Growing High Performing Business Through Team

Small Biz Matters – a half hour program each week where you can work ON your business rather than IN it.
with Alexi Boyd from Boyd Office Management Services
Date: 6 June 2017

Natasha Hawker has seen it all. An author of the successful From Hire to Fire and Everything In Between and owner of HR firm Employee Matters Natasha draws on her previous experiences and skills to help small businesses navigating the compliance-ridden world of employee relations.

After experience working in HR in the crazy, fast paced world of hiring and firing in India she learned fast to get control of a workforce under the most arduous of conditions. Returning to Australia she set up Employee Matters and now presents worldwide to businesses, professional associations and is the ‘go to’ resource for journalists wanting expert commentary on Human Resources. She has been interviewed for SMH, Australian Financial Review & The Huffington Post as well as ABC Radio. She advises big and small business about HR best practice and compliance for small businesses.

Welcome to the show Natasha.

Topics we’ll be covering:

• Broadly your small business journey and what led you to start your own business
  • Began corporate life in the Financial sector
  • Worked on HR for another business and realised I could it do better
  • HR - recommendation from colleagues to look into HR then studied TAFE and post grad before starting my own business
  • International work - UK, India at Accenture and learned FAST
    • cultural learnings, gender issues , medical issues, travel challenges with SARS)
    • Fast hiring - 500 people in 5weeks! So Natasha was thrown in the deep end. Fabulous learning environment.
    • High stress, low infrastructure (electricity issues!)
  • Built a passion for educating small business owners build great businesses through building their team.

• It’s a massive people investment
  • Money, time, training time, wages, super, mentoring - it’s not just salary you’re paying
  • Big mistake owners make is expecting staff to just sit down and immediately be productive
  • You should expect someone to be productive at 100% after 6 months longer if they are more senior
  • Attrition is a massive expense to business. They’ll take with them knowledge, training, new skills
  • As business owners we tend to leave them in the technical part of their job rather than accountability for real people stuff
  • Consider an Employee assistance program - counselling, you need to consider the person problem. BUT you’re not skilled in that so OUTSOURCE
  • Don’t forget you need to engage with them as people not just task monkeys
• Team update tips / team
  • Issues with sharing communication - who shares financials out there? Well, we SHOULD. They’ll be a direct uplift in engagement and understanding in where they fit in the bigger picture.
  • Structuring a WIP
  • Voxer app to send messages & communicate
• Building highly engaged teams
  • Celebrate wins with your staff - the entire business should celebrate individual wins
  • Communications strategy - transparent, builds trust
  • Accountability not only to the owner but your team
  • Weeks slip by - bite sized chunks are best

To find out more go to their website: https://www.employeematters.com.au

Bio Natasha Hawker

Natasha Hawker is a small business owner, running Employee Matters with her husband and business partner Mark for the past three years. They work in Queensland, Victoria and NSW and have 10 employees. Employee Matters helps small business with Hire to Fire and Everything in Between which aptly, is the name of her new book.

She has worked in Employee Relations for over for 21 years working both nationally and internationally. Including twelve years at Accenture, one of the top global management consulting firms. She is routinely featured in the SMH and Start Up Smart and she is a regular writer for Flying Solo and Australian Businesswomen’s Network. She has been nominated for the Telstra Businesswomen of the Year and she has personally hired, managed and fired over 15, 000 employees.

She has a postgraduate in Employee Relations from UTS and is on a mission to help small business owners hire great talent, build high performing teams and terminate non performers.