Tell us about Employee Matters.
Employee Matters helps businesses achieve success through their people. We have a team of twelve across Australia and New Zealand. We help our clients hire, manage and exit better by building Employee Assets. You see, I believe that your employees are your greatest asset and, also, potentially your greatest liability. I also believe that business owners deserve a team of employees that treasure the business as much as they do themselves.
You recently wrote a book – From Hire to Fire & Everything in Between. Who can benefit from giving it a read?
Most businesses, in order to grow, need employees – so we believe that business owners, managers and franchisees, and even aspiring managers, would get enormous value from reading the book.
We have a complex employee relations legal framework and many business owners are exposed to fines of up to $63k for the company and up to $12,600 themselves. Many are unaware of the risk sitting in their businesses.
I believe that the businesses that have highly capable and highly motivated employees will outperform their competitors every time. This book will help you hire, manage and exit better.
Businesses with employees who are engaged at 75% or higher, when compared to the bottom quartile, achieve, on average, 21% more productivity and the business achieves 20% more profitability.
What inspired you to start Employee Matters?
I love HR and I feel that I was lucky enough to have a wonderful national and international career, travelling and working with one of the top management consultants – Accenture. I also saw that SMEs were struggling when it came to their employees and I knew that we could help to solve this.
In the annual MYOB survey, when business owners are asked what keeps them awake at night their response, year on year, is cash flow and employees.
I have also been able to hire a ‘goldmine’ of talent with HR professionals, seeking flexible, meaningful and great work.
I have loved being on the entrepreneurial journey and have learnt an incredible amount over the last 7 years.
Tell us about your career and background.
My career started in Banking & Finance, working in dealing rooms and I was told I would be good at Personnel Management (as it was known then) so, I started studying at TAFE and then made the move to Recruitment Consulting, where I learnt how not to run a business. I then got my lucky break and joined Accenture and travelled the world. I then had 3 kids in quick succession and started Employee Matters seven years ago.
We are incredibly passionate about changing the world and we do this through our Lifetime membership of B1G1, where we donate to a variety of projects when we sell a book or sign up a new client. So giving is a part of doing business every day!
Describe a typical work day for you.
I am a very busy mum of three kids who are all sporty, so I typically start my day on the squash court or at the gym at 6am. When at the gym, I am often listening to Blinkist for books to broaden my business thinking.
We run a virtual team, so I am either found at our home office or out with clients, doing speaking gigs or being interviewed for articles, podcasts and for radio. My hours have reduced over the years and, most days, I work between 8 -10 hours. In the late afternoon / evening, I am normally a taxi service for the kids and their sport.
What advice do you have for those wanting to start a business?
I have spent over $150k to date on my business education and this has been money well spent. You need to be very clear on your ‘why’, your products and your pricing and surround yourself with great people.
To be a business owner, I think that you need three key ingredients.
1. Resilience – you need to be able to take the knocks, get up quickly and ‘soldier on’
2. Optimistic – to know that with hard work, effort and education you will make it
3. Naive – because I think that for many business owners if you knew then what you know now you may not have started your business at all!
Partnerships, in other words working with people / organisations who have your clients before you do, is a great growth strategy and finally, build your business to sell in terms of structure and approach – whether you want to sell or not, because you always want to be ready for the ‘tap on the shoulder’.
What’s next for you, and Employee Matters?
For me, I am very focused on promoting and getting my book ‘From Hire to Fire & Everything in Between’ to every SME business owner in Australia. I am doing a number of Book Launches in partnership with Deloitte and Servcorp across Australia. I am also currently very focused on the PR campaign for the book. Scott Pape once said that it is just as much effort and work to launch a book as it is to write it and he is right!
As a team, we are very focused on professional development around our sales process using the amazing Simon Bowen’sVisual Models that Sell. This approach will mean our prospective clients get enormous value regardless of whether they work with us or not.
Employee Matters turned 7 in December 2018 and we celebrated and also very much reviewed and reflected on what we can do better as individuals and as an organisation. We are very focused on continuous improvement.
