Harborough Hustle Podcast

Martin [00:00:00]:
Hello. I’m your podcast host, Martin Robson. Welcome to the Harborough Hustle, where today I’ll be chatting with Judith from Blue Horizon HR. After the show, you can check us out on marketharboroughbiznetwork.co.uk/podcast where you can find a transcript of today’s podcast, all the links that I mentioned, posts you can share on social media to spread the word. Everything you would need to know about our lovely sponsors, all our previous guests, and, of course, about our wonderful guests today. Before we dive in though, let’s hear from our lovely sponsor.

Sponsor [00:00:39]:
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Martin [00:01:05]:
Welcome to this episode of Harborough Hustle, where I’m delighted to be chatting with Judith from Blue Horizon HR. Hi, Judith.

Judith Chadwick [00:01:14]:
Hi, Martin.

Martin [00:01:15]:
How are you doing?

Judith Chadwick [00:01:17]:
I’m good. How are you?

Martin [00:01:19]:
Yeah. Very good. Very good. Just this last weekend I I went to watch Harborough Town play football in the FA Cup. It’s the furthest they’ve ever got, and they normally get 300 people and on Saturday they had 1800, which is the maximum, you know, they could have sold more. It was quite incredible. And and last night, we’re all very excited to see the draw for the 1st round of of the FA Cup where you get bigger teams come in. And we sat and watched and watched and watched and watched.

Martin [00:01:47]:
And there were only 4 teams left in the draw. Harborough Town came out away at Tonbridge Angels. Yeah. I’m sure they’re lovely, but…..

Judith Chadwick [00:02:00]:
Maybe it’s a chance to next round.

Martin [00:02:04]:
Yeah. That’s the positive way to look at it. I like it. I like it. You’re obviously a positive person. That’s gonna be good. Anyway, enough of enough of the joys of football. Although you I’m sure you’ll agree you can’t really get enough of the joys of football 🙂

Martin [00:02:17]:
Let’s talk about you. So, Judith, I don’t know you very well. I’ve only met you a couple of, networking meetings, Market Harborough Business Network. So, why don’t you tell me and and the millions of people that are listening, who you are, just a little bit about you. We’re gonna dive into more detail, obviously, and and what you like to do outside of work.

Judith Chadwick [00:02:44]:
Okay. So I’m Judith, from Blue Horizon HR, And I try to take the stress away from, business owners from managing and employing people. I’m still employed, so I work part time, for manufacturing business, but I’m hoping that as my business grows, I can step away from that. I’ve been running business, in a few months. I live in Welford. I’ve been there about 6 years. Absolutely love village life. It’s a really active village built up a great network of friends, and there’s usually something going on somewhere in the village.

Judith Chadwick [00:03:22]:
And equally love Market Harborough. It’s our place we go to on a regular basis. So many restaurants and pubs, it’s a great place. Moved up from the southwest, lived there about 25 years, and then previous to that, I lived, in and around Yorkshire. I’m already Yorkshireman, so we had to live in Yorkshire for some some of our time. Love walking, love getting out, amongst the hills, which is, you know, coming from Yorkshire is inevitable, but there’s some beautiful countryside around Manchester, Northamptonshire, which I enjoy getting out walking, interspersed with coffee and cake always, and love having, in the village and say enjoy where we live and our 3 cats.

Martin [00:04:14]:
Yeah. Fantastic. Fantastic. Yeah. It’s so interesting here with walking with hills. I mean, my relatives are either from the southwest or from the Scottish borders, and certainly the ones in the Scottish borders would go, what do you mean? Hills, Leicestershire. It’s like, you know, there there’s a there’s a kind of pimple there, but that’s about it. So, yeah.

Martin [00:04:36]:
I don’t know what your husband feels coming from Yorkshire because again, it’s kind of flat around here, isn’t it?

Judith Chadwick [00:04:42]:
It’s not as flat as, some of the southwest, and other parts of where my mother in law’s from, more on the east side towards Lincolnshire. So there’s there’s some hills. There’s enough. But, yeah, not quite the same as as the, Penines, but there you go.

