Staffing Struggles: Why Hiring Feels Hard (and How to Get It Right)

You're the boss, but sometimes it doesn't feel like it. Your staff are turning up late, doing things their own way, and you're starting to wonder if they even care anymore.

In this episode, Crystal and Kay get into one of the most common frustrations in small business: staff who seem to have checked out. They share real stories from clients who were ready to walk away from profitable businesses because of one difficult staff member, and what actually turned things around.

Spoiler: most of the time, it's not a people problem. It's a communication problem.

In this episode, we cover:

• Why "I hate my business" often comes back to one staff issue
• The conversation most business owners avoid (and why having it earns respect)
• Why your staff might not actually know what you expect of them
• How a simple daily priorities list changed everything for one business
• When to hire, how to start small, and why cheap hires can cost you more
• The difference between being liked and being respected as a boss

The key takeaway: if your staff don't seem to care, the first place to look is in the mirror. Not because you're doing everything wrong, but because 95% of the time, better communication, clearer expectations, and regular check-ins will turn things around.

Connect with us:
Crystal Petzer - https://businessgrowthcoach.com.au/
Kay Godfrey - https://upupandaway.net.au/

If this episode hit home, share it with a business owner who needs to hear it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:05

All right.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

So hi Kelly. Hi Crystal.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

Welcome back. So today I thought we would talk a bit about um staffing and why are my staff not caring anymore? So I feel like it's a it's a big topic, and staffing's always a tricky topic. But I I feel like sometimes my staff just don't care anymore. It's a big one and it does happen a bit. And um thank you for joining us again. And this is Kay and Crystal. Um we do small business sorted podcasts, and we just help bring clarity and less chaos to you and your business by talking about a variety of interesting subjects that well we find interesting and things that we come across on a regular basis that we'd like to share on or just chat about. Um you may relate to some of them as well.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

So starting off with it uh with this topic, I actually had a um something quite close to my heart and that I that I've seen a lot. I actually had a a this has happened like three times last year with clients, where the one of the phone calls that I got is that I really hate my business. I hate my business. I don't want to be in here anymore, I just want you to help me get out. Um and I go, great, I can help you with that. So, and then we then we dig around and we dig some, so why do you hate your business? And one of the things that kept popping out for me was that I've got a really difficult staff member to deal with. And this staff member was actually, I guess, it's not bullying the boss, but it the he they basically were not doing what the boss asked them, and they basically were doing whatever they wanted, and basically were cheeky back or downright rude back, and were actually causing a whole big culture problem in their business. Um, to the point where the business owner actually was feeling um really despondent and quite depressed around his business, didn't know how to deal with the situation and was was wanting out. He just wanted to close the business down and check out. And the business was profitable, the business was going relatively well, but he just felt that he just didn't want to go on anymore around that.

SPEAKER_00 2:32

What did he do? What did we do?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

So, well, I guess the the conversation was um, okay, well, why do you have him? Is he happy there? Because if he's behaving like this, maybe he's lost respect for you, clearly. Um, and maybe he's unhappy, but he just doesn't know how to leave. Or maybe he's expecting you to to fire him or or ask him to leave, or or maybe some people like better boundaries, you know. Um and yes, that was that was the conversation. So I said, why why do you have him? And then it ended up being it was a friend of a friend's son or something like that, and which complicated it again. But I think when I said you are the boss, you are the boss. You actually don't have to have people in your business that aren't working for you.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

You know, you shouldn't have people that you don't like or you can't work with.

SPEAKER_02 3:27

Yeah, and it's you can choose to have better people in your business and you you you do have the right as a boss or as a business owner to if people are causing a lot of problems in the business, you do have to have you got that choice and you do have to have that difficult conversation. And I'm just wondering whether it's the difficult conversation part that is difficult for people to do.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Absolutely, I know myself I do not like difficult situations. I remember right at the beginning of my career when I worked for a corporate and I had a little girl, and she was only a little girl, and I had to fire her, and it's the worst thing I have ever had to do. And she almost threw up in front of me. She was so upset.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Um she didn't see it coming.

SPEAKER_00 4:25

She didn't see it coming, but she just it's sad because she wasn't the right person for the job in the first place. So I guess that was my fault for employing someone who the wrong person. Yeah. Or not she wasn't qualified enough to do the job.

