What do HR and professional wrestling have in common? At first glance, not much. But after an eight-week intensive wrestling course, I realised the ring holds some serious lessons for how we shape employee experience.
This blog is based on my talk at DisruptHR London, where I shared how my time in the wrestling world changed the way I think about work, trust, and the role of HR. Below, you’ll find the full video of my talk—watch it to see how I took what I learned in the ring and applied it to the world of HR.
“These are the five things I learned on that course that we should really be employing, excuse the pun, into our employee experiences.”
Trust: The foundation of any experience
Wrestling, despite how it looks, isn’t about fighting. It’s about trust. Every move, every throw, and every fall depends on both people trusting that the other won’t drop them on their head. Without trust, wrestling doesn’t work—and neither does HR.
When I stepped into the ring for the first time, I had to trust my training partners—people I’d never met before. We had to commit to making each other look good, not just avoiding injury. This is the same foundation for great employee experiences. If employees don’t trust their managers, leaders, or HR, they won’t engage, take risks, or push themselves forward.
The problem is, trust is often treated as an HR initiative rather than an everyday necessity. We roll out engagement surveys to measure it, we create frameworks to improve it, but we rarely ask: do employees actually believe we have their back? Do they feel safe enough to experiment, fail, and learn?
The best HR teams don’t demand trust—they earn it. Just like in wrestling, trust is built in the small moments: how leaders handle mistakes, how feedback is given, and how consistently people feel supported.
Purpose: Aligning motivation with meaning
Motivation gets people in the door, but purpose keeps them going. Everyone in my wrestling class was motivated to be there, but our purposes were different. Some wanted to pursue wrestling seriously, others (like me) were there to challenge themselves. The coaches, Zak and Roy, made sure our individual purposes aligned with what we were learning.
In HR, we talk a lot about engagement, but real engagement happens when people see meaning in what they do. Are we creating environments where employees’ personal purpose aligns with the company’s? If not, we’re missing a trick.
Too often, companies assume motivation and purpose are the same. They’re not. Motivation is what gets you started—bonuses, promotions, recognition. Purpose is what makes you stay. It’s what makes work feel meaningful beyond just earning a salary.
If we want employees to truly engage, we need to stop asking, How do we motivate people? and start asking, How do we help them find purpose in what they do?
“Most of the stuff we did over eight weeks was practicing me lifting Shane up and throwing him on the floor, lifting him up and throwing him on the floor, throwing him at the side, throwing him at the ring, throwing him loads of different places.”
Practice: Giving people space to learn
Most of my eight weeks in training wasn’t about fancy moves; it was about repetition. Over and over, I had to pick up my training partner, throw him, and do it again. Why? Because skill isn’t built by information alone—it comes from practice.
HR teams love training programmes, but do we give employees enough space to practise? Learning isn’t a one-off event; it’s a muscle that needs regular use. If we want people to get better at feedback, leadership, or communication, we need to create opportunities for them to practise those skills, not just learn about them.
The biggest lesson I took from wrestling was that training is only as good as the reps you put in. You don’t learn by watching someone else do it. You learn by doing it yourself—failing, adjusting, and trying again.
In HR, we need to ask: are we actually setting people up to succeed, or are we just giving them information and hoping for the best? Real learning happens through trial and error, not just sitting in a workshop.
Observation: The power of seeing yourself in action
One of the most uncomfortable parts of wrestling training was watching myself back on video. Seeing myself flailing, hesitating, or making mistakes was brutal—but it was also invaluable. It gave me the chance to reflect, improve, and course-correct.
The same is true at work. Employees rarely get the chance to see themselves in action. Whether it’s through structured feedback, peer reviews, or self-reflection exercises, we need to build in ways for employees to observe and improve their own performance.
Think about it—most learning in the workplace is reactive. People only get feedback when something goes wrong. But what if we made observation a regular part of development? What if employees could review their own work the way an athlete reviews game footage?
In wrestling, the best way to improve is to watch yourself back. In HR, we should be helping employees do the same—giving them the tools and time to reflect on their performance and grow.
“They enabled people to think differently and do stupid things.”
Community: The glue that holds everything together
Wrestling is individual in the ring, but behind the scenes, it’s a community. Despite coming from different backgrounds, my training group built strong connections. We stayed in touch long after the course ended, supporting each other along the way.
HR spends a lot of time thinking about engagement, but we often forget that belonging is what keeps people engaged. Real communities at work don’t happen through ‘employee engagement initiatives.’ They happen when people genuinely connect and build relationships that go beyond the transactional.
The difference between a good workplace and a great one is whether employees feel part of something bigger than themselves. People don’t stay at companies because of free coffee or perks. They stay because they feel seen, valued, and supported by their peers.
When I think about my wrestling experience, the thing that mattered most wasn’t the moves I learned. It was the people I learned them with. The same goes for work. HR’s job isn’t just to manage people—it’s to create environments where real connections can form.
Final thoughts: Bringing the lessons back to HR
Wrestling might seem like an odd place to learn about HR, but it taught me more about employee experience than any training course ever could. If we want to create workplaces where people thrive, we need to focus on:
- Building trust as the foundation of every interaction.
- Aligning motivation with individual and organisational purpose.
- Giving employees the space to practise and develop skills.
- Providing opportunities for reflection and self-observation.
- Creating real communities, not just engagement strategies.
HR isn’t just about policies, processes, or content. It’s about people. And if we focus on what makes people tick—trust, purpose, practice, observation, and community—we’ll create workplaces that are genuinely human-centred.
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