Celebrating Five Years of Lessons Learned Building Lakeside HR Group
Five years ago, Lakeside HR Group started with an idea: small to midsize businesses deserved access to experienced HR leadership and recruiting support tailored to what they actually needed.
At the time, founder and CEO Kristin Nordling knew HR Consulting. She knew recruiting. She knew how to partner with leaders, solve people challenges, and do the work.
What she didn’t fully know yet was what it would take to build a business around it.
“I was pretty naive in starting the business and thinking, I can jump right in and be a business owner, and it’s going to be fine. But I didn’t know how different it would be running a company.”
Five years later, Lakeside HR Group has grown into a national HR consulting and recruiting firm, with a team of experienced professionals serving organizations across industries and throughout the U.S.
But some of the most important lessons from those five years aren’t about how quickly the company grew. They’re about what it takes to build a business that can keep growing in the right way.
Growth Doesn’t Always Equal a Healthy Business
Lesson #1: Sustainable Growth Requires Looking Beyond Growth
In the early days of Lakeside, Kristin wore nearly every hat. She was the consultant, recruiter, salesperson, business owner, and decision-maker all at once.
Like many founders, she initially measured progress by whether the business was growing.
Over time, her definition of successful growth changed.
“Growth doesn’t actually equal a healthy business. The first few years were really about proving we could grow. Now I’m much more focused on growing something that’s sustainable.”
That shift has influenced how Lakeside approaches its next chapter.
The services and processes that work for a young company aren’t necessarily the same ones that will support it at the next stage. As Lakeside has grown, the team has become more intentional about defining its services, creating clearer roles and accountabilities, and looking closely at what clients need.
“What has gotten us here won’t get us there. We need to take that step back and say, where do we want to be in the next five?”
That has included evolving Lakeside’s service model to create clearer distinctions between Fractional HR support and On-Call HR. The goal isn’t simply to offer more. It’s to build services that can sustainably meet clients where they are while allowing Lakeside to continue delivering the level of support its clients expect.
Experiencing HR From the Business Owner’s Seat
Lesson #2: Knowing HR Is Different From Living It as a Business Owner
There is a certain irony in running an HR company: the people challenges Lakeside helps clients navigate don’t disappear just because HR is your business.
Kristin has experienced many of them firsthand.
“Being an HR company, serving others and guiding and coaching others in HR has been one of the most humbling experiences. I go through the same things that our clients are going through. And in some cases, I’m making the same mistakes that we coach them on not making.”
But experiencing those challenges has also changed the way Lakeside supports its clients.
Before starting the company, Kristin could draw on years of experience as an HR executive and business partner. Today, she can also approach those conversations as a business owner who understands what it feels like to make decisions when there isn’t always an obvious answer.
“I can actually say, I’ve been in their shoes. I understand. Now I can say as a business owner, I understand what you’re going through, and these are some of the challenges that we’ve gone through as well.”
That perspective has reinforced something we talk about often with our clients: good people practices aren’t always about knowing the textbook answer. They’re about building the right structures, having honest conversations, and making thoughtful decisions for the business and the people within it.
Building a Company Means Learning to Let Go
Lesson #3: Growth Requires Trusting Other People to Help Lead the Way
For Kristin, one of the clearest signs that Lakeside had evolved from a founder-led business into a true company came when she realized she no longer needed to be involved in everything.
“I really felt that Lakeside was becoming a true company when I didn’t need to be in every room anymore, and I didn’t need to touch all the things.”
Early clients were often buying Kristin’s individual expertise. Scaling Lakeside meant creating something bigger than that. It meant trusting other people to represent the company, serve clients, and bring expertise to the table that Kristin herself didn’t necessarily have.
“I have hired smarter people and people that have the ability to take this to the next level. They have bigger experiences. They’re bringing different perspectives.”
That diversity of experience has become one of Lakeside’s greatest strengths. Our team includes professionals who have worked in large corporations, small and midsize businesses, privately held organizations, and companies navigating significant periods of growth and change.
And for Kristin, building that team has also required changing her own role.