Martin [00:05:00]:
That’s the important bit. Just out of my personal curiosity, roughly where in the southwest did did you move up from?

Judith Chadwick [00:05:07]:
So we’re in a small town called Calne, just near to Chippenham. Okay. So south south of Swindon.

Martin [00:05:14]:
Yep. Yep. Yeah. Mine are down on the Somerset Devon border, so a little bit further. Yeah. But, yeah. And we end up we end up here. I’ve been in this area roughly the same amount of time that you’ve been in in Wilford actually.

Martin [00:05:28]:
So, yeah. It’s, it is a lovely part of the world. Different to what I’m used to, but same for you.

Judith Chadwick [00:05:35]:
Yeah. Because it’s it’s nice and central and where it’s easy to get to. You know, southwest every everywhere fell a long way. So we’re enjoying exploring more of the UK by being based where we are. So it’s, yeah, it’s got a lot going for it.

Martin [00:05:51]:
Yep. That’s that’s true. So anyway, you said, like, you know, you’re employed at the moment. You’re building your business up. So, what what made you take that decision to to step out on your own?

Judith Chadwick [00:06:05]:
Yeah. Good question, actually. So throughout my career, I think one of the things I’ve enjoyed most has been developing and supporting, managers, leaders, and my own teams. Coaching them, mentoring them, and actually seeing them go develop what I can go on to be able to do more. And I’m kind of sort of been in the corporate HR world for a long time, and you you start sort of thinking, well, what else could I do? Where else can I, you know, sort of change direction but still do the things that I’m really good at and really enjoy? And I love supporting local businesses. We’ve got to know quite a lot of local businesses, in and around Wilford and Market Harborough. And I know not always small businesses find it easy to manage their people, and they can’t afford to have HR, and I just thought, well, maybe the 2 could work together. Had a chat with a friend who’s a business owner, and they said, would love you to be able to come and give us some help.

Judith Chadwick [00:07:07]:
And that kind of started it. So took the plunge and said to my employer, look, wanna do something different, wanna see if I can set up my own business, can I have a couple of days off a week and they agreed? And I haven’t looked back. It’s just been, really full on, really really busy but loving every minute I wear. So, yeah, that’s that’s kind of how it started.

Martin [00:07:33]:
That’s that’s really interesting as well that, you know, your your employer is like, okay. And I know a lot of people have, you know, what what some people might term as a side hustle. They keep it quiet. You know, they they don’t want anyone to know well, see, they don’t they don’t want their current employer to know. So it’s great, you know, if you can actually do that in in a way that means you’re not trying to sort of be furtive and yet at the same time advertise the fact that you exist because otherwise how does it ever grow?

Judith Chadwick [00:08:03]:
Exactly. And I I was was prepared for them to say no, and I would have just gone for it. But, they’re getting more commitment from me because they’re allowing me. Obviously, we’ve got some parameters, some areas where I can’t, try to get into business with, and that that’s understandable. But, the a the fact that I’m focusing on small businesses and business owners, has has meant that we we can work alongside each other, which is great.

Martin [00:08:34]:
Fantastic. Fantastic. Do you have to speak to the HR people in the company in order to to make this happen correctly?

Judith Chadwick [00:08:40]:
From well, I am the age I am the I am head of HR, so and my team have been so supportive. I’m really fortunate that, you know, they were ready to take on a little bit more. I had an apprentice who was coming to complete her apprenticeship, so she was ready to step up. So the timing has just been right, and, yeah, it’s it’s been well done.

Martin [00:09:07]:
Fantastic. I’m so pleased for you. During COVID, I came across my very first example that I was aware of of an outsourced HR service. I mean, you know, we’re used to different parts of business being outsourced now. Probably, you know, bookkeeping tax finance is is perhaps the most obvious one. But, yeah, I came across someone who who had the same idea, different part of the world, and, I thought that’s really interesting. The more you think about it, the more it does make sense, doesn’t it? You haven’t got that fixed overhead, but, you know, you’ve got the the help, particularly when you grow from quite small to just that little bit further, HR becomes more important. Just on that that point, Judith, is there a kind of minimum size at which it makes sense for people to engage with HR or not?