SPEAKER_02 4:44

And um therefore, do you think we do you think we hire people because we like them? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:56

Absolutely. Although I think that's a big part of it. Yeah. Um, it's I'm not an HR person. I'm just a question.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Yeah, actually that's probably a good disclaimer for both of them. We're both not HR people, but we've both had a bit of experience in this.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

But obviously you've got to look at their qualifications. I think as I as I've moved through life and business, and now I've got my own business, you learn to um look at the qualifications and and the job spec is important. You have to know what you're looking for. What does a person need to do? And I think you'd probably be amazed that there's a lot of businesses that don't have the job specs, don't have what they need to manage the spec manage the stuff, yeah, manage the job.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Well, if we go back to that story, I the one thing that I asked them was, okay, so what you know, what was his role? And he was I I let's just call him a plumber on the job, right? Um, a qualified plumber. And he was um so, and I said, Do you have a a description of what he's got to do? He goes, he's just got to do his work that I give him, you know. I said, Okay. And I said, but what about how to work with your business? How do you do you have something around that how to work with me type of thing, or how do we work in our business? And he said, No, and he goes, but what would you put in something like that? So then I said, you would put in things like, you know, I want you to wear my uniform. I want you to have good customer service. What does that mean, good customer service? That you turn up on time, that you um are polite, that you explain what you're there to do, that you um that when you finish the job, you let them know that you finished. Clean up, like clean up. Oh, we just had somebody at our house that left the most awful mess at our place and uh was doing blinds and that. I was just like, oh man, you know. Um you really want them to clean up, leave the place better than when they see it, take your rubbish away with you, um, and let them know when you're finished, right? Yep. And then and then send that information into the office. How to, you know, what they did, the hours that they worked. That's that has to be in there. Um another thing was in there getting on with your peers and and setting, I guess that how to work with us is setting up the bumper bars on what's acceptable behaviour in your business, right? And turning up on time. You know, turn up to work, right? Um book your holidays in advance, you know. We shut for two weeks over Christmas, you're expected to take that two weeks. Other leave, you put in best best in, first in, best dress type of thing. Um, the other, I don't know, what else would you put in that?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

All sorts of things, but including what you've said. But I think the point is setting expectations. Yeah. The employee has to know what you expect of them. Yes. And probably in a lot of situations, they're not really sure. Yeah. Um, so yeah, setting expectations is and and that's where your documentation comes in.

SPEAKER_02 8:15

I think if you put yourself in that employee, like he was he was really and I think potentially the business owner may have been a little disorganized and probably didn't have the um the job set up right for them. Um, maybe may have got the materials later than he should. There might have been a bit of frustration around that as well. And uh and I suppose that communication, they'd never had a staff meeting ever. Yeah. Ever. Yeah right. And there was four of them, I think. Um so having those regular staff meetings, it builds culture, it builds team, it builds expectations, you could talk about, you know, what a good review, you could talk about warranties, you could talk about safety, you know, all the things that you could do in any business, right? It doesn't just have to be a trade business. Um, but staff like that, and staff like to feel like that. Paying your paying your staff on time can also cause an unhappy staff if they don't know when their pay's coming in, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:15

Um paying their super. I mean, I know that's a legal compliance uh compliance thing, but some people don't. Um So we did that and we we got we got him to sit down with his team and go, we wrote out that what's expected of your sheet. We also got him to have a one-to-one with that person and actually have that difficult conversation and and actually say, you know, we've just noticed this bad behavior and start writing down all the things that they're doing that that's of not good behavior. Um sit down with them in like a fairly formal meeting, send an email and say, you know, we we're gonna have a meeting in the office, so we just what it's like a review of where we are. Um, and then you give them the opportunity to put forward what they think as well. And the interesting thing was from out of that meeting with between the two of them, it ended up being that the new apprentice that had come in wasn't doing a great job and wasn't lifting the game, and he felt like all the cleaning up and all the getting the site ready up and down, you know, beginning and end of the day, that he was doing all of that and the apprentice wasn't really doing much of a job, and he felt that the boss hadn't really spoken much to him, and so he took that aggression and frustration out on him. The other thing that there was a whole lot of stuff happening behind the scenes in his personal life. Um, I think his the the his mum and dad had split up, even though he was older, that had really impacted him. Um, and he'd his girlfriend and him were weren't doing well either. So he was bringing all of that to work as well, yeah, and then maybe taking it out on on this the boss of the business. Um so it was just really having that conversation, getting clear, setting those guidelines. Yeah. And it turned this this person around, and then eventually he did leave because his behavior with with what was happening at home was still impacting the business, this anger management, I think, was probably more of the problem. But then what ended up happening was after he'd done all of those things, he actually started to really love his business again. Good.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