She has moved from being the person doing nearly everything to serving as Lakeside’s visionary, relationship builder, and strategic leader. Instead of solving every problem herself, her role is increasingly focused on where Lakeside is going next and making sure the right people are empowered to help get it there.
“The discipline of stepping away from the day-to-day has helped us grow. I’ve got a team that knows what they’re doing, probably better than I do.”
Relationships Have Built Lakeside
Lesson #4: Relationships Are One of the Best Measures of Success
There are plenty of numbers that can help tell Lakeside’s growth story. But when Kristin reflects on the last five years, what makes her most proud isn’t a number. It’s the trust behind it.
“I’m most proud of the fact that our business has been built off of referrals and relationships. Business owners are trusting us with their businesses. They rely on us, they look to us, they trust us, and they keep coming back. Then they’ll refer us to their friends.”
Some referrals have come years after Lakeside initially worked with an organization. For Kristin, those moments are particularly meaningful because they demonstrate that the relationship extended beyond the immediate project or engagement.
As Lakeside has grown, maintaining our values and bringing in people who genuinely live them has been essential. The company may look very different than it did five years ago, but the importance of relationships, accountability, curiosity, and showing up for our clients has not changed.
The Values That Keep Lakeside Grounded
Genuine
We lead with authenticity, building trust through honesty, transparency, and meaningful relationships.
Curious
We are lifelong learners, continuously evolving, asking bold questions, and staying ahead so our clients and community can too.
Scrappy
We take initiative, think critically, and find creative solutions. We’re resourceful, persistent, and not afraid to get our hands dirty to get results.
Value-Adders
We go beyond solving problems. We create lasting impact. Through strategic insight, deep relationships, and a spirit of service, we help clients succeed and communities thrive.
The Next Five Years Require Knowing When to Say No
Lesson #5: Knowing What Not to Do Is Part of Knowing Who You Are
In the beginning, saying yes helped Lakeside grow.
A client had a need, and we figured out how to help. That willingness to stay flexible, curious, and responsive opened doors, strengthened relationships, and taught us a tremendous amount about what businesses need from an HR partner.
We don’t want to lose that. But maturity also means understanding where you provide the greatest value.
“Saying yes has been a big part of our success and the growth of Lakeside, but now we have to be comfortable with saying no to the things that aren’t our strength areas or don’t align with our core business.”
For the next five years, that means continuing to listen to our clients and the market while becoming even clearer about what Lakeside does best.
It also means continuing to create meaningful work for experienced HR professionals who want to use their skills in a different way.
“The way that we do work is shifting. If we can offer some great opportunities for HR professionals to provide their skills and experiences to these small to midsize businesses, it is only going to help our market continue to improve.”
One More Lesson for Founders: Stay True to Yourself
After five years of building, learning, adapting, and growing Lakeside, Kristin’s advice to another founder getting started comes back to something simple: know who you are, value the people and relationships that helped you get there, and don’t lose those things as you grow.
Five Years In, We’re Still Learning
If you had shown Kristin today’s Lakeside HR Group when she started the company in 2021, even she isn’t sure she would have believed you.
“I knew that I wanted to grow something. I just didn’t know we would grow it into this.”
Perhaps the bigger surprise is that five years in, there still isn’t a point where all the answers suddenly become obvious.
There are new challenges. New decisions. New opportunities. And plenty of learning still ahead.
But that has become part of the experience.
“I thought by now we’d be just smooth sailing. That hasn’t necessarily been the case. But building this business is still really fun five years later, and I can’t even imagine how much fun the next five years are going to be.”
As we celebrate five years of Lakeside HR Group, we’re incredibly grateful for the clients, partners, team members, and community who have trusted us, challenged us, referred us, and grown alongside us.
About Lakeside HR Group
We are a premier Recruiting and HR Consulting firm connecting people and businesses through personalized, full-service solutions. As a boutique firm of seasoned HR professionals, we specialize in providing customized HR services for small to midsize businesses. With expertise across diverse industries, positions, and states throughout the U.S., we partner with our clients to discover top talent and deliver the support needed to help their businesses thrive.
