Dealing with difficult staff

Andy
Firstly, I wanna start by saying dealing with staff is all about responsibility. Whether you like it or not, this is what you signed up for as a business owner. So you need to take this topic really seriously. As a business owner, you need to be invested in your staff so they are invested in your business. Sadly, it only takes one bad apple to spoil the pie.

Ange
Yeah, and where trade business owners often go wrong is that they treat everyone the same. And although for the most part I think this is true, the reality is you have multiple different personalities within your team and all perhaps motivated by different things. So understanding each of your team members at a deeper level will certainly help your connection and form a much tighter bond.

Andy
Understanding what makes them tick is super important, so that whenever you are faced with the issues in the team, you know how to approach the situation.

Ange
Yeah. So some trade business owners are simply too strict or they go the other way and they’re literally a pushover. So what I mean by that is if they’re too strict, they operate like a dictatorship and they think that this is the right way to operate. And you know what? When you are under pressure or in a really stressful situation, this can work really well because you just need to fix it. But generally speaking, it’s really not the way to operate. So as I mentioned, trade business owners sometimes go the other way and they’re like an absolute pushover. They had given no guidance, no leadership at all, and therefore they literally got walked over by the entire team.

Andy
That’s right. The outcome of this, the team of tradies do things their way. Fred, one way, Steve, another, Jon, on another. And what happens then is the business does not work efficiently or effectively, and it’s not a good operation. And as a business owner, you run the risk of losing tradespeople because you’re not operating a systemized business where everyone understands what is expected of them.

Ange
Yeah, it’s a tricky one. This one. You want them to do what you want them to do, but you don’t wanna be a bully to get them to do it. Make sense?

Andy
Totally. You need to find a balance between being the bully and being a pushover where you are a fair boss, but where boundaries are communicated and expectations are set.

Ange
So I’ve read this really great quote that reads, be careful what you tolerate because you’re teaching people how to treat you. And overall your team needs to be set up to succeed, like through mentorship and guidance. So that being said, Andy, you talked about a Queensland roofer. Can you tell us that story?

Andy
Okay. Yes. The story is about the Queensland roofer, he was a young bloke, super switched on and ready to adopt technology and systemized his business top to bottom. But he’d taken over the business from his dad. Yes. And his dad was very old school in the way he did things. The challenge this guy had was the dad had, had a team of 10 people and most of them had come with the furniture and had been there since the very beginning.

Ange
And I bet not a single one of them was keen on changing the business model. Right?

Andy
You absolutely nailed that Ange. He was basically up against a wall. He wanted to introduce systems that we all know makes running a trade business so much easier, but his staff had strength in numbers. They were standing together and ignoring his business changes.

Ange
Yeah, that’s a really hard situation because basically as a business owner, heaps of us are fearful of losing the staff we have, even if they’re not amazing. Because it’s so hard to find the right staff right now, and it’s not like this guy can just clear house and replace all the staff that don’t follow his systems. He’d literally lose the whole business, right?

Andy
Yeah, that’s right. People hate change, don’t they? So my suggestion to him was to find the leader of the pack. Who has the most influence over the rest of the team and make sure you sit down one-on-one with them and have a chat individually and talk about the challenges that you have in the business and where the business needs to improve and what you’re struggling with. Maybe it could be one or two leaders in the team, but make them understand that your vision and your change for the business is gonna be better for you. But also the staff as well.

Ange
Yeah, I totally agree. You need to literally draw them into the future of the business. So when you’re discussing that vision, you need to paint the vision with them in it because their opinion counts. So they need to understand how much they’re valued. We’re clearly trying to make change, right? So if you wanna make those changes, show them how it’s gonna benefit them. And you may even need to dangle some consolation prizes. Like if we adopt X, I’ll give you guys Y. So at the end of the day, All people hate change. Change is seen as scary. It’s the unknown.

Andy
Yeah, it definitely is. So this Queensland roofer tried to change everything in one day, so I’m not surprised his staff dug their heels in. So my second suggestion is to make small sustainable changes. You have to do it one step at a time. Small chunks. You can’t change everything in a day because if you do, your staff will hate it. Start small, introduce slowly. You may lose staff here and there way up if it’s a good thing or a bad thing. And if you have to sack that one person, that’s the number one because they are truly stonewalling you or your company, then that’s just how it is. But hopefully that would show any other stone kickers that you mean business.