He really is excited about his business again. So it just goes to show that you can turn things around.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Yeah, so it you you know, your your initial reaction is to run away from the problem. Yeah. But um and I heard uh a saying the other day, um, and I don't know if I read it, but I heard it twice in one week, and it really resonated with me, and that was that in order to be respected, you don't want to be liked in business. True. You want to be respected in business. And they said the one of the ways you get respect not from being liked, is being able to have a difficult conversation in a nice way. Yep. I like to be liked.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Sorry to go against all your rules, Crystal. Do you mean the husband he likes to be liked as well? I never liked managing staff. I don't have any staff anymore. Um, but that's just me. I did manage them. Um they all liked me. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

But that's important too. We're all different, you know. Um we're all different people. Yeah, I think it's a human thing to want to be liked, right? I mean you want your you want your staff, and I guess the way we like our staff to be happy, sometimes we treat them more like a family, and family cultures are great in a business. However, when you want to get that respect from your staff, and I think respect is the word here that we're looking for. Um, if your staff don't care, is that a is that a lack of respect problem? I think so. Sounds like it, doesn't it, when you hear that.

SPEAKER_01 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Um and so it's about and who would have thought that having a difficult conversation is actually a way to get respect from anybody. And that they reckon is outside of business as well, in your life as well. But being able to, I guess, have your boundaries, have boundaries in the business and put bumper bars on them.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Yep, um, it's about knowing when to employ that first staff member, when to employ another staff member. I think a lot of people probably leave it too late. Yeah. Although I'm thinking of a a big colleague of ours um started his own business, he was the only person in the business, and I know he talked about the fact that he needed was going to need some help, but the question is the timing of getting that right, because obviously he can't afford to get that extra staff member unless he's got the extra money coming in, yeah. But then you want to invest in them before you get the extra um clients. So that's sort of like a catch 22. What's your view on that? It's a big one, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 14:28

Because if you don't have the money to pay for them, you you sort of feel like, oh good, what am I going to do here? But then you're turning away customers probably because you don't have the capacity as well, right? Exactly. So the best thing to do is to put somebody on part-time.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:47

So you could try one or two days a week. You know you you've got enough work to feed them, and then you take on those new clients and fill up your two days. So you feed them first. And I think what people when I say feed them, I mean you you make sure there's enough money coming in in the business to be able to pay for their pay for them. But then what that does is it creates a sense of urgency then for you to go and find new business and to get those extra, you know, inquiries that you might be having or work that you've been turning down to take advantage of that. And then when you feel comfortable enough that those two days and you go for a month or two or three with that, then you can add another day, or you can hire another two-day person. Yes. Um, some pe some businesses I've heard where they can actually share an employee. So whether it's an admin or a trade or um like somebody, a subcontractor who might have, or a partner who's got experience in IT or or I guess I think that happens a lot with outsourcing.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Yes, outsourcing. I know I shared an employee effectively with other um bookkeepers. Yeah. They work for me a few hours a week and or days a week and somebody else with the other days a week. I think that happens more with outsourcing. Potentially. Outsourcing overseas than it does than it does in Australia, but um I suppose I don't I don't really know.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

And I guess that's how subcontractors work as well. So maybe not a part-time you could put a subcontractor on.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Often subcontractors are more expensive, right? So I guess you've got to weigh that up in your decision making.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

But they could be more skilled. True. And why are you trying to get used to having someone in the business? And I guess the one thing people always say is it's really I find it really hard to manage a person in the business. So or getting used to managing a person in the business. Um I guess that that perfectionism in people can come out, can't it?