Judith Chadwick [00:09:59]:
I think it depends on the individuals and on the business. I think if when you’re taking on that first employee, there’s a few bits to get right, but actually there’s lots of different ways you can do that. And a lot of people go down the sort of solicitor route, get a contract, get a handbook. But I always say I think there’s more to it than just compliance. It’s about understanding your business and where you want to go and getting your team, your however many there are and getting them behind you and really understanding why they’re coming to work to support you. So I think a lot of business people often have been managers in the past, so have come with experience and have, you know, I’ve I’ve sent a lot of people over the past few months, and they all have different experiences and different backgrounds. So I think there is no one answer. It really does depend on the person running the business, the people in the business, and what your business is.

Judith Chadwick [00:11:01]:
But that’s where I kind of want to help people is to not just be a a package that you take out and say this is suits you. Right. Let me come and understand you. Let me understand your business. Right. These are the areas where I think I can help and where I can think I can make things better for you.

Martin [00:11:18]:
Yeah. I think that’s a really important point because, obviously, compliance, you know, is is the base bit. You have to do that because it’s compliance. It’s, you know, legal requirements, etcetera. But, you know, it’s it’s a classic thing to say that people are are the most important asset in a business because it’s what differentiates business a from business b. And so if you’re doing things that can get more out of them, then surely that’s gonna be, you know, better for your business.

Judith Chadwick [00:11:50]:
Yeah. Everybody wants to come to work, go to work, and enjoy them, you know, enjoy what they do, do and do a great job. Sometimes we don’t necessarily give them the tools or the environment to do that, and it could be, because you’ve focused on running your own business and that’s not something that you think about, and that’s the sort of thing that I can help with.

Martin [00:12:12]:
Okay. I mean, if if I’m a business and, I’m thinking maybe I should start looking for a for an outsourced, HR service, is there something in particular I should be thinking about before I engage with you, for example? I

Judith Chadwick [00:12:31]:
think knowing your business is going, what what is it that what’s your next, few years plans? So are you planning to grow, or is it just really just a really small growth, and what’s important? So what is it that gets you up every day? What is it that you what are your values of your business? So what is it that’s that what’s that brand of your business, if you have to describe it? And sometimes people struggle with that, but that’s something that I can help, people with. But I have found as I’m, you know, looking into businesses because a lot of business these days, you’ve got to have a website, you you’re on social media, your brand and your values come out naturally, but I’m on the lookout for it, and it’s then saying converting that into, so what how does that mean I want people to behave, you know, whether it’s, you know, providing, excellent customer service, or we have to work really hard because this is a really tough environment. It’s trying to understand what that is. But I think it’s just knowing where you want to go. That’s one of the biggest things, to understand and then we can look at, well, okay, where are the gaps? What what have you got? What haven’t you got? What might make your business better?

Martin [00:13:46]:
Okay. That that makes sense. One that’s just just come to my mind, and I kind of, you know, it’s it’s relevant for both of us, I’m sure, is what do you think about the the overall discussion about, people working from home versus working in the office? Obviously, you know, in in COVID, a lot of change happened, but we see in some large multinational companies, you know, that the people at the top are calling for more people to go back to the physical office. What’s your whole take on that subject?

Judith Chadwick [00:14:17]:
I think it’s finding the right solution. I think very much there’s a compromise. It’s not everybody must be in the office, and it’s not anybody who can work from home should be at home. We’re sociable creatures, and being around people is when you get the best out of them. So but having a bit of flexibility where you can is brilliant, but I work, you know, from my employee status. I work, in manufacturing business. Well, the majority of employee can’t do their job at home. So there’s another you’ve got to be very wary of creating an us and them, people who can work from home but people who can’t.

