The Latest from Kristy-Lee

Hello and welcome to Episode 324 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

Are your interviews actually helping you hire the right person… or are you accidentally feeding candidates the exact answers you want to hear?

If you've ever walked away from an interview thinking someone was perfect, only to realise a few weeks later they were all talk and no substance, you're definitely not alone. So many small business owners feel awkward or unsure in interviews, and that often leads to hiring decisions based on gut feel alone, instead of the right information.

I keep seeing business owners make the same mistakes in interviews. They spend the first five minutes explaining the role, the business and exactly what they’re looking for, which makes it incredibly easy for candidates to mirror back the “perfect” answers. The reality is, interviewing is still one of the most important hiring tools you have in your business, and learning how to ask better questions can completely change the quality o...

Losing a great team member is one of the most disruptive and expensive things that can happen in a small business. The real cost goes well beyond what you spend on recruitment. It shows up in lost momentum, a dip in team morale, and the months it takes for a replacement to reach full productivity.

Understanding why good people leave, and what actually keeps them, is one of the highest-leverage things you can do as a business owner.

Why do good employees leave small businesses?

Good employees rarely leave because of money alone. They leave because of leadership, a lack of recognition, no clear path forward, or because they've lost trust in the environment they're working in. The research consistently shows that a significant percentage of people resign due to leadership behaviour specifically, and in small business, that leader is usually the owner.

You've probably felt this. Someone hands in their notice and your first instinct is to wonder whether a pay rise would have kept the...

Hello and welcome to Episode 323 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

Have you reached the point where you know a role in your business no longer makes sense, but the thought of making someone redundant feels overwhelming? Maybe business has changed, technology has improved how work gets done, or you simply can’t justify carrying a salary for a role that’s no longer needed.

The problem is, one wrong step in a redundancy process can land you in serious trouble with Fair Work, and that’s a risk no small business owner wants to take.

I wanted to talk about this because I’m seeing so many businesses going through change right now. Some are restructuring because of economic pressure, some are evolving because of growth, and others are adapting to the impact AI is having on teams and workloads.

Redundancy is often treated like a scary or taboo topic, but the reality is that restructuring your team can sometimes be the most practical and responsible thing you can do as a business owner...

Nearly half of new hires don’t make it past their first year, and the damage is often done in the first few weeks. In small businesses, onboarding is usually rushed, unstructured or treated like a tick-box exercise. The result is slower performance, frustrated employees and costly turnover. When you get the first 90 days right, you give your new hire clarity, confidence and a real chance of success in your business.

What actually matters in the first 90 days of a new hire?

The first 90 days are where your new employee decides whether they’ve made the right move and whether they can succeed in your business. A clear, structured onboarding plan with regular check-ins, defined expectations and staged learning gives them confidence and direction. Without that, even a great hire can disengage early, perform poorly or leave altogether.

You’ve probably been here before. You finally find someone decent, you’re relieved the role is filled, and then it’s straight back to putting out fires....

Hello and welcome to Episode 322 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

Are you using AI to help you manage your team… but secretly wondering if you’re getting it wrong? Maybe you’ve asked it how to handle a tricky staff issue, calculate pay, or even draft a warning, and just hoped the answer was right. The reality is, AI can feel like a lifesaver when you’re already flat out, but it can also lead you straight into a mess if you don’t know where the line is.

I keep seeing more and more business owners leaning on AI for HR support, and I get it. I use it too. But recently I found myself arguing with it over legislation it got completely wrong. It sounded confident. It looked credible. And if I didn’t know better, I might have believed it. That’s exactly why I wanted to talk about this. AI isn’t the problem, but knowing when not to trust it is critical, especially when you’re making decisions that affect your people and your business.

In this episode, I break down where AI is genuine...

If things are starting to feel clunky with running your business, or you are constantly the bottleneck, or spending all day managing around people instead of actually doing the things you need to, it’s likely not a people problem. It’s a structure problem.

As small businesses grow, roles get added reactively. This means responsibilities are blurred and often overlap amongst many roles. What once worked simply stops working.

When this happens, it’s time to redesign your team structure.

Redesigning your structure gives you clarity on what your business actually needs now, not what it needed when you first hired your team, because the team that got you and your business to this point, is very often not the same team you need to move you forward.

What’s really going on when your team feels messy?

If your team feels stretched thin, inefficient or like a constant juggling act, it’s often because your structure has evolved without you even realising.

What most business owners do in t...

Hello and welcome to Episode 321 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

Are you stuck doing everything in your business because it just feels quicker and easier than explaining it to someone else? Like you’re constantly putting out fires, jumping back into tasks, and wondering why your team isn’t stepping up? You’re not alone and this is exactly where so many business owners get stuck.

I keep seeing this pattern with growing businesses. You start out because you’re great at what you do, but as your team grows, your role has to shift. The problem is, no one teaches you how to make that shift. It’s uncomfortable, it’s unfamiliar, and it can feel easier to just stay in the doing. But staying there holds your business back and, more importantly, it holds your team back too.

In this episode, I unpack what it really takes to step out of the day-to-day and into leadership. I talk about why letting go feels so hard, how your expectations might be setting your team up to fail, and the subtl...

One underperforming employee in a small business can have a huge impact on productivity and ultimately profitability. If you only employ four staff, one underperformer means a quarter of your team are holding you back.

When one person isn’t pulling their weight, it creates extra pressure on you and the rest of the team, and the longer it goes on, the harder it becomes to fix.

Most business owners know something isn’t right but hesitate to act because they don’t want to escalate the issue or handle it badly. The reality is, how you approach it determines whether it improves or spirals.

Why underperformance gets worse instead of better

Managing an underperforming employee without making it worse comes down to two things:

• Correctly identifying the real cause of the issue and
• Responding with the right solution.

Most problems escalate because business owners either avoid the conversation, handle it poorly, or apply the wrong fix to the wrong problem.

If you match ...

Hello and welcome to Episode 320 of The People Powered Business Podcast.

You've hired someone. Finally. After the job ads, the interviews, the back and forth, they said yes and they're starting Monday. The hard part is over, right?

Wrong. Almost half of every person you hire won't make it through their first twelve months. Not because they were the wrong person. Because nobody set them up to succeed.

I can't quite believe I've barely touched this topic in 320 episodes, because the first 90 days is the most important period of time in determining whether a hire works out, and most small business owners have no plan for it beyond "here's your login and good luck."

We treat onboarding like a box to tick when it's actually the foundation of the entire working relationship.

In this episode I'm pulling back the curtain on what actually happens in most small businesses during those first 90 days, why it quietly sets new hires up to fail, and what a proper 90-day plan looks like when you'...

You’ve got team members ticking tasks off, but every time something goes wrong there’s an excuse, a reason, or someone else to blame.

They are turning up and going through the motions (just), but there is no care, no passion, no motivation and no accountability when a mistake is made or something goes wrong.

Over time, this erodes your trust in them. It creates frustration for you and your best team members and leaves you feeling like you just can’t rely on them.

You’re not dealing with someone who isn’t capable of their job. What you’re really dealing with is a lack of accountability, and until you can change that, the issues will continue.

What’s really going on when your team won’t take ownership?

When your team member defaults to excuses, defensiveness or blame, they are operating in a space known as ‘below the line’.

When they take responsibility, own outcomes and focus on solutions, they are operating from ‘above the line’.

The difference isn’t skill, it’s mindset, beha...