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah. I was just thinking about something else that's gone out of my head again.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

Yeah, that that perfection. So I think often we uh expectations is that we want that staff member to do exactly what we how we do it. Yeah, true. Which is and that could put a lot of unfair expectations in. Um also just in hiring those the those people that you hired. I know I've done a fair amount of hiring, and it's a skill you learn and you get better at it.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 17:15

Um, your adverts can get better at it, but it's always good to to have a go. And I feel like with staff when you first start them out, um the that where things go really, really wrong, and we've just I just got another client the other day who has um they had two admin that one's left for various reasons of her own. Um, there's one left, and now she's feeling the pressure and a bit overworked. But what has happened there is is now her entitlement has got really high, and she's not coming in on time, she's coming in when she wants to come in. She's working from home when she wants to work from home. She's um doing the work, how she wants to do the work, she's setting the priorities in the business. And when we broke this down, it was a case of as well, again, that the rules of what needs to happen, the priorities of what needs to be done. The business owner had it in his head as to how he wanted it done, but what she was doing was how she wanted it to do. And so he thought she wasn't caring, but actually she was caring, she was just doing it from the way she thought the priorities should be. So it was a case of having that talk again.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Communication. Communication. Communication, good word. I think that's a takeaway from this conversation. Communicate word, communicate with people.

SPEAKER_02 18:43

Yes. So and then it was about getting clear. So then we introduced um I love a sauna. I know you know I love a sauna. Oh, I saw it. The to-do list, you think? I know I love it. Very easy. The free version's great as well. I'm not being sponsored. Um, but it's you you got the um you can list all the priorities. So I have like a list of what has to happen weekly or on a Monday or on a Tuesday. Then I have stuff that has to happen, you know, like the daily task, um, what's the most important, and I list them one to ten. You could put the person's name who's gonna do it, and you put the the time that it needs to be done, and then they tick it off and then it repeats itself, right? So you're not writing out this new list every day, and then you could log in, they log in, everybody knows what's happening. You could have a five. What really worked in the end was having that five or ten minute meeting every morning, going through the list, what was outstanding from yesterday that perhaps they couldn't get to, what was the uh priorities for today, like maybe there was a whole lot of stuff that just came in that were important to get out, um, and then listing them in priority for that person to follow. That made then the business owner feel like they were it they were getting things done that they wanted so their frustration level dropped. Yes. Whether she was working from home or or in the office, didn't really matter. Um and then she felt better and she was feeling like she was getting things done and she was getting more positive feedback from the boss, who was probably not treating her all that well. It was his frustration was probably overflowing to her. Um, plus then he had the the conversation to say, when you do come in the office, our start time is 7 30 or 8 o'clock, whatever it was. Um I'd really like you to be here on time. That's that's what I want. And she then started to come in, and then everybody, the whole situation calmed down. She then didn't look like she wasn't caring, but I think she was caring, but she was just frustrated as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Plus the business owner knew where it where everybody where she was at, what she had done, what she hadn't done because of the lists or the to-do.

SPEAKER_02 20:45

Right. And you could just add them in during the day and just go, or and then just send a phone call, you know, uh have a phone call around it.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

And I guess that avoids possibly micromanaging people. Yes. You've got a they've got a list of what they need to do, they tick it off, they've done it. Managers don't have to ask them every five minutes. Yeah. Where are you? Have you done it? Yeah. Um I know I never like being micromanaged. I don't know me neither. In fact, I think it's you could say it's probably one of the major reasons for people leaving corporate jobs, maybe. Yeah. I'm not saying um small business owners, because I I don't think small business owners actually have time to micromanage.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

But they don't or they or they add to their time by micromanaging, then they feel like they can't get their stuff done because they feel like they have to micromanage. What do you reckon one of the biggest causes of micromanaging is is uncertain just somebody who a manager who can't manage delegating.