Judith Chadwick [00:14:59]:
So I I always say look let’s what’s the best of what how are we gonna get the best best out of this person and what’s best set up? And certainly, in my current employment, you know, we look at a real mix. It’s about being flexible and supportive without any doctrines and I think that’s the thing. Don’t bore something. Find the right solution for your business.

Martin [00:15:22]:
Okay. Alright. Again, that seems to make a lot of sense to me. I know for this business, you know, you’re not been going so long. Was it about 5 months, you said? Did I get that right? Just a few months. Yeah. Just a few, 2 or 3 months. Yeah.

Martin [00:15:37]:
So even though it’s a few months, do you think there’s anything, you know, looking back to just before you started or when you started that now you could go, oh, I wish I’d known that then?

Judith Chadwick [00:15:48]:
I think, not sure whether I wish I’d known it, but one thing I’ve really found is how supportive all the other people in a very similar boat to me are. So through all the networking that I’ve been doing and the number of, business owners I’ve met, it doesn’t matter whether they’re in a different business or actually in the same field as you. Everybody wants you to succeed. Everybody’s interested. Everybody’s happy to give you a little bit of, support and help, and have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? I’ve learned so much, from talking to people that’s either reaffirmed that’s what I was thinking or, oh, I hadn’t thought about that. So would it would it have made any difference? I think it might have just really given me more confidence, to get going. I did it because everything was sort of lining up, and I I wanted to give it a go. But it was I was a little bit nervous about it.

Judith Chadwick [00:16:46]:
But what I’ve learned is don’t be there’s just so many people out there who just want you to do a great job.

Martin [00:16:52]:
That’s such an interesting answer because I remember, I went to my very first market harbor business network meeting couple of years ago, and, I was pretty nervous, and I I kinda pitched up. And the reason I went is because they happen to have a a venue that had llamas. And I thought, well, you know, if I don’t really fit in, at least I’ll go and talk to the llamas. But but it was the same thing. You know, it was surprising how helpful people were. And and the guy who was running at the time, did this little speech about networking and about just try and be helpful to other people. Don’t go for the sell, sell, sell. You know, be yourself, but but try and help.

Martin [00:17:34]:
And if everybody tries to help, then together we’ll all, you know, get benefit. And it always stuck with me and, you know, we’ve tried to kind of run, you know, our network in in the same way. So it it’s good to find that not not just in market hardware business network, but across, you know, the the different areas that you’ve met people. You’re finding that that’s that’s the attitude that that people have. Really refreshing.

Judith Chadwick [00:18:01]:
Yeah. Definitely. And if you I’ve tried to always think, well, okay. What skills am I, transferring here? And I’ve always worked on it. I need to work as a with in HR. You’ve gotta work alongside managers, and the best way to build relationships with them and get them to listen to you when things when you’re telling them you must do this or you really need to do this, is to have built that relationship by helping them out. So the quick wins, you know, doing something to help out a manager, which maybe isn’t exactly what you should be doing, but it helps them out in that instance. And it’s just applying that same thing, you know, people are gonna build and want to listen to you and work with you if you’ve helped out.

Judith Chadwick [00:18:43]:
So it’s just, you know, that’s really one of the things I’ve always done. So it’s I’ve now just got a different network of people who who I want to try and help out.

Martin [00:18:53]:
Fantastic. So if if you had any, mentor, any part of your your journey? Funny

Judith Chadwick [00:19:01]:
enough, and I I don’t think many people would say this. My husband, Stuart, is my mentor. In terms of this business, he’s the one who really has pushed me, and said you can do it. You know you know you are good. You know you can do this. But, also, since I’ve started, he’s really challenged me. So he’s a, he’s been a manager most of his career, and been very successful at it. So he will see things from a very different angle, and that’s always been good for me.

Judith Chadwick [00:19:32]:
Sometimes when you work in HI, you you are blinded to the way you did, and it’s good to have somebody to reflect and say actually no as a business owner or as a manager, I would want to approach it this way or have you thought about that. So not only is he, you know, supporting me, he’s challenging me, he’s pushing me and saying, oh, we need to do this, you need to do that, but we do it together, and I’m getting enough of IT technical support as well because that’s his field. So, yeah, that’s I feel really fortunate for that.

