Don’t forget to look at my UPCOMING EVENTS
As a business owner, managing your team effectively is one of the most critical components to running a successful practice. In this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends Podcast, I had the privilege of speaking with Phoebe Kitto, an expert in HR and the owner of HR Dynamics. Phoebe shed light on how small businesses can navigate the complexities of human resources, improve workplace culture, and build high-performing teams.
What HR Really Is and Isn’t
Most business owners hear “HR” and immediately think of rules and compliance – and they’re not wrong, but that’s just one piece of the puzzle. Phoebe explains that HR is about managing your most valuable asset: your team. It’s about hiring the right people, providing them with the right tools, setting clear expectations, and ensuring a healthy workplace culture.
A common misconception is that HR is just about protecting the employer. While this is part of it, HR is equally about fostering positive relationships between employers and employees. It’s about creating an environment where your team feels valued, supported, and motivated.
The Importance of a Strong HR Foundation
Whether you have two employees or twenty, Phoebe emphasized the importance of building a solid HR foundation early on. This includes having clear contracts, a staff handbook, and systems to address workplace issues before they escalate. HR isn’t just for large organizations – it’s crucial for small businesses to have these structures in place to avoid problems down the road.
Phoebe shared an insightful analogy comparing HR to owning a car. When you buy a car, you think about what fits your needs, invest in regular maintenance, and ensure it’s running smoothly. Similarly, in business, you need to hire the right people, provide them with the tools to succeed, and constantly invest in their development.
Managing Staff Performance
Once your team is onboard, you need to ensure they are meeting expectations. Phoebe emphasized the importance of leaning in during the probationary period, or as she calls it, the “test drive.” It’s crucial to micromanage during this time to ensure the employee is the right fit. But don’t stop there – continuous feedback and performance reviews help keep everyone on track.
Once the probation period ends, your role shifts from directing to inspiring. This is where having KPIs in place can be a game-changer. KPIs help you measure performance and provide constructive feedback when necessary. And if things aren’t working out, HR can help you navigate the situation and manage team members out in the right way.
The Value of Good HR
HR isn’t just about compliance – it’s a tool for improving your practice and fostering a positive work environment. By building a strong HR foundation, setting clear expectations, and maintaining open communication, you’ll be well on your way to creating a motivated, high-performing team. If you want more tips on how to manage your HR needs, don’t hesitate to reach out to Phoebe at HR Dynamics.
Looking to improve your practice’s HR? Reach out to Phoebe Kitto at HR Dynamics today, and start building a stronger, more efficient team, or email Phoebe at phoebe@hrdynamics.com.au
If you have any questions about this podcast episode or are looking for a speaker for an upcoming event, please email me at tyson@podiatrylegends.com, and we can discuss the range of topics I cover.
FREE Business Guidance:
Do you have a business question? A podiatrist I spoke with in early 2024 made an extra $40,000 by following my advice from a 30-minute FREE Zoom call. They were so happy they bought me a $400 bottle of bourbon. You don’t have to do that, but if you do, I will never say no!!!
Think about it – you have everything to gain and nothing to lose. Please follow the link below to my calendar and schedule a free 30-minute Zoom call. I guarantee that after we talk, you will have far more clarity on what is best for you, your business and your career.
FACEBOOK GROUP: Podiatry Business Owners Club
My book, It’s no Secret…There’s Money in Podiatry is available on AMAZON
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel – Tyson E Franklin
TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Tyson E Franklin: . Hi, I am Tyson Franklin and welcome to this week’s episode of the Podiatry Legends podcast. With you today is Phoebe Kitto. She’s the owner of HR Dynamics in Cairns and The Sunshine Coast, and today we’re going talk about what is and what isn’t HR. So Phoebe, welcome to the Podiatry Legends podcast.
[00:00:20] Phoebe Kitto: Awesome. Tyson, thank you so much for having me come and talk about all the exciting things of HR with you today.
[00:00:28] Tyson E Franklin: I am glad you put the word exciting and HR next to each other because I know when most people hear HR, they go uh, but I listening to you talk in the past and just chatting with you beforehand, I think HR is one of those things that
[00:00:47] no one wants to talk about, but it is actually, it can be a very interesting topic. Oh,
[00:00:52] Phoebe Kitto: it’s super interesting ’cause we’re all about the people, aren’t we? And it’s all about the relationships. It’s about the workplace [00:01:00] culture and it’s got lots of juicy stuff to it. Good stuff, bad stuff, interesting stuff to boost stuff, you name it.
[00:01:07] There’s not much we haven’t seen in the world of HR, so yeah, I do think it is really interesting. But I do think that unfortunately there still is that. Oh, it’s just the gatekeepers, boring the snowflakes of HR and there is some perception around that. But, I would challenge that and I would say that HR, contemporary HR should be really partners in your business and we should be able to help you get the best from your team.
[00:01:33] And we should be able to make sure that you’re getting a return of investment on one of your biggest costs within an organisation, which is your staffing cost.
[00:01:43] Tyson E Franklin: True and I just wanna point out to people, yes, you are based in Australia, but I assume whether we’re in South Africa, United Kingdom, through Europe, America, probably 95% of everything you’re going say applies across the board.
[00:01:57] Every country would have little things that are [00:02:00] probably slightly different.
[00:02:02] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah, certainly these different legislation jurisdictions Australia probably has some of the highest standards when it comes to industrial relations, which I think is something that we should be step proud to stand behind.
[00:02:12] But a lot are just about getting the best performance from your staff and building together a high performing team. Absolutely that is going be no matter how big, small, where in the country you are, what country you’re in, it should apply across the board.
[00:02:26] Tyson E Franklin: Okay. So what is HR. And what isn’t HR?
[00:02:30] Phoebe Kitto: Good thinking. So I was thinking about that as to how you answer that. And I was thinking, you have someone who is marketing your business or there’s a, there’s the marketing side where you’re out there advertising, getting your customers coming in. You have someone who is looking after your finance side of things, the dollars coming in, coming out.
[00:02:46] The HR is really looking at your human asset, your staff. So that’s about getting the right people, making sure that your getting them to perform, to the required level, clarity and the expectation, and that you’re creating a good [00:03:00] workplace. So I guess we’re all about the HR now. We don’t say we’re all about the HR, you don’t need a specialist HR person in your business, depending on the site.