SPEAKER_00 21:45

Yeah, who can't delegate, who can't manage the star. That's the only reason that I can think of people that micromanaging. Um what about maybe no processes? Yes. Lack of processes as well.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Maybe it's not written down. Yes. It's in it's in their head, but they the poor staff members doesn't know quite what's in the head. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

Ma yeah, maybe you don't have a good system. No. You know, like a job management system or a CRM or something.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Another thing I know I struggled with when I was well, still I'm a bookkeeper, but I had staff. Was what level of person qualification should I employ? Do I employ somebody who's just not very quite well qualified? Or do I get somebody who's much better qualified who can possibly do more and take more of the load off me? So the more qualified so they'd be a qualified BAS agent, for example. That person would take off so much work from me. Um however, what I opted to do was actually have more of the lower level staff who are doing the number crunching. However, the higher level stuff I still had to do. So I think there's probably a lot of business owners out there who hire low-level staff, if that's what you want to call them, not so well qualified, when it would actually be better to have, rather than having two not so well qualified, one person who was really well qualified who could actually assist in running the business, maybe. What's that saying? Um a poor man pays twice.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

Have you heard that saying?

SPEAKER_00 23:31

No, but I've heard um if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys. Is that the same sort of thing? Is it the same? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 23:40

I think it might be the same thing.

SPEAKER_02 23:42

The um but what ends up happening is if you go too low class and they really are out of their debt, it's actually really unfair on that staff member too. Yeah. Because it's actually really, really stressful for them. And then it's really, really stressful for you, right? And I've done this before too. And um I think the best thing you could do for both of you is to get is to get them out of your business really fast. Because not only will they find a job where they're more suited, um, and you will your stress levels and your wanting to rather sell the business than buy them a scenario goes out of the window then too. And I think, you know, it's okay to hire bad initially because that's how you learn, right? So, you know, you've got to as they say, a poor bad pays twice. So if you pick the cheapest one on the list where you hire someone who's happy to accept the lowest, you know, make sure their skill set is right. If you just paid a few dollars more, you might get that skill level that is perfect for your business. And then that when you get that right and you have a really good worker that does what you need them to do and takes off your plate, yeah, so it allows you to do what you need to do. Excuse me. But how good is that? Only um so good. It's it's the best feeling in the world, isn't it, in the business. And when you have staff that care and you care, um, it makes all the difference in the in the world in a business too, doesn't it? It's just such a good feeling, and it but it seems like sometimes it just it's one of those things that feels like it's always out of reach, you know. But I always say too, you've got when you hire someone new, you've always got them on probation. And as we've said before, we're not HR people, but you always have a probation period when you hire, and you actually don't need any reason at all in Australia, that is, to actually tell them that they they you just have to say, I'm really sorry this isn't working out. And that can be across the whole level of your your business. So it's actually not that risky to hire somebody that you may try, but it may they may not be right. The next one you're gonna get a whole lot better. So don't beat yourself up and say, I'll never do that again, or it's the worst thing I've ever done. Um it's keeping them for too long. Yes, true, true. Is probably the the is where all that problem comes in. They don't care about it.

SPEAKER_00 26:01

That's popped into my mind. Always when a staff member leaves, get them to write the procedures for the new person. At least at that point. Um they should be they should already be there. But um I know that it's that's always useful. Yeah. If you get them to write down what they do and then they can pass it on to the next person. Um saves you writing the procedures. I hate writing procedures. Yeah. Don't you hate writing procedures? I used to have to write them once and that's it and you just make adjustments. But I did it because it's important. Um what about overtime?

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yes, well, overtime is an interesting thing. It's it's if you've got the work and you've got the overtime, then that's a good problem to have, isn't it? And your customers need that work done, um, and you're charging the right amount, then it should be happy days for everybody, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:55

It should be, but does the employee want to do the overtime?

SPEAKER_02 26:58

Well that's the same. You're forcing them to do the overtime. If you're a if you like in retail, that's always a tricky thing because you probably that's your busiest time, there's often the overtime hours. Um if you're in a in a sort of Monday to Friday business, um, I guess it's always checking in with that employee if they are okay. And why are they doing overtime? Are they working too slow, maybe as well? Yeah. Um the the the thing with staff, I think, is when they don't care, it's often comes back. Well, what did a manager say to me once when we used to run service stations? And I had one of the I was a franchisee, and we had one of the franchise or um sales managers came in, and I don't know, there was something going on with some of my staff, and he was saying the fish rots from the head, Crystal.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Have you ever heard of that? I'm just not sure exactly what it means.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

Like I went, oh God, that sounds so bad. I'm not quite sure what he meant by that either.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