Martin [00:20:04]:
Fantastic. No. That that is good to hear. It’s it’s interesting. One of the more popular answers is my mother, my father. And that tends to be from, they’ve done something and inspired, you know, their, their son or daughter to to get to have a go. But, yeah, for for it to be your your partner as well, I mean, that’s wonderful to hear. So shout out to Stuart.

Martin [00:20:31]:
Thanks, I mean, normally I say to people then is there any sort of contemporary person that you admire in any particular reason? But I wonder if the answer is gonna be Stuart again.

Judith Chadwick [00:20:45]:
Perhaps no to a degree, but, I could say I could say Richard Branson, I’ve I’ve followed, read a number of his books and, you know, I do like his mantra, look after your people, they’ll look after your business. But actually, I’m gonna tip back to some of the stuff that I I mentioned earlier. There’s a couple of people who worked for me, and then I worked alongside and I employed them and developed them who have gone on to bigger and better things, and I have a huge admiration for them. One of my, team, Michelle, she now runs her own business. She’s been running it for a while, but before that, she’d gone much more, successful than I have, in the world of HR. And then Rachel, who I worked alongside from a learning development point of view, again, she’s gone off, gone her own business, and she’s actually relocated to the to the Netherlands as well. But I’ve admired the what they’ve succeeded and hopefully feel that maybe I played a little part, of their success.

Martin [00:21:50]:
Yeah. It’s always nice when you see people you work with, go on, you know, to to be successful and feel that you you’ve helped them in some shape or form. That’s great. Slightly contentious question, so swerve it if you want to. But I noticed you mentioned 2 ladies there. You are, of course, yourself a lady. In my experience, having worked in corporate world before I went, out on my own, The vast majority of of people who worked in HR were women. Why do you think that is?

Judith Chadwick [00:22:22]:
It’s a really good question. I’ve worked funnily enough, I’ve worked for men, mostly as heads directors, HR directors. So often they’re more at the senior level. I’ve had a couple of, men in my teams. I really haven’t got to the bottom of the answer. I don’t think the HR world has either. I think it’s getting better. But, you know, you look at, what CIPD are doing and you go around any HR conference, and it is.

Judith Chadwick [00:22:57]:
The majority are females. And the only thing I can think is that a lot of people move into HR from sort of an administrative point of view, office managers. They start doing it, and and people migrate that way. Recruitment, although recruitment is a little bit more, 5050, but now I haven’t really got to the bottom of it. But those are my best guesses.

Martin [00:23:21]:
Okay. Alright. I’m sure it’s it’s a kind of separate podcast that we could delve into in quite some detail because obviously, you know, the reverse generally applies to the IT world. And and again, there’s no real reason why that should be, but, yeah, we’ll we’ll perhaps come back to that in another episode then. Let’s, switch out and and go for confession time. What do you think is the biggest mistake you’ve made in business and and did you learn anything from it?

Judith Chadwick [00:23:53]:
I think and I discovered this probably 5 or 6 years ago, not believing in myself. I didn’t know whether or didn’t think I was doing a great job. I was always thinking at some point somebody’s gonna come in and say, Judith, you’re not really doing a good job here. There’s a better way of doing everything. But I finally twigged that actually, do you know what? I can do this, and stand up for what you believe in. The HR world has a lot of different views and sometimes you feel like you need to go with what’s been counted at that particular time, but I have some quite strong views on how we should run what what’s the best way of getting people, to perform and get the best out and motivate people, and it’s not always the thought of the day. But I’ve I’ve now learned to stick by my principles and because that’s what has made me successful. So I think I should have thought about that and lived by the prince principles a little bit earlier in my career.

