If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance something is keeping you up at night.
Maybe you hired someone who hasn’t worked out the way you hoped. Maybe you had a difficult conversation that didn’t go to plan, or you reacted in a moment of frustration and said something you wish you could take back. Maybe you’ve watched a performance issue grow slowly in the background, telling yourself it would sort itself out, and now it feels too big to tackle.
And then came the words that stopped you in your tracks.
“I know my rights.” “I know someone in HR.” “You’re not doing this correctly.”
For a business owner who has never once claimed to be an employment law expert, those words can land like a punch. Suddenly you’re not just dealing with a difficult situation, you’re second-guessing every decision you’ve made, wondering what you got wrong, and feeling completely paralysed.
If that sounds familiar, you are not alone. Not even close.
How you got here
Most business owners who find themselves in this position didn’t get there through carelessness or bad intentions. They got there because they were busy running a business.
You hired someone because you needed help. You gave them a role, you trusted them, and you got on with the work. You’re not an HR professional. You’re a practice owner, an architect, a retailer, a consultant, a builder. You’re brilliant at what you do, and that’s exactly why people hire you.
But somewhere along the way, something went wrong. Maybe the hire wasn’t right and you knew it early but hoped it would improve. Maybe a conversation happened in the heat of the moment that you’d handle differently now. Maybe a process wasn’t followed correctly because you didn’t know what the correct process was. These things happen every single day in businesses of every size.
The problem isn’t that you made a mistake. The problem is what happens next, when the person on the other side of the situation knows, or claims to know, more about employment law than you do, and isn’t afraid to say so.
The paralysis is real
That feeling of being held to ransom is one of the most stressful things a business owner can experience. It touches everything. You start avoiding the issue, which makes it worse. You lose sleep. You dread going into work. You feel like you’ve lost control of your own business.
And the longer it goes on, the worse it gets.
What I see time and again is good, capable people who have found themselves out of their depth in an area that isn’t their expertise, and who are suffering in silence because they’re embarrassed to admit it or don’t know where to turn.
Here’s the truth
You cannot be technically brilliant at what you do and also be fully across employment law, financial compliance, IT security, governance, web development, accounting, and everything else it takes to run a business. Nobody can. Nobody should have to.
There is no shame in saying “I think I may have handled this wrong” or “I need some help here before I make this worse.” In fact, it’s one of the smartest things you can do.
Getting advice early helps your employee, because whatever the situation, they deserve for it to be handled properly. It protects your business, because the longer these things are left, the more complicated and costly they become. And honestly, knowing when to ask for help and not being too proud to do it says a lot about you as a leader.
What usually happens when you pick up the phone
In most cases, the situation is more manageable than it feels when you’re in the middle of it. That’s not to minimise what you’re going through, but fear has a way of making things feel much bigger than they actually are.
Sometimes a process has gone slightly off track but can be reset. Sometimes the right conversation, handled properly, changes everything. Sometimes there are options you haven’t considered because you didn’t know they existed. And sometimes, yes, there is a problem that needs careful handling. But even then, dealing with it properly, with the right support, is always better than avoiding it.
The call you’ve been putting off is rarely as bad as the version of it you’ve been running in your head.
You don’t have to have all the answers
Running a business is hard. Managing people is hard. Employment law is complicated and it changes. Nobody expects you to know it all, and the ones who claim they do usually don’t.
What matters is that when you find yourself out of your depth, you don’t stay there.
So if there’s something nagging at you, a situation you’ve been pushing to the back of your mind, a conversation you’re dreading, a process you’re not sure you’ve handled correctly, pick up the phone. Talk it through. Get the right advice.
You’ll very likely find it’s more straightforward than you feared. And you’ll almost certainly sleep a little easier that night.
If something’s been on your mind, let’s talk it through. No obligation, no judgement, just a straightforward conversation.
Related Reading
Many situations like this can be avoided altogether with regular, honest feedback along the way. The Gift of Feedback: Why Holding Back Hurts Everyone
