Why Don’t My Staff Care as Much as I Do?

Hello and welcome to Episode 347 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

Why don’t my staff care as much as I do? If you’ve asked yourself that at 9pm, still chewing over a client problem while your team logged off hours ago, this episode is for you. The gap you’re feeling is real. The fix just might not be the one you’re expecting.

It’s one of the most common frustrations I hear from business owners, and I understand it completely, because I’m that owner too. I recently came upstairs from my office so late that my husband thought I’d gone out. Running a business can be all-consuming, and in some seasons it needs to be. The trouble starts when we build a team and expect them to bring that same level of care. When they don’t, the frustration builds, and it can damage the working relationship on both sides.

So I explain why your staff aren’t supposed to care as much as you do, and why expecting it sets everyone up to fail. You carry the risk of the business, and you also get the upside. Your employees exchange their time for a wage. That’s the deal, and a small profit share or bonus doesn’t change it. A 2% share is never going to feel like 100% ownership.

I also talk about how you might be measuring care against your own habits, like late nights, weekend thinking and emails after dinner, and why that’s an unfair comparison. Care from a good employee looks different. There’s a legal side to this too. An employee who’s happy to go above and beyond is still covered by the Fair Work Act, their award, overtime rules and the right to disconnect.

Then we get to the most useful part: what you can realistically expect. Your staff can and should own their role. That means knowing what good looks like, following through, taking pride in their work and hitting their goals. But they can’t do that without clarity from you. Plenty of owners hold back on spelling out expectations because it feels bossy. Your team actually want to know. If they don’t know what success looks like, you don’t have a caring problem. You have a performance problem caused by a lack of clarity, and that one is yours to fix.

If you’ve been feeling let down by your team, this reframe will take pressure off you and them.

In this episode we cover:

• Why owner-level care is an owner-level responsibility, and why expecting it from staff is an unfair standard
• How bonuses and profit share fit in, and why they don’t close the gap
• What care actually looks like from a good employee
• The Fair Work traps when a keen employee does extra: overtime, award obligations and the right to disconnect
• How to give your team the clarity they need to own their role, including defining what good looks like

Links & Resources:

• 💬 DM Kristy-Lee on Instagram @kristy.lee.billett
• Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristyleebillett/ 
• Email me at [email protected] 
• Book a 15-minute clarity call: https://calendly.com/kristyleebillett/chat