[00:03:06] Yeah. But as a business owner, potentially that’s going be one of the, well, that if you’ve got staff, that’s one of the hats that you’re going have to be putting on. And so HR is really about managing that. I sometimes liken it to it’s a bit like looking at your staff. You sometimes think a bit about if you’re buying a car, if you’re investing, 50 to a hundred, 150,000 on a car, yeah. You actually go out. You think about what you’re wanting to get, what sort of car, what’s going suit, how are you going be driving it? If it’s a new car, if it’s a secondhand car, what are some of the features that are going be really important and you make sure you get the right fit for what you’re getting.
[00:03:41] It’s exactly the same for when you’re looking for staff. What are you looking for? Get the car and then expect it to run all the time. You have to make sure you look after it, that you put petrol in it, that you send it for servicing and doing all of those things. And yeah. Sure. If you don’t, if you don’t put petrol in it, like if you don’t pay your stuff, they’re not going be hanging [00:04:00] around.
[00:04:00] Yeah. But you know, are you just putting enough to just get to one trip to the next trip? And it’s always a bit dicey as to how you’re going to get there. Are you really down there with your remuneration as to how you’re treating it? Or are you actually, making sure that you’re always really full and looking after the staff?
[00:04:16] And the same with the servicing. , as are you making sure that you’re sitting down and on an annual basis and clarifying it. Expectations and really setting the right direction for this person working within your practice. And I think that if you can really some people that really struggle with the warm, fuzzy, what is HR, when you can really start to look at it in business eyes and pragmatic terms, you start to get your head around what good HR is all about.
[00:04:41] Tyson E Franklin: That is the best analogy I’ve ever heard of explaining what HR is. Because see, I always thought HR went. On the superficial service, HR was just rules that were in place. So as an employer, I didn’t stuff up and get sued By staff member. Yeah. I didn’t say the wrong [00:05:00] thing or do the wrong thing and you get yourself in trouble.
[00:05:03] So to me it was always like a, oh, it’s something in place to protect the employer and to protect the employer, or a set of guidelines that we were actually going follow. But looking at each team member as a motor vehicle that you’ve bought for your car. ’cause majority of people listening to this podcast would be quite small businesses.
[00:05:20] They might have two staff, they might have 10, they might have 20. But looking at each staff member, like you said, a car and you’re really determining, have you picked the right car for the purpose? You’re not going buy a fantastic sports Mercedes-Benz and take it to a job site with all your tools in the back.
[00:05:38] Say, are they fit for purpose? And then. You might take it for a test drive too, which could be a, like a trial period for an employee. Well, that’s
[00:05:46] Phoebe Kitto: a probationary period, isn’t it? Yeah. So you qualifying period. So in Australia when you get a job, you have, if you’ve got less than 15 staff, you’ve got a 12 month qualifying period.
[00:05:55] And if you’ve got more than 15 staff, a a six month probationary period or qualifying [00:06:00] period, we say now, and this is really an opportunity for you to see if this person’s a good match for your organisation. And it’s also a time for the per the staff member to decide if you’re a match for what they want to look at as well.
[00:06:11] And I actually see a lot of people not using that time effectively. Like that is a time that you really need to be leaning in and going, did I make the right purchasing decision here? Okay. Is this. Right person for my team. Do they gel with the culture? Do they have the skills? Do they have the experience?
[00:06:28] Is there a level of trust? Because really, if you are going to be building a strong performing team and a culture within your organisation., there needs to be trust and that needs to go both ways and respect. It doesn’t mean that you. Whether or not you like each other or you don’t like each other, or when you’re going to the pub for a beer is, that’s not what it’s about.
[00:06:47] It’s about actually is their professional respect. Have we got each other’s back and as a business owner as well, the other face of your company, your brand. Is this the person that you want representing you and are you [00:07:00] happy to stand behind them? And when people first start, we talk about it.
[00:07:04] They generally have high motivational levels. Yay, got a job, let’s grab the champagne, go and celebrate. We say skillset set is low. Now their technical skill set might be high, but how does the how does the practice operate? Where do they find things? Who do they ask questions?
[00:07:19] How does this, how does the billing work? What are some of the standards that you’ve got there? What are some of those things? So that’s really where you going and you really micromanage. These are some things of the values, this is how we treat our clients. These are some of our regular clients.
[00:07:31] These are some of the referrals that we would generally make. That’s really kind of micromanaging. Making sure that they’re acting, performing, behaving, bullying, doing all those things the way that we want them to be. And you can say , I’m micromanaging you because you get to that unconscious competence or unconscious incompetence if you don’t, yeah.
[00:07:49] You’ve gotta get them working, consciously performing the way that you want them to work, and then it will become an unconscious, like driving a car, then you have to think about it at first, but then once you do it over and over it
[00:07:59] Phoebe Kitto: [00:08:00] becomes set. So really important that at that time that you’re really directing the person after a period of time, they’ve been there for a long period of time, they’ve got the skills. Potentially that’s when we are going into more of an inspiring, inspiring the team, making them feel motivated. Oh
[00:08:16] Tyson E Franklin: going back one step though, when you said that, that trial period, you said that you gotta really lean into it.
[00:08:21] Phoebe Kitto: Yep.
[00:08:22] Tyson E Franklin: Is this where some people make the mistake with HR, where they give the person the job? They go, oh, they’ve got three months trial. And then they don’t really start thinking about it until it’s, oh, I’ve gotta do a review in three days. And, oh, how? How have they been going? And they, now they’re trying to make a decision.
[00:08:37] They’re going, oh, okay. Yeah, they seem to be doing all right. And then they hang onto ’em. Then the problems turn up afterwards. ’cause they didn’t lean into it enough in that initial trial period.
[00:08:48] Phoebe Kitto: Absolutely. So in, in that qualifying period, that trial period that you’ve got, you really should be micromanaging them all the way through and checking in, okay.
[00:08:57] Making sure that they’re correct, so that then you can start to [00:09:00] step away. And what we often find is that people, because they new and you wanna build the relationship with them. We move into the inspiring motivating. So we are really nice to them and we’re warm, but we don’t wanna have the hard conversations ’cause we’re building the relationship so we kind of can let poor behaviors go and we don’t pull it up and we’re like, oh, they’re just new.
[00:09:19] We won’t, we’ll just, I’ll just fix it up.
