If youâve ever found yourself wondering whether your team is truly being productive or just looking busy, youâre not alone. Itâs a common problem. But with the right mindset and measurement strategies, itâs a problem you can solve.
Productivity Isnât About Being Busy - Itâs About What Gets Done
We throw the word "productivity" around a lot. Businesses want more of it. Governments are worried weâve lost it. And teams are often confused about what it actually means.
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Hereâs the truth: productivity isnât about how busy someone looks or how many hours they spend in front of a screen. Itâs about what gets doneâand how efficiently it's done.
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Productivity vs. Busyness: Know the Difference
Somewhere along the way, we started equating long hours and full calendars with output. But the two are not the same.
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Being busy means filling time. Being productive means achieving results.
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This confusion became particularly apparent during the pandemic when businesses transitioned to remo...
Offshore Workers and Australian Employment Law: A Wake-Up Call for Business Owners
In an increasingly global business environment, hiring offshore virtual assistants (VAs) and contractors is common practice.
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The appeal is obvious - cost savings, round-the-clock productivity, and access to a broad talent pool.
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But a recent case involving an offshore worker from the Philippines and an Australian company has thrown a serious spanner in the works for those assuming that overseas workers are automatically exempt from Australian employment law.
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This case has been labelled a watershed moment. And if you're an Australian business owner engaging offshore contractors directly, it's time to sit up and take notice.
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The Case That Changed the Conversation
The focal point of this legal storm is a worker in Manila, Philippines, hired by a Brisbane-based business to provide paralegal services. Though engaged as a âcontractorâ, or as the employer thought that was the arrangement, the w...
In the ultra-connected âalways contactableâ world, the lines between work and personal time have been becoming increasingly blurred, and for some maintaining a healthy work-life balance has become increasingly challenging.
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The constant accessibility and expectation to be available outside of work hours can take a toll on employees' well-being and personal lives. However, a new legislation called âThe Right to Disconnectâ aims to address this issue by granting employees the right to disconnect from work-related communications outside of their designated work hours.
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Understanding the Right to Disconnect
The Right to Disconnect legislation is designed to protect employees from unreasonable out-of-hours contact from employers, suppliers, contractors, and customers.
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It does not prohibit employers from sending emails or messages outside of work hours, but it grants employees the right not to read or respond to them.
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This legislation acknowledges the importance of work-life b...
Were you like me, and one of those kids who would ask âwhy?â all⌠the⌠time?
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My parents must have lost count of the number of times I said âbut whyâ and kept asking and asking and asking until I had a satisfactory answer, and I quite often didnât.
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Our Natural Curiosity
As young ones we are naturally curious, some more than others, but we all have a natural curiosity, and it seems that as we grow older, wiser, more experienced, we stop leaning into that curiosity. We become quicker to make assumptions, to assume we know the answer, to make educated guesses. That serves us well some of the time, but a lack of curiosity can also have its downside â we miss things, we miss the truth, we make false assumptions, and we make decisions based off half-baked information.
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The Decline in Our Curiosity
I first witnessed this fading in true curiosity when completing a major research paper for my university studies, when I was studying criminology and forensic psychology. We were looki...
Managing a team shouldnât feel like never-ending fire-fighting. Yet for many business owners, the dream of having a high-performing, self-sufficient team quickly turns into a cycle of micromanaging, reactivity, and frustration.
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Iâve heard everything from âitâs like herding catsâ to likening team leadership to a game of Whak-a-Mole. And we all find ourselves there at some point or another.
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The good news? You donât need to burn everything down and start again to make things better.
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Small shifts in how you lead can lead to big transformations. Forget about complete restructures or chasing unicorn hires. Focus on these three simple but powerful habits to move from chaos to clarity-and watch your team rise with you.
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Why Big Change Isnât the Answer
When things start to feel stuck, many business owners assume the solution is to tear it all down: hire new staff, adopt new systems, or overhaul the structure entirely.
