It was clear that I was along for the ride in her little world ❤️

My productivity hit zero, but the "office culture" was top-tier.

Anyone else a silent worker living with a professional talker? 😂

26/02/2026

I’m seriously considering starting a protest: Stop scaremongering SMEs about the changes to the Employment Rights Act.

I recently received an email claiming a whopping “173 new pieces of legislation” are heading for employers but a “free assessment” will save them from the impending doom.

My life is drama-free and simple, so let’s swap this for some Rachel reality.

I’ve been watching Gordon Ramsay on Netflix, so let’s talk food, specifically pizza because its a solid choice for me. 🍕

Claiming there are 173 new pieces of legislation is a little like Gordon telling you he’s prepared you a 50-course Michelin-starred tasting menu, only to serve you a single (albeit large) Pepperoni Pizza. He got to that "50" by counting every slice of meat, every grain of oregano, and every shred of mozzarella as a separate dish. Gordon could probably get away with it to be fair.

In reality...........
It’s one single Act.
Yes, it’s a big change.
Yes, we need to adapt.
But no, you don't have 173 separate monsters under your desk that you need to address.

My clients get small, bitesize updates focused on solutions to challenges that will affect their day to day. I don't overwhelm or confuse them with jargon or detail that they don't need or want to know - I'm the geek in the room.

The 6-Month Qualifying Period from January 2027 will affect people who you are hiring now, not just people recruited after the implementation - because by the time January arrives they will have at least six months service.

The solution? Get your recruitment and probation reviews right today.

Day-One Rights arriving in April 2026 for things like Statutory Sick Pay and Paternity Leave. These are "tweaks," not a total business overhaul.

Uncapped Compensation: Sounds terrifying, right? But if you act within the legislation (which isn't really changing that much), it’s a non-issue. When was the last time you were actually in an Employment Tribunal? Exactly.

Yes, this is not the full list before anyone comes at me. I know there are more and advise on them daily, but there certainly aren't 173 to list.

Please don't let these changes stall your growth or question whether you should hire someone or not.

They are all manageable with the right planning, structure and support.

I don't do dramatics, so if you prefer to talk about day to day pragmatic solutions, I look forward to sharing stories.

On a much more important note... has anyone else noticed the daffodils and snowdrops appearing? 🌼 That’s way more exciting than a 173-ingredient pizza!

P.S. For the real geeks out there: You probably heard 18th February mentioned. Don't panic, the laws didn't change overnight, that was just the date for transitional notice periods for employees who have a baby due this spring. The legal "Day One" right doesn't actually kick in until 6th April. See? Zen. 🧘‍♀️

15/07/2025

Here is your free policy on how to manage bereavement in your business.

I know it's not that simple, but there are ways in which businesses do achieve this.

My advice is generally 'do what you need to do' (an extended version obviously)

Grief and bereavement is a complex area.

Your employee could have a closer relationship to their auntie than their own mum. Consider that dynamics can be complex, even more so during grief.

I have seen managers decline a measly three days of bereavement leave because it wasn't a 'direct relative' but it was the person that raised them - the result, the person goes off sick and you have to pay them one way or the other. They return disengaged and resent the manager/ organisation and probably end up leaving.

All for the sake of some short term adjustments.

In 9 years of consulting I haven't had one client report that someone is taking the p*e with the amount of time they are taking off to sort out the aftermath of losing a loved one; in fact they have probably returned sooner than expected and been extremely grateful for not having the pressure of work on top of everything else.

It's not just a funeral. There could be issues with the will. There could be delays with death certificates, and we aren't notoriously 'quick' in with funerals in this country. Then there is sorting personal belongings, emptying houses - the list goes on.

Prior to their loss they could have also had a long period of managing illness, so the mental load had been building.

Businesses need to make commercial decisions, you can't have a sales person off for three months, but generally the employee knows that and will do their best. It might be 60% to start with, but they will generally try their best; sometimes work can be a good distraction (but not the case for everyone).

This is one of the best summaries of how to manage grief and bereavement in a time of extreme trauma - for two brothers who were taken far too soon and so suddenly.

So remember:
* Grief is an individual journey, there is no right or wrong way to do it.