[00:09:22] Tyson E Franklin: So you can be doing the inspiring too early. Exactly. So they start with you and they go, Hey, just going have a beer after work. You want them to like you. So you’ve jumped ahead to the Yeah almost the past qualifying period.
[00:09:33] Whereas. That shouldn’t be happening yet. And then
[00:09:36] Phoebe Kitto: it’s like, and they don’t even get the feedback with it. So Yeah, you, and then you’re , oh, oh, you’re getting to the end of their qualifying or their probationary period, and you’re like, oh, you’re not right. And they’re like, well, mate, I thought we were really good friends.
[00:09:46] We were working really well together because you’ve actually championed them. Because we’ve wanted to be the nice person and the supportive person. I’ve even seen situations where there’s been a complaint from one of the customers and it’s , oh, I just don’t want to ruin their [00:10:00] confidence and I don’t wanna let them down.
[00:10:02] And you just sort of cover it up and you sort it out, or you’ve put them with another one of your other podiatrists.
[00:10:08] Yeah.
[00:10:08] Phoebe Kitto: And then. Then after a while, six, 12 months or whatever, you start to get frustrated. They should be able to be, these problems shouldn’t be coming up anymore.
[00:10:17] But you’ve kind of missed the boat because you’ve already allowed some of this poor behavior to go on and you haven’t pulled it up early enough. And it’s a really common mistake that we have. I really think it’s an exercise we often go through with our clients is we get. The staff when we say, are they needing to be directed, like really micromanaging?
[00:10:34] ’cause they’re just not reaching the level of requirement. Are they needing to be inspired because they’re just lacking motivation? These absenteeism or apathy or low productivity, or they’re a bit moody or whatever. It’s. Scope be? Or are we in the sweet spot clarifying where, high motivation and high skillset?
[00:10:51] Yeah. If they’ve
[00:10:52] Phoebe Kitto: got low motivation and low skillset, we call it Deadwood. And that’s when we’re wanting to manage them out of the organisation. Like it’s really Deadwood.
[00:10:59] Tyson E Franklin: You call them [00:11:00] deadwood. Oh, I like that Deadwood.
[00:11:02] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah, Deadwood, they’re not they haven’t got skill. They haven’t got motivation. We need to really move them out of that.
[00:11:07] But I think what’s really important, I’m really passionate about with HR, is about using strategies. So it’s not just this warm, fuzzy, I like them, what’s their qualifying period? It’s like, okay, I. How are they performing? What’s my leadership style? How should I apply the right leadership style to get them to where I want?
[00:11:23] Because as a business owner, you want a return of investment. You want a good working culture because that’s going impact your brand and your customer service and all those types of things. So what are we doing? How are we proactively getting people up into that clarifying sweet spot? And that’s the sweet spot when you can kind of stand back like the team or perform it.
[00:11:42] Tyson E Franklin: So it sounds like HR is one of those things that a lot of businesses think I. I think about after a problem has occurred, instead of thinking about, oh, no, HR should be something that I’m implementing as soon as I’m thinking about employing my first person, my first employee or first team member, I should be thinking [00:12:00] about HR right then, not after I’ve employed or not after.
[00:12:04] There’s a 12 months later when all of a sudden they’re complaining about an unfair dismissal or some other problem. So you can help ’em right at the beginning. And if there is a problem down the track too, HR would also be one of those things where you can help manage people out of the team the right way.
[00:12:20] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah, definitely. So, some people are like, oh no, I’ve only got two or three staff, so I don’t really need any HR support with it. But I’d actually say that it’s almost more important at that stage because you’ve only got a small team. You’ve got there’s a lot of resources and only one or two people and it’s a close relationship generally if you’ve only got one or two.
[00:12:38] So being able to navigate that is important. So, I can’t emphasise enough the importance of having good employment contracts where there’s really clarity on both parties. This is what remuneration looks like, this is what bonuses or KPIs look like. This is what. Time when you can’t take leave is this is, breaks all of those types of things.
[00:12:57] So it’s really clear before you get a problem. Yeah. And [00:13:00] likewise, with your policies as well, we generally now stick them into a handbook. I hate sort of black and white linear policies that just a dust collectors that no one really understands ’cause it’s just a lot of gobbly gook.
[00:13:12] Yeah. I think, if you can put it into something that feels like the business that you’ve got, and it’s got pictures and color and context and it talks to the values of the business. And in that you start to talk about, your expectations in the workplace because there are certain expectations you have as an employer, certainly in Australia and I’m sure in many other countries when it comes to, preventative sexual harassment, bullying, grievances, all of those types of things.
[00:13:37] And safe workplace as well. Psychosocial safety in the workplace is a really big one at the moment that we see a lot of. So really setting all of that out is really important to have that structure, that framework for moving forward.
[00:13:50] Tyson E Franklin: I think it’s become more important as the years have gone on, like I said to you off air, when I talk to my mum, different generation compared to me, [00:14:00] I look at, my daughter, completely different generation again, just how things have actually changed over that period of time.
[00:14:08] And there’s always been. I think even from my mom’s era, there’s always been unacceptable behavior
[00:14:15] Phoebe Kitto: a hundred percent. And I would like to say that doesn’t happen nowadays, but it does. It does. There’s been the Australia listeners will hopefully know that there’s been some changes to legislation that requires us to do preventative sexual harassment training in all workplaces nowadays.
[00:14:30] It’s legislated. Funnily enough that happened after the shenanigans that happened down in Parliament House and, Oh yeah. Suddenly brought out some legislation and saying that, we need to make sure this doesn’t ever happen. So you’ve gotta do some training around, what is sexual harassment and
[00:14:45] I would like to think that we don’t have sexual predators that are in workplaces and the majority of workplaces don’t. But when I go to this training and do training in businesses, no matter what size of the organisation., there will be always be someone and generally a [00:15:00] female who are saying, yeah I felt like I was treated unprofessionally made to feel uncomfortable.
[00:15:05] That joke just did not land. It made me feel, I felt belittled by it. We’ve got a case at the moment where someone has put a complaint in because one of the, oh, and this goes down to generational that you were talking about Tyson. Yeah. One of the older guys was saying said to her, ah, darling, don’t you worry about moving those boxes?
[00:15:23] Leave that one of the boys. You just go back to the desk and do some of the other stuff. Now she was super cranky about this and has put in some, formal objections to it. But , when you talk to the manager, he was like, oh, I was just trying to be nice. I didn’t want her to have to do heavy.
