The Latest from Kristy-Lee

Keeping up with compliance obligations is one of the key pain points employers face, especially when there is such frequent change as we’ve seen with the recent review of Modern Awards, changes to casual definitions, introduction of annualised wage agreements into more Awards, the constant analysis of Contractors v’s Employees and consistent Superannuation increases. It’s no wonder it feels overwhelming for employers, especially small businesses who don’t have in house HR expertise keeping abreast of the changing industrial relations landscape for them.

So, I guess it comes as no surprise that many business owners stick their head in the sand when it comes to HR compliance, and hope that they manage to get by, flying under the radar from attention from the Fair Work Commission.

But sticking your head in the sand is literally the worst thing you can do, in fact doing that could cost you dearly. With infringement notices starting at up to $ 1 332 per individual and up to $6 660 f...

We all know the feeling, we’re losing sleep, we’re avoiding the person at work, we’re angry, frustrated and tearing our hair out. We have an employee who is not performing, or not showing up how we want them to at work.

We can’t always quite put our finger on the exact issue, it’s just not quite right, but it’s wrong enough to be consuming our time and attention. Or maybe it is more obvious, but we feel like we’re going over the top if we bring it up – we don’t want them to feel like we are micromanaging them or pulling them up for something that feels petty and insignificant (yet the fact that it’s consuming our time and attention does in fact mean that at some level it is significant to us).

So, we tolerate it, whether it’s behaviour, attendance, performance or something else, we tolerate it. We think maybe it’s not that much of a big deal, or maybe it’ll be short term, or surely they will realise soon and fix it!

Here’s the thing – your employees won’t suddenly realise t...

• Creating the right role;
• Hiring at the right time;
• Finding the right person, someone that has the skills, motivation and is a great fit.

Did you know that up to 46% of new hires ‘fail’? That’s right – almost half of employees who start a role with a new employer don’t make it through 18 months (Leadership IQ).

Whilst it’s easy to conclude that obviously the applicant has misled us, lied in an interview, is not able to do what they promised or for some other reason the fault lies with them, is that really the case?

There is no doubt that making great hiring decisions is essential to creating the best possible team for your business, a team that is motivated, capable, productive and high functioning, but when we get the hiring decisions wrong, we are so often quick to look to others as the reason for this.

In an era where we are ‘panic hiring’ due to the lack of applicants in the market, a situation which is not likely to change in the short term, hiring the best person for the role can feel difficult, or even impossible, but it’s also why it’s so important to pay attention to the decisions we are making right...

As we grow our teams and our businesses develop, flex and change, we come to realise that what got us where we are, won’t necessarily get us to where we want to go. Sometimes this is true for some of our team as well. It’s completely normal, we fill gaps as we see them, but often without strategically considering how this fits with the future vision of the business.

In time we can feel overwhelmed and like we are spending our days managing people, which is the opposite of what we wanted to do when hiring a team.

At these times of growth, overwhelm and change gaining clarity is critical to being able to move forward and get to where want to be faster and more efficiently.

This is just one of the reasons I really believe in the value of a clean slate, and the clarity this can bring to understanding what you need in your team and how you can go about creating this mix, and potentially making positive change in your business.

Having a solid organisational structure is criti...

Were you like me, and one of those kids who would ask ‘why?’ all… the… time?

My parents must have lost count of the number of times I said ‘but why’ and kept asking and asking and asking until I had a satisfactory answer, and I quite often didn’t.

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 – we miss things, we miss the truth, we make false assumptions, and we make decisions based off half-baked information.

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 looking at the perception of crime in children, and specifi...