Sharon Docherty

Background

Sharon Docherty is the founder and director of BlueTurtleHR, a consultancy committed to supporting small and medium-sized enterprises in tackling workplace bullying and broader HR management challenges. Drawing on more than two decades of experience as a senior civil servant within the UK Ministry of Defence, Sharon brings a unique blend of policy expertise, strategic leadership, and lived insight into organisational culture.

Throughout her 20-year MOD career, Sharon held a series of high-profile appointments, including serving as Liaison Officer to the Prime Minister’s Special Representative for the First World War Commemorations and acting as a Legislative Policy Officer negotiating a bilateral agreement between the UK and the Republic of Cyprus. Her work has consistently bridged the worlds of diplomacy, policy, and organisational change.

Sharon’s commitment to lifelong learning has shaped her career trajectory. In 2017, she joined the Army Advanced Development Programme, where she earned an MBA from Henley Business School, completed the Project Leadership Programme with Cranfield University, and achieved a Level 7 qualification in Management Consultancy. These achievements led to a key role in the Central Transformation Team at MOD Main Building, Whitehall, where she helped build transformation capability across Defence.

She further deepened her strategic insight by attending the prestigious Advanced Command and Staff Course, culminating in a Master’s in Defence Studies from King’s College London. This experience broadened her national security, strategic planning, and international relations expertise.

Following her retirement from the Ministry of Defence, Sharon launched BlueTurtleHR to create psychologically safe workplaces where employees can thrive. The consultancy offers bespoke, ethically grounded HR services tailored to the needs of SMEs, focusing on navigating complex issues like workplace bullying, employee relations, and organisational culture.

Sharon is currently undertaking a Doctorate in Business Administration, where her research explores workplace bullying in contemporary organisations. Her journey through discrimination and ill-health retirement has only deepened her resolve to challenge toxic work environments and help businesses foster resilience, empathy, and equity at every level.

Research opportunities

1. Workplace Bullying and Organisational Culture

Understanding bullying dynamics, causes, and consequences within hierarchical and bureaucratic organisations.

Investigating how leadership behaviours, workplace structures, and cultural norms enable or mitigate bullying.

Exploring the psychological, social, and organisational impacts of prolonged exposure to toxic work environments.

2. Disability Discrimination and Inclusion in the Workplace

Examining how organisational systems either support or marginalise employees with chronic illness or disabilities.

Investigating the lived experience of navigating formal processes such as ill-health retirement, reasonable adjustments, and grievance procedures.

Evaluating how inclusive HR policies are operationalised in practice, particularly in large public-sector institutions.

3. HR Management in SMEs

Analysing how small to medium enterprises approach complex employee relations issues without an extensive internal HR infrastructure.

Developing scalable, ethical frameworks to help SMEs build psychologically safe workplaces.

Investigating informal resolution mechanisms and their effectiveness in smaller organisational settings.

4. Change Leadership and Transformation in Public Sector Contexts

Assessing how strategic change is communicated, adopted, and resisted in large-scale Defence and public-sector environments.

Exploring transformation programmes' human and relational side, particularly in mission-driven institutions.

Evaluating capability-building programmes and their impact on workforce adaptability and resilience.

5. Lived Experience and Autoethnography in Organisational Research

Interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and autoethnography will explore the researcher’s experience of discrimination, grievance, and system navigation.

Exploring how personal narratives can enrich and legitimise academic inquiry in management research.

6. Ethics and Power in HR Practice

Investigating the ethical dilemmas faced by HR practitioners dealing with sensitive interpersonal conflict, especially in smaller or under-resourced settings.

Examining the role of power, voice, and procedural justice in the employee-employer relationship.

Current activities

Sharon is leading a portfolio of impactful work through her consultancy, BlueTurtleHR, providing tailored support to organisations navigating complex people challenges, particularly workplace bullying, culture, and employee wellbeing.

She has recently worked with Coventry City Council's Thrive Programme, delivering a specialist workshop on upward bullying to foster healthier team dynamics and embed trauma-informed leadership practices across departments. At the Business Forum International (Bfi), Sharon delivered several workshops as part of a learning initiative to address bullying and harassment within business.

She is collaborating with the FDA Union by delivering several workshops and webinars to support the development of evidence-based approaches to address workplace misconduct and promote safer, more inclusive environments across the civil service.

Alongside her professional practice, Sharon is progressing her Doctorate in Business Administration, focusing on the lived experience of workplace bullying and the organisational responses to it, using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) to foreground employee voice and experiential insight in management research.