[00:15:38] So there’s a real educational piece as to what is acceptable and what is not acceptable nowadays. Yeah, and
[00:15:44] Tyson E Franklin: it’s funny too because I remember, yeah, before I did podiatry, I worked on chook farm and when I was working on this chook farm and going through university, if when we were stacking chickens and getting ready to put in the freezers, they were weigh, but once they got to a certain weight, women [00:16:00] weren’t allowed to pick ’em up. Yeah. Only the guys were allowed to pick them up. So you can almost see someone, if they’ve come through that whole era of working in a place where boxes are quite heavy, then they’re working somewhere else and there’s a heavy box.
[00:16:12] I, I don’t know if it’s the weight of the box that probably bothered her or using the word darling. That. Yeah,
[00:16:18] Phoebe Kitto: I guess, you know from my, a combination of both that as well. If someone said that to me, I’d be like, F off, I got to CrossFit, yeah. I can lift quite a lot. It’s not about me being a female, it’s about whether, and I can see guys that’s left completely unsafely.
[00:16:34] It’s about, do you have the skills? Yeah. And do you have the skills? And the ability, and absolutely, there’s differences between people with their skills and their ability and not denying that, but I guess it’s just this general broad brush that you are the weaker, the inferior.
[00:16:49] That is, is a bit of an issue. And then, and when you say it, people are quite confronted. So I find that we’re getting it from two ways actually in around the preventative sexual harassment in the workplace. One of them is from [00:17:00] that generational where it’s just kind of some of those jokes or sharing what happened on the weekend.
[00:17:05] Ha. And they think it’s funny and they’re not really meaning to be offensive, but it is just not appropriate in, in the workplace. And then the other side we get is some of the younger ones, particularly the younger guys that are bringing, porn and stuff, which is successful now on their phones into the workplace as well.
[00:17:22] And it’s like, no, it is, that is not acceptable to be able to be,
[00:17:26] Tyson E Franklin: I don’t think that was, I don’t think that was ever acceptable. In a workplace, I don’t
[00:17:30] Phoebe Kitto: think that was ever accessible as well, but the younger ones are, I think it’s just because of it’s become so much more common around and so much more accessible.
[00:17:37] So interestingly that we’re having quite a few conversations and it’s great when you get someone who’s quite young and they’ve had something like that in the workplace and we have to come and they’re being a bit difficult or their parents have come in, to the meeting. And we go into the meeting and we are really quite explicit talking about some of the things I’ve brought in and you can just.
[00:17:55] Feel it. The red just goes up. Like they’re super embarrassed and [00:18:00] we I’m like, it’s a tricky
[00:18:00] Tyson E Franklin: thing. It really is a tricky because it’s that yeah, and it’s like, it’s being, I think it’s being aware of what you’re saying, who’s around when you’re saying certain things, whether you’re saying it in the workplace, whether you’re saying outside of the workplace as well, you just gotta be careful.
[00:18:15] ’cause I even know the Muay Thai gym that I go to, and every now and then you’ll get, someone will make a comment and go, oh god damn, you’re punching like a girl.
[00:18:23] Yeah.
[00:18:24] Tyson E Franklin: And we all turn around and jokingly ’cause usually it’s a new person will say that and we’ll go, you don’t want some of the girls in this gym to hear you say that.
[00:18:31] Yeah. They will kick your ass. And it’s like an ongoing joke now, is that you don’t, you never say that in the gym because the, some of those girls, they’re tough.
[00:18:41] Phoebe Kitto: Oh, absolutely. And it’s about having awareness of people’s values, beliefs, what makes people feel uncomfortable. And I’m not going say that we never swear in our office and we never tell a joke that it’s, you spend a day
[00:18:55] Tyson E Franklin: with me.
[00:18:55] You know what I’m like?
[00:18:56] Phoebe Kitto: Absolutely. But you know what if it’s not offensive to [00:19:00] everyone and everyone finds it funny, there is no problem with it. There’s no definition. It is like, what would a reasonable person say? Was this inappropriate or not? The difficult thing is that particularly the more staff you get, the more different values and belief systems and just ’cause people laugh along or doesn’t mean
[00:19:16] Tyson E Franklin: they agree.
[00:19:17] Phoebe Kitto: No, it doesn’t necessarily mean they agree at the time. So it is something to be I think very aware of. The other thing to be very aware of is someone’s got a bit of a gripe or a complaint. Like we just, we are so good at avoiding conflict. And I would have to say that health professionals you are one of our.
[00:19:33] Best clients when it comes to that. Because you, health professionals are usually, they like to build relationships with people and they fix things and so they’re not good at dealing with conflict with people often. Yeah, true. And so they let things go. They put it under, they just. Hope it will resolve itself.
[00:19:51] And then it kind of festers and it grows, and then it, it has become quite a big thing. It snowballed. Rather than really jumping on, and I see this all the time with what we had [00:20:00] a a medical practice and they had quite a large team of admin staff and they were family friendly and flexible.
[00:20:07] Owners like super, super nice. And the staff wanted, school holidays off and they’re like, absolutely no problem. And then they got to school holidays, they realised they had no one there to staff the holiday. Everybody wanted the same days. ’cause they all had school wage children. They’re like, oh, someone’s going have to do it.
[00:20:22] And the staff all got really cranky. ’cause you said I could. And they were like, what are we doing? , you’ve, you can’t say to everybody, yeah, you can be family friendly, but you can’t tell everybody that they can have school holidays off because it’s just not physically going to work.
[00:20:37] Flexible working environment, taking infl family considerations, but you’ve still gotta function as a business. Yeah. This does mean sometimes you’re going have to be able to work, be it, long days or weekends or school holidays or whatever it’s going to be. Don’t try and be too nice a person and sugarcoat it and then you’re making a bit of a rod for your back.
[00:20:57] And then we have to come in and be the mean people. [00:21:00] So in the contracts, when someone’s signing an employment contract, which I’m assuming you’re saying everybody should have an employment contract. Hundred percent. Yep. Yep. Like in our employment contract, we used to have, you cannot take any time off in January because January was always our busiest month and we wanted
[00:21:15] Tyson E Franklin: everybody onboard first, the first Monday after the 10 day break. And I had one or two people say, oh, that’s a bit unfair. And I go, it’s just the job. But we actually had that in a contract. I said, you’re taking as much time off as you want in December.
