The Latest from Kristy-Lee

Understanding how to motivate your team can be one of the biggest challenges business owners, managers and leaders face. Finding the right people for your business is just the first step, once you have the players in place, getting the most out of them, motivating them and pushing for greater productivity and motivation is an ongoing pain point which can often feel like some sort of secret witchcraft.

For many managers, when thinking of ways to motivate staff, our automatic default is to entice them with some form of incentive, or show them recognition with some sort of gift, reward or show of gratitude. Some people even think that the bigger the gesture, the more expensive the gift or reward, the higher the motivation should be. Then, after outlaying the money, expecting a huge return on their investment by achieving high motivation across the team, they are disappointed, frustrated and resentful that their efforts have had no direct impact, and in fact can sometimes appear...

If you’ve tried to recruit new staff in the last 6 months or so, you have probably noticed that applicant numbers re definitely not what they used to be. A role that once you may have received 50 applications for, now you’re lucky to get 5, and the chances of them being high quality options, to be fair, are slim.

You may have found yourself in a situation where you thought you had struck gold and found ‘the one’ only to have them accept another role right under your nose. You’re confused, you had a great connection with them, they showed all the signs of being really interested in your position, so why would they accept another role without at least checking in with you first?

Generally, it comes down to a few possible scenarios. Either the role they were offered was just too amazing to turn down, they were willing to take on almost any job offered, or, and more and more commonly these days they have been offered a cash bonus to accept...

It can be so frustrating can’t it? When you have an employee on your hands who you know is capable of more, who you have seen perform at a far higher level, they used to be proactive, and motivated, but now getting them to do even the simplest tasks from their position description is excruciating, it’s like you’ve just asked them to walk through quicksand with an elephant on their shoulders….

Are you noticing this more than usual right now? With team members who you thought you would never need to worry about possibly, and you’re noticing the tone and vibe of the team is changing at the same time. You might be wondering what on earth has happened – your once happy, proactive and productive team seem to have taken a wrong turn – their motivation is completely missing in action!

If this is you right now, know that you’re not alone, it’s one of the most common challenges companies are facing right now – how to...

With the shortages in the labour market and the difficulty companies everywhere are having in attracting top talent, it’s no wonder many businesses are looking at alternatives to going it alone and considering engaging a professional recruiter to assist with their search.

Like anything in business, getting support to attract, find and secure the right person for any role in your business may from time to time require professional support. Sometimes to save you time, sometimes because it isn’t in your wheelhouse and getting an expert is simply a smarter option, and sometimes out of pure desperation because you think the recruiter has a magic wand and can make a candidate appear out of thin air (or because they promise they can do just that…).

Whatever the reason, if you’re considering engaging a recruitment firm to assist with your current or future campaigns, I’d like to pull back the curtain and share with you some things you may not...

It wasn’t all that long ago that businesses who could offer some sort of ‘workplace flexibility’ to their staff were at a distinct competitive advantage when it came to attracting and retaining top talent. We weren’t talking about total location independence, or complete control of hours either, we were talking things like maybe starting and finishing an hour later than others, or maybe working from home one day per fortnight.

This sort of flexibility driven competitive advantage to win the war on talent was largely played out in the large organisations, corporate world, heavily but not exclusively in the tech sectors. Small businesses were simply not able to envisage how they could possibly offer this kind of flexibility without losing complete control, without having some of their small teams feeling disadvantaged and whilst being able to maintain their consistency, productivity and control over outputs.

And not that long ago you can remember...

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.

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.

And hasn’t this years’ decision been interesting!

With issues such as inflation playing a key role in the decision making, the rising cost of living and the return to some sense of normal in this current stage of the pandemic, the Commission certainly has taken action.

Keeping up with compliance obligations is one of the key pain...

One of the most common, and annoying, challenges we face as business owners is when we have a staff member who is frustrating us! Sound familiar?

It takes up headspace, energy, time, and ultimately distracts us from focusing on more positive actions and activities in our business.

Often we can clearly identify why we are so frustrated, but sometimes it more subtle, and even hard to put your finger on, and these are the trickier situations to manage. When we are clear on why we are frustrated, we can talk to the employee, articulate the problem, state what needs to change and work on a path forward. Whereas when the issue is more subtle and difficult to identify, it’s hard to know what to do. What ends up happening is the frustration builds, and often we lose sight of what we originally were reacting to, and everything starts to frustrate us when it comes to that team member.

Fundamentally, when we are frustrated with one of our team, it’s because...

How frustrating is it when you have someone on your team who you know has so much potential, is actually really great at their job and everyone really likes them - but it’s like they are just going through the motions? They get the job done, but only just, they certainly don’t show initiative and you just want to shake them because you know they are capable of so much more, of doing a much better job.

You know they are smart, capable, skilled and you’re frustrated that you’re not seeing their best.

Here's what you’re dealing with when it comes to these people – it’s not that they are lazy – they simply lack motivation.

Why is that your problem you ask? Well, you know how hard it is to find great staff right? So, you don’t want to exit them and have to go through the recruitment process again. Add to that the fact that by proactively working to improve motivation you are actually improving employee engagement...

The Hidden Benefits of Investing In Training and Development

Henry Ford famously said “the only thing worse than training your employees and having them leave is not training them and having them stay”. But the reality is, many businesses are currently falling short when it comes to their investment in training, developing and upskilling their people.

For small businesses in particularly, training can seem like just another cost, another thing they need to find budget for, so it’s unsurprising that unless there is an urgent need to provide training in order for operations to continue, it often gets over looked or pushed to the bottom of the pile.

Here’s the thing though, when we reframe training, upskilling, knowledge acquisition and staff development into an investment in our business, rather than a cost of having employees, it can really switch our perspective. Do you invest in other things to support your business and it’s growth? Software,...

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...