* Grief is not a chapter, it doesn't have a start and an end. It stays until the end of the story and appears at times when you might not expect it. Some days it still feels like my auntie is still here and I just haven't seen her for a while, but we lost her just before covid - five years ago and still all have our low moments.

* It's infrequent, it's unlikely that you will lose lots of days in a year due to requests for bereavement leave

And the single most important thing - talk to the person. Understand their relationship, understand what they are dealing with and show some empathy.

Don't ignore it, I know it's a difficult topic but as leaders, this is where we have to lead.

Loss is something that sadly we all have in common.

"Be yourself"

10/07/2025

What happened to good manners??

This week, I had an experience that truly highlighted the importance of leading with your core values, even when it can be frustrating and make you a bit sweary!

A (now ex) client, facing financial difficulties, needed to end their contract. While my standard terms require 90 days' notice (and I've successfully enforced them in court, so will do it if I need to), I made the decision to agree to just one month and write the rest off.

Why? Because doing the right thing means leading by example; with empathy and understanding and doing what I feel the right thing is given the circumstances.

Running a business can be pants sometimes and I’m not in the habit of kicking people when they are down.

Initially, I felt a bit miffed – my gesture wasn't acknowledged, not a basic "thank you." - not even an email.

I have been left questioning whether I have been naive / taken for ride; if they were in my situation I know they would rigorously enforce their terms.

Contracts are contracts right? I even live in this world everyday given what I do.

Should I have just enforced my terms? My competitors have up to five year lock-in clause’s so 90 days isn’t much to ask in comparison.

But then I remembered the values I was raised with, and how I always preach to my clients about writing policies around their best employees, not constantly trying to mitigate for the one "bad apple."

As my Mum always taught me, regardless of where you are from, how rich or poor you are, good manners cost nothing and go a long way.

I’m not going to let this one change how I treat my clients or adjust my approach. It’s just a write off and move on situation.

I hope that staying true to my principles, is the most rewarding way to build lasting relationships and a business I can be proud of.

Everyday this week I will be reminded of those core values drilled into me as a child, with these flowers on my desk and my all time faves.

My mum gave them to me with a ‘thank you’ for taking her to Aldi and B&M - which I do all the time, but it still made me smile.

06/05/2025

If you can see it, you can be it…..

Female football is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. It probably would have been as big as the men’s game if we hadn’t been banned from playing in 1921 by the FA.

At the weekend 18 of our grassroots team went to Anfield ❤️ for the Merseyside Derby!

15,000+ people turned out. It was amazing to be part of the crowd and see how much it has grown in a short space of time.

As a Red, it was disappointing….. especially after the elation of last week 🤣❤️

My ‘blue’ daughter couldn’t stop her hands going up when her team scored, despite being sat in the Kop 💙

The girls game in our town is huge, but it’s so important for our youth to recognise what they could become, and to see it with their own eyes that women’s football is firmly back on the map 📍

As a woman in business, with three daughters, I have recognised that I don’t talk to them enough about what I am doing.

I teach them to be fiercely independent but don’t even shout about my own achievements.

It might be a generalism but I do feel like we “quietly succeed” as women in business, and we need to shout louder.

I know I certainly need to!

03/05/2025

I did all of that studying to become a professional HR firefighter.

I work best under pressure. Give me a deadline and I will hit it, but this week has been another level. Last week wasn't much better!

I've got none performers, under performers, absences, newbies, payroll issues, tribunals, ACAS and a Lawyer on my case who uses old fashioned bullying tactics - I really wish he would stop using AI to write his responses; I'm not stupid.

I don't know what world where Lawyers using outdated tactics is beneficial for either party, thankfully most of them don't anymore and recognise its a negotiation and collaboration to get the best deal for their Client - no need to be a nasty pants. It would send those with less experience into a spin, which is obviously the aim, but I have something that most don't......12 years in food manufacturing - sometimes brutal, but developed skin like a rhino.

12 years in FMCG, especially short shelf life food manufacturing , gave me the opportunity to develop skills I never would have done in other industries. I always say that it will make or break you - if you can carve a HR career in food manufacturing you can adapt to anything. Every day was a challenge.

Oh lets not forget UKVI - I sent a notification to them five months ago and they finally responded and gave me just 20 days to comply............they get five months, I get 20 days to complete an entirely new sponsorship application. Insanity.