[00:21:29] Yeah. Just not in that January period.
[00:21:31] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah. So, so two points there. You can have you can have in your contract or we would often, so it can be in the contract, it can be in the staff handbook. You can have times where you are forcing people to take take time off. So you can actually say that over the CHRistmas week, it is a forced shutdown and you have to save your annual leave and take it off.
[00:21:48] Yep.
[00:21:48] Phoebe Kitto: Take this period off ’cause we’re not operational. And give them notice for that. And you can also say that there’s times of the year where it’s a blackout period where leave will not be approved. Now in having said [00:22:00] that I have seen some cases where people have not been approved leave and then they’ve been able to, they’ve taken action to say that it was unfair and unreasonable.
[00:22:08] For example, they’ve got a family wedding and they need, that sort of stuff mean.
[00:22:14] We won’t super me, but you
[00:22:15] Phoebe Kitto: might say, well, you can’t have three weeks off for the family wedding that’s down in Townsville. But certainly, we can give a couple days either side of the weekend and, so you negotiate it.
[00:22:25] But a hundred percent we put blackout periods where whenever we’re working with clients, we say there’re a blackout period where you tell people you don’t want leave or vice versa. Are there times when you encourage people to take their leave as well? Yeah. ’cause yeah, we all know that there’s highs and lows and as a business, if you can plan for that’s good.
[00:22:42] It’s really important too from good HR practice to really keep on top of your leave accruals because that can start to become a really big liability in your balance sheet. If people have got accrued annual leave and they’re not taking it. Two things. It’s a big cost if they’re suddenly going to be leaving [00:23:00] and you’ve gotta be able to have the cash to be able to pay it all out.
[00:23:03] But also if they want to take a huge amount of time off all at once , I’ve got three months and I’m going take all this time off. If you’re, particularly if you’re a small business, that could be quite tricky to navigate. Just really keep an eye on that. If you are in Australia as well, you’ve got long service leave to contest with as well, once they hit that 10 years service.
[00:23:20] So you’ve got people overseas listening. Yes. We have this thing called long service leave that if somebody’s been with you, isn’t it 10 years? 10 continu. Years. Years. They get the next hundred years off or something. It feels like a hundred years, but it’s eight weeks. Yes.
[00:23:34] Yeah. Eight weeks with pay.
[00:23:36] Yeah, with pay on their
[00:23:38] Tyson E Franklin: normal four weeks holiday. Yeah.
[00:23:40] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah. So good. HR is keeping on top of that. Yeah. Making sure that, you’re not accruing too much of a liability around that.
[00:23:47] Tyson E Franklin: So, yeah, no, that’s a really good point. And because I was going say like the differences between the different countries and how I know things are probably getting more similar between like say Australian America and the UK [00:24:00] is, I used to watch some American TV shows, didn’t seem like a decade ago.
[00:24:04] And the boss would be there and just go and we’d just look at and we go, you are fired. Get out. ’cause they’d have an argument over something. And it seemed to be in America, you could just sack someone at the drop of a hat. But I was watching a show and just recently called Running Point.
[00:24:17] And the, there’s a couple of brothers that work there and one brother keeps saying, oh, I’m just going get rid of ’em. And the other one’s like, you can’t do that. And he said, oh, I’m going do this. He goes, no, you can’t do that either. Oh, well I’m going do this. Then he goes. We need to talk about what you can and can’t do these days.
[00:24:33] So it really sounds like things are becoming very similar in different countries.
[00:24:41] Phoebe Kitto: Well, I would actually argue it’s just not from a legal perspective, but actually if you’re just getting rid of people and at the drop of a hat within your organisation., you know you’re going be eroding trust and workplace culture.
[00:24:52] Yeah. So that’s not a great platform to be building the business upon anyway. I do find it sad actually, that some employers say, oh, I’ve got enough work. [00:25:00] I’d love to put on two or three people. But , I hear so many nightmares and it’s so hard to get rid of people.
[00:25:04] I just don’t want to do it. And I really challenge that and that whenever we have a client coming to us we will and I’ve got a staffing issue, we’ll ask, what is the outcome that you’re actually looking for? And if they’re saying, I really want this person to exit the business. I can’t work with this person.
[00:25:20] We will never say, no, you can’t. Of course you can. Yeah. The analogy that we use is. If you just, if this person has been with you for 10 years and there’s been no issues and you just had a bit of a Barney, or you didn’t like the way that, they dressed the other day we’re going, well, you don’t have good reason, you haven’t gone through and given them any opportunity to improve and it’s not really work related.
[00:25:40] If it is someone who is in their probationary or qualifying period. Look, there’s always some risk whenever you do a termination, but it’s not high and it’s penalty’s not going be very much if they get you pulled up with it.
[00:25:52] So it’s really about what are you wanting to achieve? What is the best route to get there and what are the risks going to be? [00:26:00] And I would also say that sometimes I can say, yeah, that is not going to be what we would deem a legal termination, or you have not followed a good process as in, there has not been a good evidence of, talking to the staff member and giving them an opportunity to improve.
[00:26:14] However, we can see how much destruction or stress this person is causing to the business owner or to the other team, or that you’re losing up the team. And actually when you weigh it up, the higher cost and risk is actually keeping this person on rather than the cost of working through the consequences of terminating them if they do make a claim, and what that washes out with.
[00:26:35] So, you’ve gotta really, you’ve gotta weigh up all of those things. I think when you’re making some of those decisions.
[00:26:41] Tyson E Franklin: I will admit in the past I was a consequence sort of guy that I would just take, I would just take the risk. ’cause if I felt the person was being more of a negative influence on every single person in the business and I was looking at what it could potentially cost us, I’d go, okay, what’s the downside
[00:26:57] if they [00:27:00] made a claim against me and you’d look at what the worst possible outcome could be, and you go, that’s still better than what I think the damage you’re going do to the business. So let’s just do it. And in the end, nothing came about. They realise that they probably didn’t fit as well.
[00:27:13] Phoebe Kitto: And yeah, even in those situations though, look, I really recommend that you get some advice because you can still wrap at least, well, we got
[00:27:18] Tyson E Franklin: advice, but I got advice after I did it.
[00:27:21] And so there’s my tip to everyone. Don’t do advice.
[00:27:27] Phoebe Kitto: Don’t do what I did.