Ange
When it comes to managing staff, you can’t cut corners because as a business owner, you need to do it the right way. You literally need to rally the troops in this situation and you can’t throw a bomb because if you have a team of 10 like this roofer did, you need to know who’s on your side. Think about it. When you go to war, you’ve gotta know what’s going on. You need to understand the consequences of your actions and if you are ready for it, just in general. You need a lot of work behind the scenes, literally chatting one-on-one to every team member and making them understand why what you are doing is better for the business and absolutely better for them. And as Andy said, have their end insight. But slow down and do one thing at a time.

Andy
Here, here. And look, whilst that’s a specific situation, I think the learnings and the steps can really be applied across a multitude of staffing situations. We all wanna improve our business at some point and change the way things operate. So being able to help guide and manage our staff through the transition is an important tool to have.

Ange
Yeah, it’s actually a thing. It’s called change management to help guide people into how to adopt change into a business.

Andy
Right and change comes with training and consistent check-ins to make sure the team are doing what you asked. And if you don’t train them properly, you have no one to blame but yourself.

Ange
And if the team does make mistakes, please don’t yell and scream. It’s actually not gonna get you anywhere.

Andy
No. That will simply make them walk out the door and you’ll be left wondering why you have such a revolving door in your business.

Ange
And another thing, don’t do the work for them because that doesn’t work either.

Andy
Yeah, that’s right. That is a common fault for trade business owners. When the team makes mistakes or are slow to learn a new school, they’ll say, I’ll just do it myself. But how does your team member ever learn if you keep doing this? Maybe they don’t even know what they did wrong in the first place.

Ange
Yeah. Super important. So I wanna change tact and share a recent post I saw on social media. This one is an absolute doozy. So the story went that these two tradies had a punchup at a party. Which was outside of office hours.

Andy
Yes.

Ange
So the fight. Wasn’t at a work function. It was a personal event and the fight was over personal issues. Again, nothing to do with work, but they both then claimed that they didn’t wanna come to work and they definitely didn’t wanna work with each other ever again, which was ridiculously hard because the team was a team of five. So it’s obviously unavoidable. The Post was actually asking for advice on what a business owner should do and how involved they should get because the fight was personal and not work related. What are your thoughts on that, Andy?

Andy
Yeah, it’s a hard situation, but as a business owner, you do need to be involved with your staff’s lives, really. I mean, you’ve gotta know what’s going on in their world. You know, back in the day, I think a lot of old bosses would’ve said, no, not my problem, because it happened outside of work. They can get the boxing gloves on and sort themselves out, but, because the two tradies still have to work with each other within your business. You wanna make sure you’ve got a happy team overall. So you, you’ve really gotta address this problem.

Ange
Yeah. And look, in our plumbing business, I know we had to deal with similar situations. Your tradies do work really closely every day, and people can rub each other up the wrong way. It’s just normal. So let me ask you this then. What would you suggest that a business owner did if they were ever faced with this situation?

Andy
Okay, so for me, you really wanna talk to both of the staff one-on-one and actually understand the full story because really you, you’re becoming a mediator between the two and you’re trying to make sure that you can help them both to get a clear cut understanding of not really who was wrong and who was right, but how can we mend this issue to make sure it’s not a situation that’s gonna come up, time and time again.

Ange
So my advice to a trade business owner would be to ensure that you are relatable. So as Andy said, when you’re talking one-on-one, you really are giving them kind of life advice. I would say you’re talking to them about the fact that they’re going to face situations like this their entire life, and that they could run away from the issue. You know, leave this job, go find another one. But if you continue to do that time and time again, every time that you are faced with something you didn’t like, well that’s just setting yourself up for disaster long term.

Andy
Yeah, and you need to learn how to deal with this stuff head on. And a lot of the times when I have a chat with my staff, I analyze both sides of the situation and I’ll call them both and I’ll go, well, listen, you probably overstepped the mark here. What do you think? And hey, listen, you probably overstepped the mark here. What do you think? And really try and find a resolution to make sure that everyone is happy that you can move on. And you’re right, Ange, it’s not as simple as just clicking your fingers. And everything is fixed, but you’ve gotta find a solution because if not, someone will look at leaving. And when you’ve got a small team, and the way of finding good staff these days, you’ve gotta make sure as a boss you can get involved and help sort out this issue.