Hoping that I can clear the decks and work into the evening (where I focus the best anyway) and back on top of my life.

Anyone else feel like they have spent their week in a big red fire truck and putting out metaphorical fires? Or is it just me.............

Suits me I think - maybe a retrain is on the cards 🙂

#

05/03/2025

Love watching these little people run their socks off in their matching kit 💖

This is their first season and watching their progress since September has been amazing!

Great work girls 💙🖤

Big thanks to Rachel Saunders SunStone HR for sponsoring our U8 team training kit.
The girls love the pink kits and they all look fantastic in them like the team should 🙌🙌

Thank you!💙🖤

30/01/2025

I live in an overflow town; my parents are originally from Liverpool and relocated for better prospects. Eventually my mum’s two sisters followed her along with my Nan and Grandad.

It’s a fairly small place, if you have lived here any length of time and socialise then you generally will know most people. As a dog walker I am only out five minutes before I bump into someone I know.

The demographic makeup of the town is varied from a socio-economic standpoint. At one end we have large houses and people living very comfortably, but at the same time we also have children living in poverty; some have never left the town.

Grassroots football is the one place where everyone is an equal. It doesn’t matter where you are from or what your background is, no one cares when you are on that pitch, you are a team. We all strive for this kind of team ethic in our businesses.

We now have a total of 930 players registered, with 233 of them being girls. About a 75/25 split and this gap closes every single year.

We also have a women’s team who are dominating their league this season. There is some awesome talent coming through.

A constant challenge is funding. We need to keep subs low so that it is accessible to all but equally need the equipment and pitches to play on. It is 100% self-funding model which is why you will often find teams looking for businesses to sponsor them and kids wildly packing bags in supermarkets because they need some raincoats (supervising 7 year olds packing bags was fun!).

I have sponsored my daughters U12’s team for two seasons and have just picked up the away kit for my youngest daughters’ team.

From a cash standpoint it was £260, it didn’t take much thought at all, seeing their eyes light up in December when they got a pink away kit was something money can’t buy.

I’m not sharing this for anything other than exposure and insight.

Next time a youth football teams asks you to sponsor their shirts, just think for a minute before declining, because you will be part of changing young lives.

For some of those players, football is the only outlet that they get from a very challenging home environment.

And of course, as a mum of three girls……….I’m never not going to fly the flag for female football.

Ryan Reynolds better watch out 😊

Winsford Town F.C

15/11/2024

After working for 90% of my time with one business there was a shift and my work with them dropped 70%, this happened two months the world shut down for COVID, it really couldn’t have been worse.

I am still working with that Client today, because I maintain relationships with businesses that I align with and will be with them as long as they want me, but it was a dark time, and they were having their own challenges.
I was riddled with anxiety having to get out there and find new business and having the fear of ‘selling’, but with the world locked down, a husband working from home and three young children, who had only just turned 2,7 & 9 I had no choice but to go into fight or flight mode (I did have a brick wall moment a few years later, like a lot of us!)

I very quietly just got my head down and got on with the job in hand as best as I could. My income dropped 70% virtually overnight and with the type of work that I do, I wasn’t going to easily replace that, certainly not quickly and not during a pandemic. I found a critical group of friends during that time as we were all doing some sales training, I wouldn't have got through it without them. I also reconnected with Matthew Dashper-Hughes and he still keeps me in check as my business coach, or tries to at least 🙂

I just did my year end and again broke my turnover record. For someone who deals with the imposter, it’s a difficult post to write.

I am now turning over more than I did when I was mainly reliant on that one Client, and that is the most rewarding. I have a diverse client base and have found all those Clients myself, which at the start, I honestly didn’t think was possible.

I have also successfully de-risked the business – which helps with my anxiety (a bit!)

I am managing the business around my home life and on the move in January into a fancy wooden hut in the garden which will hopefully help me to separate the two a little, and also escape the noise from my girls!

It is rare I ever step back and appreciate what I have achieved over the last 8 years, but this one feels different, probably because over the last 18 months I haven’t just taken ‘all’ work, I have started to focus on work that I enjoy and working with people who I connect with. That feels so empowering.

But I won’t stop, I can’t, it is not in my nature – how can I with the Government sending so much exciting change (legislation geek).