[00:27:28] Tyson E Franklin: Get the advice beforehand. Yeah, but what about if somebody, say an employee has a contract with you? ’cause this comes up a lot in podiatry. An employee has a contract with you and it might be for two years, and they decide after four months, oh, I’ve got a I better offer somewhere else,
[00:27:45] I’m leaving. And they just wanna, I’ll give you six weeks notice and go what’s the repercussions there? Or there really isn’t much you can do. It’s just, it’s not really, HR is not really there for the employer in that way. I.
[00:27:58] Phoebe Kitto: Unfortunately not. [00:28:00] No. And even to the point too, that we see some people making the mistake of saying, you have to give, two months notice, or I’ve seen some contracts where they’re like six months notice if you’re wanting to leave.
[00:28:11] Tyson E Franklin: Oh, I know. I saw them recently.
[00:28:12] Phoebe Kitto: Mentally, they’re already on their way out. Never put that in. Just don’t do it. But the thing is that you will always have to give the person that amount of notice, but technically they’re not going have to give you that amount to notice.
[00:28:23] In Australia, this is, and this is if they earn under 170,000, if they earn over 170,000 a year, then it goes onto a common law contract and there is a contractual relationship that, they may be up
[00:28:35] Tyson E Franklin: ah,
[00:28:35] Phoebe Kitto: okay into, but if it’s less than that, they come under the fair work, which is only going to be as per the fair work jurisdiction, which depends upon length of service, but is generally no more than four weeks.
[00:28:45] Five if they’re over the age of 45.
[00:28:47] So I’m quite a strong believer in is I like having a base salary and I quite like having KPIs and bonuses. Yeah. And certainly you could have something to say that, you need to work to the end [00:29:00] of each quarter for us to pay out your bonus and they forfeit their bonus or their whatever it’s going to be you certainly could do that as long as you’ve met
[00:29:07] the award or the minimum wage requirements with their base pay. So that’s something that can hold them. But unfortunately the reality is you can’t force someone to want to stay. If they want to leave, it’s not right. I think that what we would encourage people to do instead of feeling frustrated and angry at the person it’s about redirecting that emotion to look at yourself.
[00:29:29] Where did you go wrong with this? Did you do, was the interview process not robust? Did you not actually get the right person? Did you oversell the job and you went over to deliver or undersell it and they’re actually bored. Were they not getting, what was causing them to leave?
[00:29:42] What was their frustration? Are you not competitive now if it’s that their partner got a transfer to Darwin? Oh yeah.
[00:29:47] You can’t do anything. But , if there’s other factors there . And it’s really interesting.
[00:29:51] This is about, we often provide leadership in the style that we personally like. So if we’re a person that likes really direct, [00:30:00] regular black and white feedback, that is what we will give to our staff. Because we think that’s what they will like. But not everybody’s like that. Some people, particularly the Aimable, that makes them feel very stressed.
[00:30:11] They overthink the information and they run with it and they take it that, I just didn’t like the way that you did that treatment to, they think I’m a bad person and they don’t like me, and they think I’m an idiot and I’ve got no friends, and they,
[00:30:25] yeah.
[00:30:25] Phoebe Kitto: So. You’ve gotta really make sure that’s about building the relationship with those people.
[00:30:29] So you’ve really got to look at what are the styles of my people? Are they direct? Are they analytical? Are they expressive? Are they aimable? And make sure that you are giving that person what they need to be the best. Think puppeteer, you are the puppeteer. What are you doing for your team to get them performing at their optimum.
[00:30:48] ’cause coming back to what we were originally talking about is about return of investment. On your staffing resource that you’ve got in there, are you doing everything you possibly can as a business owner to be able to achieve [00:31:00] this? This is such good advice. Something I wish I had heard about many years ago, and even though we did get advice at different times over the years when I had my clinic, but yeah I could recall three different employees that left at different times, all for different reasons.
[00:31:15] Tyson E Franklin: One. The person was working from overseas, but their wife hated it here and just jumped on a plane and went back home. And you think, well, you can’t hold them here. Yeah. And the ultimatum was, well, if you love me, you’ll follow me. And I said to him, if she loves you, she’d stay. But anyway,
[00:31:33] Phoebe Kitto: she won.
[00:31:34] Tyson E Franklin: The wife won.
[00:31:35] Of course she was going win. She was far better looking than me. And but another person who, they’d met a guy, all of a sudden, oh, madly in love and just decided I need to pack up and just, and leave town. And then another person who just didn’t like me, I can’t imagine
[00:31:54] Phoebe Kitto: anyone like that Tyson.
[00:31:55] Tyson E Franklin: I know. But it was just it was just one of those things. We were just different [00:32:00] personality the way that I did certain things, didn’t like it. And yeah. And they just went I wanna leave, go each time. It always worked out in the end. It worked out for them and it worked out for me, so everyone was happy in the end.
[00:32:17] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah. Look, you do. It’s really hard with, out of all the different areas of your business and we know there’s challenges in all aspects of them. The HR side is the one that is the emotive side. The HR side is the one that we feel let down or we are like, but we gave them this and we did this for them.
[00:32:38] And we really, that can really target our strings. And it’s quite hard to remain quite sort of focused and pragmatic as a business owner and not be poor, me and all my frustration out on the staff and actually think, okay, what can I learn from this situation? How can I prevent this happening in the future?
[00:32:55] What do I need to do more of, less of keep doing in order to build that team? [00:33:00] Because let’s face it, no one goes to work and goes, gosh, I hate my job. I don’t wanna like my clients, I don’t wanna like the admin stuff. I don’t wanna like, the owner, I don’t want anyone to like me.
[00:33:10] I wanna, just. Just need every, no one thinks like that. Everyone wants to be proud of where they work and they wanna be liked and so it’s really about helping them get there. And sometimes, end, we get to the end of the road with an employer. There comes a time when people actually just do need to move on.
[00:33:25] Like they’ve just become stale. And that’s when we go into that inspiring that I was talking about before. Well, yeah.
[00:33:31] Tyson E Franklin: I was going, I wanted to touch on it before we finished up too, because you said the first part was they’ve got the probation period, micromanage in the car, micromanaged you.
[00:33:39] You’re really leaning in. You are, you’re probably being a little bit, maybe a little bit annoying to them, but there’s a reason for doing it. But then you said once it, once you pass that trial period, then you said the next part is becoming inspiring.