Martin [00:25:05]:
Okay. I mean, that’s that’s not an easy reflection to make sometimes about your own self, is it? You know, it’s it’s perhaps easier to make it about other people in in a helpful way. So, yeah, it’s it’s it’s good to go through that and get to a point where you you realize that. You talked about having some strong views about how to motivate people. Is is there any one sort of tip that you could share with us?

Judith Chadwick [00:25:32]:
Yeah. Don’t score people. So and that’s probably more you find in the, larger corporate world where we need to put people in a box, and we need to number that box and we need to count how many of those people. People aren’t numbers, people are people, and everybody’s individual. And for me, I just put the individual where they are, support them, find out what motivates them, what development, what learning do they want, and do that. Let’s not try and put people into boxes. That’s really one of my pet hates.

Martin [00:26:09]:
Okay. Hopefully, for people listening to the podcast, you can feel the the emotion in, Julia’s voice there. If you’re watching it, then, you know, you could just have the the sound off because you’d see it in her face, how much you believe in that. So let’s just flip it around 180. We talked about, you know, big mistake. What about your proudest moment?

Judith Chadwick [00:26:32]:
I think because I’m so enjoying my business, one of the things that I’ve done quite early on with, one of my clients, a really simple thing, it was they had a handbook. They weren’t happy with it, didn’t like the language, didn’t like the layout. So we worked on it, and I produced it. I put their story in, put their values in, highlighted why it was great to work for that company, and produced a document, put it in a, you know, lovely fancy folder. And the point that I handed that over to the business owner, she was so pleased with it, so thrilled, and that was made. I thought, well, I’ve done that. And guess what? I’ve been paid for it. For me, I was like, yes.

Judith Chadwick [00:27:16]:
I’m proud of myself now. So, yeah, that’s that’s been my proudest moment since I’ve started my business.

Martin [00:27:23]:
Fantastic. Congratulations. Yeah. It must be quite a moment, like you say, when you’ve done something that a, you’re proud of, b, it’s been really good for somebody else, and c, you got paper as well. I mean, that’s the win win win, isn’t it? Yes. So I borrowed this idea from Steven Bartlett. Apparently, he’s got some podcast or other. I don’t think anybody listens to it.

Martin [00:27:44]:
But, in it, he gets a previous guest who asked a question for a future guest. And, Carmen came on the show a little while ago and she said, is there any particular book that’s helped you in your business?

Judith Chadwick [00:28:02]:
I wouldn’t say I’ve got a book that’s helped me in my business, but a book that has stuck with me for a very long time. And it’s a book called Who Moved My Cheese? I don’t know if you’ve come across it,

Martin [00:28:18]:
2

Judith Chadwick [00:28:18]:
little mice, really human and more. And it goes back a long while ago. I was working for a business, leading a team, and we were about to be bought by the company. And that was a quite a scary thing. We knew there’s gonna be a lot of change. So I went out and bought the book, made all my team read it, and then we had a common language about and when we were things were happening that we weren’t happy with, and it just you know, have you got your trainers on today? You know, we would say things that would just get each of us going, and it motivated us. And that book stuck with me, and I’ve referred back to it with future names and in individuals that I’ve commented. It’s a really good grounding in how to live and enjoy change in your life.

Martin [00:29:12]:
Fantastic. And as ever, listeners, viewers will will link to that, that book as well on the show notes. So if you go to the website afterwards, and you wanna find out more about, Who Moved My Cheese, then, it’ll be on on the on the website there.

Judith Chadwick [00:29:28]:
I’ve got a whole website all dedicated to Who Moved My Cheese.

Martin [00:29:35]:
We just have a little link to it so people could go down that that rabbit hole if they want to. So what do you think if I mean, if you weren’t working in HR, you’re obviously doing that as your business now, you know, it’s been your background in in corporate world as well. Do you think there’s another career you you would have done or you’d still like to attempt?