Some days are indeed a complete turd and like every other business owner I question whether I should go and get a job. As business owners, I feel its important to have 'trusted ears' around you so that on those bad days you have someone to rant at - my ears are always ready!

I’m not going anywhere soon.

Happy Weekend! Here is one element to my ‘why’ (family) on our recent trip to London, another ‘why’ (travel).

15/10/2024

It has been progress to see all of the baby loss stories throughout this last week, and heartwarming to see the A* employers and how they have supported their staff, as I had nothing.

15 years ago, I was at the end of my pregnancy with my first child, a little boy.

It had been a battle to get there. Miscarriages, infertility and Adenomyosis meant getting pregnant and staying pregnancy had both been a challenge – but I had made it to full term.

My little boy Billy passed away on 24/10/2009. Our 8lb bundle of perfection.
I know some will stop reading right about now…….but will continue anyway, because whilst it might be a difficult topic, it doesn’t come close to having to say goodbye to your baby.

Not only did Billy lose his life, I also nearly lost mine. I was in ICU headed towards liver and kidney failure so my husband was facing that he might lose us both. I carry PTSD around with me, which mostly affects my sleep. I made it through somehow, but sadly, Billy did not.

I was unwell for months as my body tried to physically heal and we had to wait three months for all of our own test results and post mortem to understand what happened.

My employer was planning my return within weeks when I was entitled to take all of my maternity leave (I wish I had taken it all now!)
I appreciate that there is no policy for this, no right way, everyone is different and that’s what I always say when dealing with any significant life events, policies can go out of the window for all I care.

I will provide some feedback on basics that would have helped me
🕯️ one of the worst things they failed to do was tell people what happened. I returned to work and was continuously asked how my newborn was doing and what it was like being a first-time mum. To this day I don’t know why, it seems so obvious given my employee facing role

🕯️ I had sent an email before returning making it clear I was happy to talk about what happened, I wanted people to ask me questions. Despite this, those who had been told, avoided me. I had worked with some of these people for nearly a decade and now it was like I was a ghost.

All I asked was for people to say his name, acknowledgement of what happened.

If you are a business owner, please do better than this. Please support your teams to do better than this, regardless of how awkward it might feel, it won’t compare to what that parent is going through.

Some of us are born to fight, and fight, and fight some more – I guess I am just one of those people. Our journey wasn't over. We had more miscarriages and more IVF but made it through to a family of three daughters, and one son who watches over us.

We have an awesome picture, but a jigsaw piece will always be missing.

We are a silent army that walk amongst you every single day 💙💖💙💖

ends today with a . If you are around at 7pm, please light a candle, and reflect for a moment.

Thanks for reading until the end x

11/10/2024

Let's get things straight. This is a bit of a rant about scaremongering business owners following the proposed changes to employment legislation.

I have seen endless posts about how organisations can 'help' you to deal with the changes.............the legislation will not be in place for at least two years so there is very little that anyone can do right now.

Yesterday was expected and aligned with the manifesto, we all knew it was being announced in the first 100 days. It wasn't a shock.

I cannot underestimate how much things can change as the proposals work their way through parliaments. Minor tweaks to fairly major shifts from where things started..............if you react now you might end up putting things in place that are cumbersome and not even needed.

Day one rights, won't really be day one rights - it will be more like 'month 9' rights with a structured probationary period. With strong and robust recruitment, coupled with A* probationary period, this part shouldn't be an issue.

I could go on and critique the entire bill but I won't bore you.

I also don't want business owners worrying about something that is happening in 2 years, a lot can happen in that time! You might even be one of the lucky ones who has retired by then!

If you are getting calls and emails about the scary new employment legislation, the only thing they should be talking about is the actual change to the law that happens on 26th October and relates to sexual harassment, I have posted about it previously.

Anything else is just a salesperson trying to scare you with big words.

I am not in the habit of guessing what the Government might decide so I will carry on dealing with the issues of the day and the legislation that we already have.

The best advice I can give is don't react and continue to run your businesses for the foreseeable.

Enjoy your weekend! Mine is filled with gratitude for my daughter who will turn 14 on Sunday. She arrived at a time when life had been very dark, and gave us our future back, so it's all about her :)