[00:33:53] Phoebe Kitto: Well, the, no, the next part they should be clarifying.
[00:33:56] They should be ticking along. They’re fairly motivated. Yeah. They’ve got the skillset, so they’re feeling [00:34:00] pretty good. But what will happen is that we fall into inspiring. And inspiring is because we’ve just, we are tired. Maybe we’ve got some stuff happening outside of work that is causing us sick mother relationship issues, financial issues, whatever’s happening.
[00:34:15] Board. They’re always getting the same clients, the same things coming in, and so you need to work out , how they need inspiring. Sometimes it’s carrot and stick, sometimes just telling people if they don’t pull their head in and start working harder or, acting in a certain way
[00:34:29] they’re going be on a, losing their job or on a performance management plan. And that could be very motivating. But you know, often it’s the carrot and finding out what the issue is. They might need some time off. Um, Maybe they need some professional development. Maybe they need a bit of a change up.
[00:34:43] And the type of work that they’re doing, what is it that you can do to start to build that energy? We, we don’t feel inspired when we are burnt out, when we’ve been working too hard. But we also our motivation goes down when. There’s not enough happening as well. So, and is it [00:35:00] work, is it outside work?
[00:35:01] Sometimes you’ll go from that inspiring back to the directing side because we’re giving them something new or some challenges or some focus areas and they need a little bit more support and micromanaging. But you had that conversation, talking regularly with your staff, building that relationship, building that depth with them is super important because, inevitably, there will be a few storms that that you need to weather together. It’s just like, I love my husband, but he annoys me at times. Your staff can really respect you as an employer.
[00:35:27] Tyson E Franklin: My, my wife would probably say the same thing.
[00:35:32] Phoebe Kitto: He wouldn’t say it about me though, of course.
[00:35:34] Tyson E Franklin: No. So what you’re saying then is, and this is where probably why you need to have KPIs and things that you measure in your business, because sometimes it’s the KPIs that will let you know that somebody is burnt out because their numbers will tell you
[00:35:48] they’re just, they’re seeing the same amount of patients, but they’re just not reaching the levels that they were reaching. Yeah. And it’s not because you, it’s all about, ’cause I know some employees will listen to go, oh, there you go, the boss just wants to make more [00:36:00] money. But I’ve said in the past, I remember a guy that was working with me and I can tell by his numbers that all of a sudden they had dropped
[00:36:07] substantially over this week period. It was really unusual. And I remember going and say, Hey, is everything okay at home? And he went, well, and then he told me what was actually happening. I went, holy crap. Why are you even here? Like, take a couple of days off, just take a couple of days off and just.
[00:36:27] Work through that had those few days, they came off, bang, was back up to where he should have been. Yeah.
[00:36:32] Phoebe Kitto: As a business owner, and I’m sure you covered this in other podcasts, you need to be all over those numbers because if you can start to see a trend starting to change, you need to be all on top of that and holding staff to that and the KPIs and is it something they’re doing or is it something that you are doing is actually causing that, that drop in the numbers?
[00:36:48] With, however you measure it. So there’s that side, which is very black and white, numbers driven. But then the other part with that performance review is about the conversation, and the conversation [00:37:00] not only about what you need more of, but what. What as the business owner, but what does the staff member need more of?
[00:37:05] Phoebe Kitto: Are they happy? What are their frustrations? How can I support you better? What do you need more of? And this is really about what I can do because what can you do to serve them better so they can perform better? Because if they’re performing at the optimum. That’s when it’s all butterflies and sunshine for you.
[00:37:20] Yeah. And you need to be really in tuned and focused. And it’s not just you second guessing what you think they need. It’s about you actually understanding and then knowing you’ve got their back, you are doing everything possible to make them successful, happy in their workplace, and that’s when they’ll become a great employee.
[00:37:39] Tyson E Franklin: Okay. Oh, couple of questions before we wrap up. One was about. If you get an employee, ’cause a common thing that is said sometimes in the podiatry world is, I don’t like working for someone who keeps KPIs. And I find that funny because I usually find it’s somebody who’s worked somewhere else and the [00:38:00] employer used KPIs or as punishment, not as encouragement and therefore they only see KPIs in a negative way.
[00:38:08] Phoebe Kitto: I think it is about understanding what they don’t like about it or the measurement for it. I think, sometimes having KPIs or targets and stuff up publicly works really well, but sometimes that I doesn’t sit well. There’s often, particularly Aimable people will feel nervous with KPIs because there’s a fear of failure that they might have with it.
[00:38:28] Yeah. So I think it’s just about, well, how are you going measure, how are we going have a metric with it? And trying to sort of build their trust and support around it. But yeah, I. Unfortunately, like we have KPIs in our business, we’ve got billable hours that they’ve gotta do, and but you’ve gotta be realistic.
[00:38:44] Some days people get it, some days they don’t. But it’s gotta be the overall average and it’s just about us. I see it. If they’re not reaching their KPIs, it’s not necessarily their problem. It’s my problem. What am I not doing? Am I not feeding them enough work? And are we not giving them enough [00:39:00] support?
[00:39:00] What is causing it that they’re not able to? Because why would they not want to meet the KPIs? That shows us successful, so that’s a good point. Self spin.
[00:39:09] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, no, that’s a good point. Okay. One last question before we wrap up is how do you have a tough conversation with members of your team?
[00:39:16] When some people, you’ve just gotta have that conversation and it’s one of those things, I’ve been in that position myself, oh no, I need to talk to someone about something. And I’m like, oh, but I don’t wanna upset ’em. Or, and in your head, you’re playing it, you’re, you are, you’re playing out the worst scenario that’s going go on.
[00:39:32] I found nine times out of 10, it never happens. So is there a way of having those tough conversations?
[00:39:40] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah, I look, I think that’s really important and it is about, and it will depend upon the circumstances with it from a procedural and compliance legally compliant way as to what outcome you’re heading towards.
[00:39:52] But my hot tip with it is instead of me going in and saying, this is my issue, this is my problem or [00:40:00] you’re doing this wrong, or this is, having a go at you because as soon as I have a go at you, ah, you will naturally get defensive.
[00:40:07] Yeah,
[00:40:08] Phoebe Kitto: we just can’t help it. We just naturally, if I tell you that the office needs painting and it looks terrible, even though you might think that you’ll get defensive because that’s just our first go-to scenario, it is human nature and trust me, I’ve seen this happen over and over again.
