There’s a fine balance between the number of people that report into any one position and how effectively a business or organisation continues to run. It’s quite often an aspect of organisational structure that is overlooked, neglected, or spirals quickly out of control as businesses scale and grow without a clearly identified structure or resourcing plan for growth.

But there is a magic number of direct reports that hits the sweet spot, ensuring that you have just the right number of staff reporting into a single position while still ensuring that position itself is effective depending on the nature of the role.

Structure is one of the fundamental aspects of ensuring that you don’t overwhelm, or even underwhelm, your management team and help set them, and their teams, up for success – in the long run, this feeds into your business success and is well worth investing in.

There are actually five key factors or variables that impact the success of direct report structures and we’ll di...

As we dive head first into another December we have well and truly shifted into ‘festive’ season with the Christmas and New Year celebrations starting to kick into full gear.

Catch ups are booked in advance, parties organised, shutdowns scheduled, and Kris Kringle plans are definitely being made by someone (we hope?).

Yet, this time of year as a business owner can be fraught with stress! How to host a Christmas party without running the risk of a legal nightmare. How to get everything done and all the orders delivered before close down, and how on earth to keep people focused when all they are thinking about is holidays?

So how can you as a leader manage this period, especially when you yourself might not be feeling the excitement to celebrate and feeling less willing to tolerate the slide in focus and increase in frivolity during the coming weeks?

Here are my top 8 tips for staff management during the ‘silly season’:

•  Don’t be a bah humbug!
  There is nothing that
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No less than once a week I’ll get a call, or question online, that goes a little like “I have a problem with a staff member, they are getting their job done but they aren’t being a great team member, I can’t quite put my finger on it but every time I raise an issue with them they have an excuse, there is always some reason things haven’t gone to plan”. Does this sound familiar to you? Have you had someone like this on your team before?

Sure enough, after a few questions my typical conclusion is – you have someone who is below the line. What line? Great question!

I first became aware of this framework probably about 15 years ago, I’d heard about it conceptually but when I really noticed this as a powerful framework for teams when I worked with a business who really embraced the concept so much that their team used the language in their day to day operations – this is when I really started to pay attention to this concept.

Who conceptualised this idea seems uncertain, despite...

What is the Labor Party’s Industrial Relations Reform agenda?

The Australian Labor Government has recently announced updates to the Industrial Relations Reforms alongside reforms currently before Parliament.

With each new government businesses can expect a host of changes including to Industrial Relations which is a key campaign area for all parties and often closely aligned with the party’s core values. A new government is akin to a new CEO coming into a company who takes stock, reviews and refines according to their agenda and what’s important to the company in their perspective.

We are seeing the Labor Party, traditionally representing workers' rights, coming into power after a long period as the Opposition. As part of the 2022 Industrial Relations Reform, after the unprecedented global pandemic, we are seeing a key focus on job security, protecting employees’ rights, eliminating the gender pay gap and maintaining wage increases to better meet the rising cost of living in Austral...

Have you planned for end of year closure and the new year?

Planning for the Christmas shut down period, end of the year and the start of new year is something that often slides off business owners’ plates. The last quarter of the year can feel like a race to the finish line, wrapping up projects, getting things ready for a break, and possibly even burning out as you hurtle towards the short holiday that usually comes over the Christmas and New Year period.

It sounds counterintuitive to then add planning into the mix – business owners want to be doing the bare essentials and planning is one of those things that often isn’t considered essential at this time of year.

This period of time is one of the most critical periods for a business and where planning ahead for both your business and your team can set you up for a smooth new year. Christmas close down periods are when our teams, our employees, are taking time off, spending it with their family, travelling, catching up on the lif...

Hiring Well is Only One Part of the Puzzle

You’ve got a great team – but how do you keep them?

You can't outrun a bad hire.

There's no doubt that getting the hiring decision right is essential to building an amazing team that's going to do all the right things for your business and really help you have a successful business.

But the reality is hiring well is only one part of the puzzle and it's something I've seen clients alone the hard way over and over again.

The rest of the pathway that an employee takes with your business is equally important to ensuring you have not just a successful hire, but someone who stays with you long term who is loyal, motivated, engaged, productive – all those great things we want our employees to be.

The secret sauce to this is great leadership through a clear framework I call the P.E.O.P.L.E Pathway.

You can’t outrun a bad hire – but what if you hired well and it’s still not working smoothly?

I thought I'd made great hiring choices early on i...

What does it mean to achieve business success through your team?

A lot of small business owners often feel the pressure to succeed is all down to them no matter what.

Ultimately, yes, the buck does stop with the business owner – however business success is something that everyone in the business could be progressing and striving for.

Achieving business success through your team is about surrounding yourself with the right people, harnessing their strengths and ensuring that you’re creating frameworks that support them to succeed.

It’s also about letting go of the misconception that you always need to be on the ground in your business for it to be successful. The biggest key factor to making this a reality is hiring the right people who you can trust to be there when you’re not and keep your business goals tracking.

How do you measure business success?

Measuring business success is integral to understanding what’s going well and what needs to be improved.

Most s...

Becoming the Boss: Your Business Journey to a People Powered Business

The universal journey of leadership in business

It’s a classic tale we hear from leaders in small to medium businesses across all industries: I started this business because I had a great idea, I love what I do, I saw an opportunity and I went for it – but I didn’t realise that meant I was the boss.

What we often see is small to medium business owners who are indispensable to the day-to-day operations of their businesses. This means that taking time away for them becomes challenging if it isn’t non-existent. As leaders in our businesses, we might even feel that we have to operate like this or we might fail.

Surprisingly, one of the best measures of success is the freedom your business affords you. What this requires, however, is that you stop operating like a business owner and start approaching your business like you’re the boss, the CEO, the leader.

While small to medium business owners might scratch their h...

Hire right in a tough market 

What are you doing to attract the right applicants in a tough market?

Hiring right in a tough market isn’t anything new but we are experiencing a particularly challenging period for attracting great applicants to roles across the board.

If you’ve hired recently, or are in the process of hiring right now, you’ll know what we’re talking about.

Where before you would be inundated with applications, right now it’s looking more like a dried-up oasis. Even the bad applications aren’t coming through. You don’t always want to hire anyone as a stop-gap because they could create more damage to your business and team in the long-run. It’s still incredibly important to be considered and strategic with your recruitment processes.

Business owners and managers alike are frustrated, desperate for help and uncertain about how to continue without finding the right staff (or any staff) for their under-resourced teams. Maybe you’re one of them?

Are you down in the tren...

5 Key Elements to Effective Onboarding

Do you know the core principles of effectively onboarding your new hire?

Did you know that onboarding effectively can drastically reduce the speed at which your new hire is functioning at full capacity?  This timeframe can be reduced down from the typical 12-18 months down to 2-6 months.

According to SHRM, the first 45 days of employment account for up to 20% of worker turnover while Sapling HR credits poor onboarding experiences as doubling the likelihood of the employee finding another position.

Effective onboarding is critical to engaging your new hire in their new role and for your business or organisation. This can increase the likelihood that your staff will stay on longer and be performing their best sooner rather than later.

According to ClickBoarding, interactive employees who engage in a structured onboarding program are 69% more likely to stay for three years.

There are 5 key elements that a business of any size can implement r...