Judith Chadwick [00:29:54]:
There’s a couple, I think. So I had did start, to learn about psychology. I did start a psychology degree, didn’t get on with it. I’ve got to the point I’d learned enough through education, wanted to get out into the real world. So, I sort of moved away from that, but I often wonder what if I’d stayed with that. I I am still very fascinated by how the mind works, how, how we operate, and how you can retrain your brain and the way you think. So that’s always a little bit of a side, interest for me. But in terms of going forward now, I’d love to have a cattery.

Judith Chadwick [00:30:39]:
I could just spend all day looking after the cats.

Martin [00:30:43]:
Oh, okay. Alright. Yeah. You did mention earlier on you you’ve got some cats. How many do you have?

Judith Chadwick [00:30:48]:
So we have 3, although we say we have 2 and a half, because one of them goes away for quite a long spells of time. He’s just come back from being away about 8 weeks. And that’s his youngest. He’s done a stint of 6 weeks. We know where he goes. Early on when he started disappearing, we got one of those trackers, put it in and watched him walk a mile and a half to a farm just outside the village, and then he just spent the whole time around that farm. And now that we know that’s where he goes, I can check-in with the, one of the people that lives up there and just say, have you seen a black cat recently? I think he’s there again. But, yeah, love them all.

Judith Chadwick [00:31:34]:
They’re all got different characters. They all bring something different, but, yeah, that that that’s that’s our cats.

Martin [00:31:42]:
Yeah. No. We we, we live on a a smaller state of 50 dwellings, either flats or houses or whatever, you know, mixture. But it’s on the right on the edge, so it’s close to countryside. And, we have a cat who’s not ours who comes and visits regularly, but, of course, you know, he visits everyone regularly. He used to have one of those Apple tag trackers, but he got very, very good at taking it off. So the somebody set up a WhatsApp group for the whole estate. And basically, it just turned into TEDwatch.

Martin [00:32:13]:
So it’s like, where is Ted now? And, you know, here’s his tracker, but he’s not in it. So, yeah, he was a little Houdini, but, absolutely lovely. Lovely chap. So I know that despite the fact we’ve covered a lot of very interesting stuff, both about you and and about HR, and about performance, that one of the the most burning questions I will get, and I know this this is the case is, what’s the name of Judas Katz?

Judith Chadwick [00:32:42]:
Yes. Okay. So we have Zig, we have his brother, Zig. Unfortunately, Zig, didn’t live with us very long. And then we have Beau who’s the one who disappears, and Bear, they’re brothers. So they’re jet black, Zig is Ginger and White. So, yeah, those are the names and address.

Martin [00:33:03]:
Fantastic. So there you go, listeners. I I remember what you told me before, so, yeah, please don’t give me a hard time because I didn’t find out. So there we go. Anything left on the bucket list as they say? I

Judith Chadwick [00:33:19]:
think, yeah. So if I came into some money, won the lottery, I think living abroad, for a time, somewhere sunnier, whether it would be just for a few months of the year or go for a year or something. That’s definitely on the bucket list somewhere where it’s sunny. I’m looking out the window today.

Martin [00:33:42]:
Yeah. I know what you mean. Well, that that’s great. I’d highly recommend it. And and just as an aside, depending on where it is you wanna go, you really don’t need that much money to be able to do that. What you need is time. Having lived in a few different countries, that that’s what I found. Anyway, any hidden talents you wanna share with us that, you know, maybe Stuart’s not aware of? The doors are shut.

Martin [00:34:04]:
He can’t see.

Judith Chadwick [00:34:06]:
Oh, he he he probably knows most of my talents. One thing people often don’t know about me, I do play the piano. Not as well as I wish I could, but enough to play some things that I’ve played for years. It’s a great way of relaxing because you have to really focus, so you do have to switch everything else off. So, yeah, that’s probably something people don’t know about me.

Martin [00:34:31]:
Well, that’s worth remembering. The reason being that, you know, we go to a different venue every month in in the network and, and one of the ones we pitched up at had a a full piano there. And everybody’s looking at everybody else going, could you do it? Could you do it? Right. So yeah. Next time if we we end up back there, we’ll know exactly.

Judith Chadwick [00:34:51]:
I should’ve got a mouth shut.