[00:40:24] We know we’ve done the wrong thing, but we still get defensive. We have people on tape where they’ve actually stolen money and the people go, oh, you stole, you’ve stolen from us. No, I didn’t. Or, well, I took it because of, and they get defensive
[00:40:36] Tyson E Franklin: but it’s even simple stuff.
[00:40:37] I know my wife will walk into my office sometimes and she just go, when are you going tidy up that office? And I know it’s untidy. Every time she says it to me, I it gets under my skin and I get a little bit grumpy about it because I know it’s untidy and I know I need to tidy it up.
[00:40:55] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah. And you get, I don’t need to be
[00:40:56] Tyson E Franklin: told, but I also need to be told
[00:40:59] Phoebe Kitto: the much [00:41:00] better way to do it is if we were going into your office and I said, okay, what are your thoughts about how the office is looking? Tyson, you are much more likely to say,
[00:41:11] Tyson E Franklin: could do with some work.
[00:41:12] Phoebe Kitto: Could be missing. Work needs to get tied bit.
[00:41:15] Yeah, I agree. Let’s talk about, that’s great because that’s great. If they actually say at first and they own it, they’re much more likely. Now, they might say, oh, it needs, you might say it needs some work, but I haven’t got the time and I haven’t got the money. You go yep. Understand all that.
[00:41:27] You can understand all of those. But we still need to make sure that it’s professional and presented and aligned with the brand. So how can we work through some of these other things? ’cause often there’ll be a reason why they’re not performing for what’s happening. But yet, actually if, and that is my hot tip for having those conversations, is really coming in.
[00:41:47] And sometimes people will know there’s been a bit of an argy bargy and you are like talking to the person afterwards instead of going, what were you doing talking to them like that. Just go. Mate, what happened? Tell me your version of events.
[00:41:58] Yeah,
[00:41:58] Phoebe Kitto: and just let them go, [00:42:00] blah. Because once they feel that they’ve been able to get it all out and then, and they’ve been heard, they’ll be far more likely to take on board what you’ve said and you’ll be able to engage in good conversation.
[00:42:12] So that’s, this is,
[00:42:13] Tyson E Franklin: this is such good advice. You’ve actually made HR, like you said right at the beginning, sound very exciting.
[00:42:19] Phoebe Kitto: Just great. I just,
[00:42:21] Tyson E Franklin: I’m trying to come up with a fantastic title for this,
[00:42:23] Phoebe Kitto: cover
[00:42:24] Tyson E Franklin: your Ass or something. HR Cover your ass. I think that’d be a great title because that’ll make people actually listen.
[00:42:31] So before we wrap up, if anybody wants to reach out to you, if they’ve got staffing questions, they just wanna contact you. What is your website? What is the best email address?
[00:42:42] Phoebe Kitto: Sure. So, love to hear from anybody. Our website is HRdynamics.com au. And the email is phoebe@HRdynamics.com au.
[00:42:58] Tyson E Franklin: Okay. And if people are [00:43:00] overseas, do you ever help anyone overseas or do you direct them to somebody else? Do you have contacts over there?
[00:43:06] Phoebe Kitto: It depends upon the country. We’ve had a few people in New Zealand that we may be able to direct you towards it if it’s just generally coaching that you’re wanting to talk about and discussing it.
[00:43:15] Yeah.
[00:43:15] Phoebe Kitto: Not from a legislative perspective. So we do have some clients that have got staff working overseas or that we work with, so that’s not completely uncommon. We can still work with you and support you. It’s just email teams, people are people, as I said. So please, if you’re overseas or in Australia, and even if you just wanna have a bit of a chat about it, some of your options, we’d always love to hear from you.
[00:43:39] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah, I like what you said just about the coaching side of things. ’cause sometimes people might go, oh, I don’t really want engagement, but I’d love to block out some time just to talk through some things. Just, I need two hours
[00:43:49] to talk. Yeah. I do that.
[00:43:50] Tyson E Franklin: Even with my coaching stuff, I have people that, yeah, I’ll talk to once a month though some, it’s twice a month and have other people that they just book in an hourly times with me and we run through [00:44:00] a few things, get that sorted out.
[00:44:02] I won’t hear from ’em again for six months and then they’ll get back in touch with me and that just works well for them.
[00:44:07] Phoebe Kitto: Yeah, we often say that we HR we come and go from your lives. Yeah. So there’ll be periods which are quite intensive, and that might be because you need to get your contracts and your handbooks and your job descriptions, KPIs and stuff.
[00:44:17] You get, once that’s set up, you should be self manageable and, we might step back, but then, there might be a bit of a staffing issue or someone needs a bit of help or frustrations and so. We will come in and outta your life, depending upon what’s happening in the business and the growth of the business, and I think that’s what you know.
[00:44:32] Good. That certainly seems to be the model that we are seeing more and more, even quite large organisation.S use. Yeah. They’re empowering managers and departmental managers to look after a lot of the HR, and then they just bring in the technical side of things, or the external support as when required.
[00:44:47] Tyson E Franklin: Yeah. And also let people know on Facebook it’s HR dynamics as well.
[00:44:52] That’s right. And
[00:44:53] Tyson E Franklin: on LinkedIn it’s just your name, Phoebe. That’s right. Yeah. So I’ll put those links in the show notes as well, so that’d be
[00:44:59] Phoebe Kitto: awesome. [00:45:00]
[00:45:00] Tyson E Franklin: I wanna thank you for coming on the Podiatry Legends podcast, sharing your wisdom in everything HR, what it is, and I dunno if we really touched on what it isn’t, but it was more the, what it is, and I’ve learn a ton from this already.
[00:45:15] Just there were a few aspects there, especially that car analogy. I just think that is, yeah, it just makes sense.
[00:45:21] Phoebe Kitto: It’s really good when I’m talking to a group of blokes who are forced to come to something HR and they can’t see there’s any relevance. And when you talk about the cars, I can get them nodding and they’ll like, yeah, we bring it all back to that.
[00:45:33] ’cause it’s gotta make sense. So, yeah. But look, thank you so much Tyson for having me on. Good luck to everybody and yeah, HR is an exciting profession, trust me.
[00:45:42] Tyson E Franklin: Okay. Okay. So thank you very much.
[00:45:44] Phoebe Kitto: Thanks Tyson.