HR Coffee Time · 2026-06-29 · 7 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
8 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
HR professionals consistently report that strategic thinking feels like their biggest weakness, yet struggle to find time for it amid operational demands. Fay Wallis addresses this gap with the Strategic HR Sprint, a five-day intensive designed for busy professionals who feel daunted by the pressure to "be more strategic" but lack practical pathways to get there. The program tackles the root barriers: unclear understanding of what strategic HR actually means, difficulty identifying high-impact areas within their role, and the perpetual time crunch that pushes strategic work to the bottom of the priority list. Each day requires just 10-15 minutes and includes a short video or audio lesson, a practical worksheet, and an optional AI prompt to accelerate learning. By week's end, participants should understand what being strategic genuinely entails, know where they can drive the greatest organizational impact, and have embedded strategic thinking into their regular workflow. The sprint is designed for solo participation or team cohorts - teams can block time together, share insights, and reinforce accountability. Wallis emphasizes that this isn't another passive podcast tip; it's a structured sprint that forces follow-through through daily emails and concrete deliverables.
It's a free five-day program starting July 13th where you receive daily emails with short video or audio lessons (10-15 minutes each), worksheets, and optional AI prompts to build strategic thinking skills and confidence.
The sprint teaches practical ways to carve out small, protected time slots (10-15 minutes daily) and embed strategic thinking into existing workflows, rather than treating it as a separate, impossible-to-find activity.
The sprint tackles understanding what strategic work actually means, identifying where you can have the greatest impact in your role, managing time constraints, and building confidence in your strategic abilities.
Yes - teams can block time together to go through the sprint simultaneously, share ideas afterward, and use it to strengthen team impact and conversations around strategy, or individuals can buddy up with a colleague for accountability.
You can sign up for free at brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint, with the sprint beginning Monday, July 13th.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
This episode contains zero substantive insights; it is entirely a promotional announcement for a paid sprint programme. No frameworks, tactics, or non-obvious ideas about strategic HR are actually shared within the episode itself.
I have created the strategic HR sprint. It is a five-day sprint to help you become more strategic in HR
Throughout the week, so throughout the five days, we'll tackle some of the biggest barriers to becoming more strategic
There is no original thinking whatsoever - the episode is a marketing monologue. The only 'claim' made is that HR people find being strategic difficult, which is thoroughly unremarkable and unsupported by any novel framing.
being strategic is one of the things people tell me they lack confidence in more than almost anything else
I've had people describe it as their kryptonite
This is a solo host episode with no guest at all; the host is an HR coach and trainer, but the episode does not demonstrate practitioner depth, seniority, or operator-level experience at any point.
I'm a big podcast listener myself. I love listening to all kinds of podcasts while I'm in the car, or doing the cooking, or putting my makeup on in the morning
Over the years, I've coached and trained hundreds of HR and people professionals
The only specifics present are logistical programme details - duration, start date, and a website URL - rather than any substantive data, named examples, or concrete evidence relating to strategic HR work.
Each day's activity is going to take you around 10 to 15 minutes
The strategic HR sprint starts on Monday the 13th of July
There is no conversation, no guest, no questions, and no pushback - the entire episode is an uninterrupted promotional monologue with no intellectual friction or host craft on display.
Thank you so much for listening or watching, and I really hope I'll see you in the Strategic HR Sprint soon
if you have any questions about the sprint at all, please do feel free to drop me an email
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Registration is now open for my Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint, and I'd love you to join me! If you've ever wished you felt more confident about being strategic in HR, this free sprint is for you. Starting on Monday 13th July 2026 , you'll receive a short daily video (or audio if you prefer to listen), a practical worksheet and an optional AI prompt to help you build your strategic HR skills. Each day's activity takes just 10 to 15 minutes , making it easy to fit into a busy working week. In this special bonus episode, I'll explain why I created the sprint, what you'll learn over the five days and how you can sign up. In this episode you'll learn: Why so many HR professionals find it difficult to be strategic. What's included in the Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint. How the sprint will help you build your confidence with strategic thinking. Why each day's activities take just 10 to 15 minutes. How you can complete the sprint with a colleague or your HR team. Join the Free 5-Day Strategic HR Sprint Sign up here: Strategic HR Sprint The sprint includes: A short daily video or audio lesson. A practical worksheet every day. An optional AI prompt to deepen your learning.
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
Fay Wallis: Hello, and welcome to this special surprise extra episode because I have something really exciting to share with you that I hope you're going to enjoy and find helpful and can't wait to take part in. But before I tell you all about it, I'd love to start by asking you a question, which is how confident do you feel about being strategic? Is it something that you feel really confident about, or does the idea of it feel a bit daunting? Or do you just feel like there isn't enough time to be strategic because you're so busy with everything else you've got going on at work?