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But in reality, these large-scale changes often create mo...
Weâve come through a whirlwind few years in Australian Industrial Relations, with businesses grappling with some of the most extensive legislative changes since the Fair Work Act was introduced in 2009.
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As the dust begins to settle, a natural question arises: are we in for another wave of change?
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The short answer: yes - but not to the same extent. Thatâs the good news.
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Still, for business owners and HR leaders, there are several important developments to watch, understand, and prepare for.
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Whatâs Confirmed: Changes You Need to Know About
While the next few years might not bring quite the same scale of transformation, there are still several changes confirmed by the federal government. These are the things we know are happening (or are very likely to):
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Minimum Wage Increases
The government is continuing its push to lift minimum wages in line with cost-of-living pressures. While annual reviews are nothing new, we can expect continued support for real wage growth. Fo...
As winter grips much of Australia and the new financial year kicks off, a sense of fatigue seems to settle over many workplaces.
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That early-year buzz has worn off, deadlines have drained us, and the enthusiasm we once had might feel like a distant memory. If this sounds familiar, you're not alone - and more importantly, itâs entirely normal. But that doesnât mean you have to sit in the slump. Now is the perfect moment for a reset.
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The Mid-Year Slump: Why It Happens
The beginning of the year often comes with energy, clarity, and drive.
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Teams return from their Christmas breaks ready to tackle new goals, strategies, and visions. Q1 feels fun, energetic, light, clear.
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But then April hits. With its patchwork of Public Holidays, school breaks, and long weekends, April throws off the rhythm that you had going. By the time May and June roll around, that once-high energy is sputtering. Even if business is booming, internal motivation often dips.
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Winter doesnât help either. ...
Amongst all the noise of the recent federal budget season the federal election cycle, the Australian Government dropped a quiet but potentially game-changing announcement for business owners: the proposed ban on non-compete clauses in employment contracts.
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For many, this might seem like a subtle shift, but its implications could be significant - especially for small business owners who rely on these clauses to protect their client base, intellectual property and competitive edge.
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Letâs unpack what this means, whoâs impacted, and what business owners should be thinking about now.
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First, What Is a Non-Compete Clause?
A non-compete clause is a section in an employment contract designed to prevent an employee from working for a competitor or starting a competing business for a certain period of time after leaving your organisation. These clauses often:
If you've ever found yourself wondering why your team isnât quite hitting the mark - despite being full of good people - youâre not alone.
Managing a team can sometimes feel harder than it should. Things arenât falling apart, but thereâs a constant sense of being bogged down in people problems, indecision, and micromanagement.
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Hereâs the truth: your team likely isnât underperforming due to lack of skill or effort.
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More often than not, whatâs missing are a few foundational elements that no one ever taught us to prioritise. And your team? They wonât ask for these things, but they need them to thrive.
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Letâs break down the three things every team needs from their leader (even if they donât know how to ask).
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As Brene Brown says âclear is kind, unclear is unkindâ â itâs not just a great quote, creating clarity for your team is one of the foundations of effective leadership. And yet, most team issues can be traced back to one root cause: a lack of clear expectat...
At the time of writing this article, the Fair Work Commission has recently handed down its decision following the Annual Minimum Wage Review process. The process involves the Commission reviewing submissions from various interested parties, including employer and employee representative groups, as well as analysing data relating to wages, such as changes to cost of living and alike.
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What is The Annual Minimum Wage Review
Essentially, they are looking to ensure that the minimum wages set out in the Fair Work Act, including the National Minimum Wage, as well as al Award minimum rates of pay, is set at an appropriate level for our current economic conditions.
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What Else is Changing
In addition to the National Minimum Wage and Award Rate changes, we are in still the midst of a raft of changes to Industrial Relations legislation, which applies to not only wages, but various other aspects of the employment relationship.
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Keeping up with compliance obligations is one of the key pa...
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