But I was fairly young and probably a little out of my depth and never really hired. I think we had 30 staff, but I don't think I'd ever manage that many people. But what it meant was that if your staff are not doing what you want them to do, and if your level of cleanliness and your level of of what they was not being done, that actually it it always comes back to you as the business owner, right? So the fifth rot from the head. That means that the head of the business is has not set them up for success. Because if you had set them up for success, that means then you would have systems in place to be able to, I guess, performance manage them, you would catch them early. So, and he was right, you know, I didn't have all the systems and processes written out properly, and it sounds so boring to have that, but it's so such an important thing because that's what you hold your staff accountable to, is you know, and if you you, as the business owner know how to do it, you've been doing it for a thousand years, probably, you know. So all you've got to do is really just write down everything while you're doing it. You could, you know, with with all the AI around at the moment, you can just talk it like, oh, I'm just typing in this now, then I'm gonna go to zero and add it in zero, then I'm gonna go back over here and add it in here. You could just talk to it as you're doing it, and you've also got that loom where you can actually have those screen grabs, and you can actually just do it while you're doing it, you just set those up. Yeah, so it can be relatively easy to do. Um, and you can do videos of how to do that particular job if you're in a sort of fixing things. Did you?

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, I did that quite a bit for um. For your people, yeah. I actually did it more for clients, to be honest, than staff. But um yeah. And I do it now for clients because they're doing their own bookkeeping, so they need to know how to do things. So yeah, see when grab it on Loom, it's really good.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Yep. Um so I think going back to to that, you know, often staff's bad behaviour, and yes, if you've got someone that's stealing from you or buying stuff or using your petrol card or whatever, I guess there is that element of bad behaviour from a staff where they really are disrespecting you. However, nearly I would say out of all the conversations I've had, about 95% of all the conversation of all the things that happen with bad staff have come back to that the management of the or the owner of the business hasn't done a great job of sure they set them up right, but then they haven't done a great job of checking in, making sure they're doing the job, having those regular one-on-one chats, how are you going? Um, checking to see what's happening in their life. Maybe processes need to be changed and they've got a better way of doing it. Have you thought about, you know, maybe updating it? Um there's you know, all those things, your behavior, are you too busy to have the time for them? Do you just, you know, always out and never there? So they just having to always scramble to find you. Are you very disorganized again?

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

Um, do you have a bad attitude and you're bringing your your problems to work and treating them with disrespect? Um, but I think as a business owner, we always have to hold the mirror back to ourselves and have a look at ourselves because there's probably nearly always something that we're doing.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

And if you're too nice, it's not good to be too nice, I know. I didn't say you were wrong, Crystal. I just told you what I was like.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

And I see this all the time. Yeah, people really like to be nice and want to treat people really nice, and hopefully they'll respond by being nice back. Yeah, but unfortunately, I think the world works better with respect. Yes, and respect is only gained with those difficult conversations in mind. And the bet the sooner you learn how to have those, the better. What else is there around this topic?

SPEAKER_00 32:10

I don't I think we've probably covered most of it. Yeah. Um I'm just thinking about some of us use recruitment agencies to recruit the staff. It's and even to hiring and firing staff. It's getting out of those difficult situations. Yeah. Which isn't wrong. No. Um the professionals probably well do a better job, but they they know all the rules, they are aware of um Yeah, but everybody's feelings, I guess. Um so yeah, it's not wrong to use to use a professional for for those and the worst situation sorry for inter jumping in there.

SPEAKER_02 32:52

I'll put a silence in now. Um the worst situation, I guess, that most business owners are most fearful of that stop you from hiring or keeping someone when they are way past their wet their due date, so to speak. We're full of saves today, aren't we?