If your answer to any of these questions is that you wish you felt more confident or that you did have more time for being strategic at work, I'd like to reassure you that you are absolutely not alone in feeling that way. Over the years, I've coached and trained hundreds of HR and people professionals, and being strategic is one of the things people tell me they lack confidence in more than almost anything else. I've had people describe it as their kryptonite. Others have told me that just hearing the phrase "be more strategic" makes them feel slightly panicky.
I've had someone tell me that they think they might be allergic to it, and there are so many people who have said that they wish that they could be more strategic, but they just don't know how they can fit it in. Because by the time they've dealt with meetings, emails, employee relations issues, and everything else that lands on their desk, they feel like there's just no time left for strategic thinking and strategic work. So if any of that sounds familiar to you, if you can resonate with anything that I've been describing, I completely understand, and I hope you feel reassured that it's not just you who feels like this.
I know that if you're listening to a podcast or watching a podcast, it's really easy to think, "Oh, that's a great idea. I must give that a try later," only to then get caught up with work and completely forget about it, or get distracted. Because often we're doing other things while we're listening to a podcast or watching one. I know that I do.
I'm a big podcast listener myself. I love listening to all kinds of podcasts while I'm in the car, or doing the cooking, or putting my makeup on in the morning, and there are so many times that I hear an idea and think, "Oh, I must remember that," or, "I must try that," and then I completely forget about it, unless I literally pause the episode there and then and make some sort of notes. So because I know that that's what I do, that it might be what you're doing as well, I wanted to create something slightly different to help So I'm really excited to share that to help you build your confidence and your skills with being strategic, I have created the strategic HR sprint.
It is a five-day sprint to help you become more strategic in HR. And because I know how busy you are, I've made it as realistic and doable for you as possible. When you sign up to the free sprint, every morning for five days in a row, you will receive an email from me, and it will have a video, if you prefer to watch, or an audio to listen to, and they'll be really, really, really short, so they're quick to listen to. I'll try my absolute best to make them as concise as I can.
You'll also get a worksheet to go along with the ideas that I'm sharing that day, and also an optional AI prompt for you to use to really help deepen your learning and help you get to it more quickly and, and build your confidence with AI at the same time, I suppose Each day's activity is going to take you around 10 to 15 minutes, so it's long enough to help you think differently and short enough that you can actually do it. Throughout the week, so throughout the five days, we'll tackle some of the biggest barriers to becoming more strategic, helping you understand what being strategic really means, where you can have the greatest impact in your role, and how to make strategic thinking part of your everyday work.
We'll also tackle one of the biggest barriers to being strategic in HR, which is time. Together, we'll look at practical ways to create more space for strategic thinking so it doesn't feel like something you're always desperately trying to get to, it's something that you are doing my hope is that by the end of the week, you'll not only feel more confident about being strategic, you'll also feel like you finally have a practical way to make it part of your working week. The strategic HR sprint starts on Monday the 13th of July, and I would absolutely love you to join me.
You can sign up by visiting brightskyhr.co.uk/sprint, and I'll also pop the link to it in the show notes if you're listening to the audio version of this podcast, as well as putting it in the YouTube description if you're watching the video version. And if you know another HR professional who you think would enjoy taking part and would really benefit from the sprint, please do encourage them to sign up too.
I would love this sprint to reach as many people it would be helpful for as possible. You could even commit to helping each other if you have got a friend in HR who you think would like to do it as well. So you can commit to helping each other get through the sprint and stick to it by blocking 15 minutes in your calendar, so both of you choose the same time. You can go through the sprint together and share ideas and bounce ideas around afterwards, or you can just WhatsApp each other at the end of the day and check on on how you're both getting on.
Or if you lead an HR team, why not encourage your team to take part in it together? It could spark some fantastic conversations, help everyone build their confidence with strategic thinking, and strengthen the impact that your team has across the organisation. if you have any questions about the sprint at all, please do feel free to drop me an email. You can always reach me at hello@brightskyhr.
co.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
173 | How to Build a Better Workplace Culture (So People Thrive at Work), with Aoife O’Brien172 | HR and AI: How One Company Helped Employees Embrace AI (with Laura Maffucci)171: How to Build Trust & Get Buy-In Through Brilliant Employee Communication (with Nik Nawaaz)170: 4 Ways to Stay Focused At Work and Handle Interruptions169 | A Brilliant Example of What ‘Being Strategic’ in HR Actually Looks Like (with Harriet Mewis)