Martin [00:34:55]:
No. Don’t hide your talents. That’s I’m sure you told me that earlier in the in the podcast.

Judith Chadwick [00:35:00]:
Oh, yeah. Good.

Martin [00:35:02]:
Brilliant talking to you, Judith. If people wanna find out more, where should they go?

Judith Chadwick [00:35:08]:
So I’m on, Instagram as Blue Horizon HR. LinkedIn, you can see me as Judith Chadwick and Blue Horizon HR, and I also have a website, bluehorizonhr.co.uk.

Martin [00:35:22]:
Fantastic. Okay. And, of course, we will link all of those as as we said before. 2 more questions. There’s normally only 1, but I’m gonna go for 2 now. Perhaps one I should have asked much earlier. Why Blue Horizon?

Judith Chadwick [00:35:37]:
So took a lot. It wasn’t Blue Horizon right from the beginning. Took a lot of thinking, but a lot of company names are 2 words, a color and a thing. And blue was obvious, and that’s my sort of first colour. I love blue. So that was a no brainer. But horizon, in a way, this is where I want to go. This is helping me maybe see more horizons in the future, talking about living abroad, get a little bit more, but also I want to sort of help people see to the future and grow.

Judith Chadwick [00:36:14]:
So, yeah, that was that’s how we came up with Blue Horizon.

Martin [00:36:19]:
Fantastic. Alright. And final question is what have I forgotten to ask you? I’m not sure

Judith Chadwick [00:36:27]:
there’s anything you haven’t. I think we’ve covered quite a lot of ground. The only thing I can think of is perhaps what’s what might be next to me, what haven’t I learned yet, and interestingly links back to you, how can we use AI, in managing people? How can we, utilise it? Because it’s not something that you would necessarily put with managing people and getting the best out of them, and that’s something I want to explore a little bit more.

Martin [00:36:57]:
Fantastic. You’re the first person who’s who’s answered with that. I love to talk about AI because I know it can help so many businesses, and particularly, you know, smaller local businesses who are most of the audience for this podcast. So without me starting to go into a whole thing about AI, I’m really pleased that you asked. We have a separate podcast that is all about the practical use of AI in business as opposed to, you know, a lot of the hype and the misinformation that surrounds it. But you’re quite right. I’ve spoken to lawyers who are like, well, you know, in the legal field, we can’t possibly use it, you know, because of legal considerations and then in finance because of, you know, regulations of industry. And HR, you know, you talk about

Martin [00:37:48]:
a very human kind of, facet of of business and and of life. And all those things are true, but actually, all of them can benefit from different uses of of AI. At the end of the day, anything that makes our business life easier so that we can focus on whatever our business is about has got to be something, worth exploring. I was talking to my mum about washing the dishes and the dishwasher. And she’s like, well, yeah. Of course, I washed the dishes this way by hand for 40 odd years, and, yes, of course, I’ve got a dishwasher now. Alright. But they do the same thing, mum?

Martin [00:38:31]:
She’s said yes, but that one’s easier and allows me to do other stuff. That right there was my 80 year old mum explaining AI, basically. So if anybody’s interested, then get in contact with with me, Martin Robson, about AI. But let’s get this podcast back on to Judith because that’s where it really should be. Thank you very much, Judith. I absolutely loved it.

Martin [00:38:55]:
As I say, the transcript of of what we’ve talked about, links, stuff that we can use for for social media, that’s all gonna be on on the website. And and, listen, it’s like I said before, you’ll see on the website, you know, little clips that you can use on social media. They’re yours. Go use them. You know, they’re not just for me, not just for Judith. If you’ve enjoyed something about this episode or you think there’s something that someone could learn from it, share it. And, you know, let’s let’s Jude’s a few months into her business. Let’s help her because we know that she can help us.

Martin [00:39:29]:
And on that happy note, I’m gonna say thanks again, Judith, and goodbye.

Judith Chadwick [00:39:34]:
Pleasure. Thank you.