SPEAKER_00 33:12

I don't know if that's a good say. Well, you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Your business might have outgrown their skills too, which which you do see occasionally. Um is that often we and I've just lost my thought on that. Let me think about it. What were we just saying? We can cut this out.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

We will have to cut it out, I think. Uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

That's fine.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Um, blank as well. What was I just saying? Recruiting staff.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Well, oh, the fearfulness. So the reason why business owners are fearful often of things is that whole fair work and ending up in front of or the or the staff member taking you to fair work, or it gets so nasty that it ends up being in this big drag-out thing where you've got to get HR professionals in and it ends up in fair work courts and discussions and everything like that, and then you've got to pay them out for whatever. I think the worst cases of that, when that happens, normally, and we come back to that word communication again, is that often the the relationship and the ways of correcting it were long missed along the road. And whether we chose to ignore them, or potentially this person wasn't a great fit for the business, we hired badly, maybe, or something's changed in that person's life that we weren't aware of, something's changed in your life that you that you are aware of, but you didn't know it was impacting, maybe the the business has changed, or maybe that in sense of entitlement has got so bad in the business as well, that I feel that the if you'd had those regular check-ins and those regular conversations and those performance management meetings, things like that could have been stopped well before. Well, I'm taking you to court now. Yeah. You know, see you later. And I think we all hear those horror stories and and it can be very stressful on the business and on the staff member too. Um, that I think that word communication, if we do these little things right up front, you it chances are of those happening are um minimal. And as a business owner, you have a right, right? Yeah to have have good staff in your business. You have a right for that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:33

You know, yep. I I think the today's key word is communication again.

SPEAKER_02 35:41

Yeah. Just so just sort of end note, um, entitlement in staff. Why do you think people get entitled? Because we all have those, that's when they think they're better and they start telling you how to run that business. What do you why I don't know?

SPEAKER_00 35:54

I've I've never felt uh entitled. Not that that is a reason why I shouldn't know. They feel they know better. I don't know why they would feel they I don't know. I really don't know.

SPEAKER_02 36:09

Struggling to find Did you ever see that in any of your clients' businesses where they complain about staff? I don't think I did. Yeah, but I've seen that a few times. Whether we use the word entitled or not, maybe a different word.

SPEAKER_00 36:25

I guess in some businesses the staff do know, and this is probably where it comes from, they know more than the business owner knows. Therefore, um and and that can be difficult for some people. They're not appreciated then. No, um and some business owners buy businesses. So they don't sometimes they don't know anything about the business, but the staff do. So at that point, they may feel um as though for whatever reason they've been overlooked. Um going back to me, I was a finance manager, I thought I was going to get the job as the financial controller, they brought somebody in and filled that position over my head. I must admit I never felt entitled, but I certainly I knew a lot more than they did. Um, but I'm a nice person, so um you like to be loved.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

I must so but you could see in that situation where somebody, if they've been overlooked for a promotion, um maybe they'd feel I think that's you know, when they when you have staff leave, that's that's probably another good question is why do staff leave you? Um probably for all the above things that we've discussed, you know, no processes system, rah, rah, rah, hiring the wrong person, maybe they just don't feel right either. Um but I also think it's those if you do hire someone else and you give them more responsibilities or you or they don't have the experience that you have and yet somehow they are being favoured more, I guess. Yeah. Is that could be difficult as well.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:08

Um money, as they say in in most research and when you speak to a lot of people, money is the last thing that people will actually leave you for. Although it does happen. You know, if you're not paying them, you have to be paying people right as well, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:22

Um, for that to happen as well. And sometimes entitlement can come in from them being there for 15 years or 20 years, and the business they have been actually managing the business for a long time, and maybe the business owner is starting to get more in retirement, or it's just relanguage control to this person.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:39

And then when they've decided to take it back, this person's go, well, hang on a second, I've done this for the last five, ten years. Why now? You know, so then that could be a very different reason for that as well. Yeah. But yeah, great topic, Kate. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. And I think um, you know, we'll put a uh we'll have a checklist on this on staff, how to hire staff, we'll have a checklist on that properly, um, and also on, you know, how to manage staff. And in, you know, if you do have someone who's who you feel doesn't care in the business, let's make a checklist for that as well. Um, so that it's always interesting for us to go back and you know, it's always good to review um what we're doing in a business. That's I think also a key word that comes out of it. Um and I guess the the key word for you today? Communication.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

Communication.

SPEAKER_02 39:29

I think that's I think for me as well, it's and it's it's having that difficult conversation, respect equals having difficult conversations, and I think that's important to remember.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Being liked.

SPEAKER_02 39:40

Being liked and being liked.

SPEAKER_03 39:42

Alrighty. Thanks. See you on the next one. Thank you.