Nobody books a quick chat to tell you they’re happy. So when someone good asks for ten minutes and doesn’t say what it’s about, you pretty much know they’ll be gone in a month.

The temptation is to file it under money, or London, or bad luck… And sometimes that’s what it is. More often the business took everything it could from that person and put very little back. People don’t tend to leave a job they’re getting better at.

Most businesses run their culture as a filter. A way of working out who’s good enough, then leaning on them harder. But the very best ones do the opposite. They don’t take performance out of people, they build it in. 

Nearly everyone on this panel started somewhere unglamorous. The Jolly Hog started at a kitchen table. Sivo Wellness started in 2023 with a portable sauna. Bristol Bears have reinvented themselves more than once (and did it without leaving the city). Longevity isn’t about how long you’ve been going. It’s about what the place does to the people in it.

Bristol is a good place to have this conversation. A city that does things on its own terms and doesn’t ask permission first, from a secretive street artist to an animation studio that wasn’t chicken and didn’t run. People build here—and more to the point, they stay.

But, it’s never a “given”. Ninety minutes up the Great Western line, someone is offering your best person more money and a bigger title. So the question for every business owner in the room isn’t how hard your culture pushes. It’s whether you’re building people well enough that they don’t need a reason to leave, whether for burnout, boredom, or a train to Paddington.

That’s the conversation Employment Hero is bringing to Bristol Bear’s High Performance Centre on 27th October.

“Unapologetically Building” puts business owners and senior leaders in a room with people who were built by an elite environment and then went and built something elite of their own. Employment Hero works with thousands of UK businesses on exactly this, because how you hire, manage and lead your people is what decides whether they stay.

The session is hosted by Maisie Goss, UK VP Marketing at Employment Hero. Maisie will be joined by:

Ellis Genge, Bristol Bears and England & Tickenham Coffee Shop & Pilates, SYN Gym and more

Ellis Genge has built more off the pitch than most people manage on it. Alongside an England and Bristol Bears career, he’s behind a coffee shop and Pilates studio in Tickenham, a gym he co-owns and is bringing to Bristol, a paving business, and The Genge Fund, which backs disadvantaged young people in the city through sport and education.

Harry Thacker, Bristol Bears and Co-founder, Sivo Wellness

Harry Thacker co-founded Sivo Wellness in 2023, a portable sauna and cold-water therapy business built just outside Bristol, while still playing professional rugby. Recovery is one of the most important areas where elite sport is genuinely years ahead of everyone else, and Thacker turned a professional discipline into something other people can use.

Amber Reed, Asst. Coach, Bristol Bears Women & Looseheadz Ambassador

Amber Reed captained Bristol Bears, won a World Cup with England and now coaches on both sides of the city. She’s also an ambassador for Looseheadz, which tackles mental health in rugby. Reed has stood at both ends of a performance culture, as the player being built and the coach doing the building. She brings the question that matters most to anyone leading a team: how hard is too hard?

Join us at the High Performance Centre on 27th October to build a team that stays

Unapologetically Building is unapologetically Bristolian: One conversation, no slides. And top speakers who have spent their careers inside environments designed to make people better, then gone out and built their own.

High performance doesn’t just belong to sport. Creating and keeping it is a topic facing anyone who’s ever tried to talk a good person out of leaving, or watched them go anyway.

If you build teams, lead people or set the direction in Bristol and the South West, don’t let someone else take your seat.

Join us at Bristol Bear’s High Performance Centre: Secure your spot here.