Ange
Yeah, so after you’ve had a meeting one-on-one, you yourself as a trade business owner, just need to make a whole heap of notes about what was said because you’ve seen them separately. You need to literally write notes about what they wrote about that particular punch up and kind of what their opinion was. And then my advice would be to organize to sit these two guys down in front of you as a mediator and actually have a chat about it and man up talk about it. And you know what? There’s no guarantee it’s gonna work. And sometimes you have to arm yourself with as much information as you possibly can from both of them and know the reasons why they feel the way they do. Because you can’t fix a problem when you don’t know what the problem is.

Andy
And let’s face it, you know, when you’re talking about a weekend and a couple of people having a punch up, There’s normally some type of alcohol involved and you know, people can get a bit caught up with it. And, and we’ve all been there and it’s, you know, as tradies, we can be a bit hotheaded and it can blow up, but it’s just about how do you set it up? How do you know who’s right and who’s wrong? Not saying who’s right and who’s wrong, but making them understand what the differences were, how we can all work better as a team, trying to get both of them to shake hands and get on with life,

Ange
kiss and make up,

Andy
and kisses and makeup. That’s right. I have got two guys to give each other a big cuddle before, and it sounds funny, but it’s certainly something that

Ange
Breaks the ice, right?

Andy
Breaks the ice and makes them have a bit of a laugh. And, but you know, you can do this and you need to be at your best to make it work, but definitely you have to give it everything you got. You don’t wanna be losing staff over things like this.

Ange
So there’s no doubt that, I’m sure some of you guys, some of these listeners are saying, Guys, that’s a no-brainer. Of course, that’s a normal thing to do, but in our experience, a lot of trade business owners, when they’re faced with something like this, do absolutely nothing and just hope that it blows over on its own. And you know what? That is not the way to treat a situation like this when, although that altercation, using that exact example happened outside of work. Because it’s coming back and it’s affecting the way operation happens internally. You have no choice but to deal with it head on.

Andy
And you wanna make sure too, that the guys aren’t coming back into the business and trying to split the team in half and go, oh, John, oh, this is what he did. What do you reckon? And building, you know, you, you, you gotta make sure you hit it head on. And there’s always two stories, two sides to every story. We know that, but you know what, sometimes it does feel awkward for you, you’re like, you’re sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong. But in the end, the result of not doing anything in your business is worse because surely doing something seems like the better choice. Right?

Ange
Yeah, I agree. And you know what, there’s another side to this. Imagine, you actually had a team, you know more than one guy, so there’s a team of five or 10, how you actually deal with this situation. Every single one of your team members are actually watching you. This actually impacts their opinion about you, which means when it happens, you’ve got to deal with this very quickly and hit it on its head.

Andy
Thing is, you don’t want these guys to come into work and then pull the team in 50% or half and half.

Ange
Yeah. Who’s on my side? Who’s on yours?

Andy
You know who’s on my side? This is what’s happening. And blowing it outta proportion. You know, it’s a couple of guys going a bit head to head and it’s not always the best situation, but that’s life and the way you deal with it is the right way to go.

Ange
Yeah. Too much testosterone.

Andy
Oh, alcohol. So those two stories are situations that really, if you own a business for long enough, you’ll probably come across, you know, I’m pretty sure what we discussed will put you on a better path for taking action and resolving the issue you are facing with your staff instead of turning your head and thinking it will resolve itself. Because we really do know that doesn’t happen. So cherry pick which ones match your predicament, or I could help you. We could chat one-on-one about your situation and resolve it together. You can book a strategy session with me and the two of us can sort it out together or email us with your story and we can talk about it on one of our next podcasts. And you can reach us at podcasts@lifestyletradie.com.au. News time.

Ange
Wait, wait. I’ve got something this week.

Andy
Oh,

Ange
I want to chat about an article I read about the retirement age in Australia and how globally we’re working until we’re much older.

Andy
Yeah, look at us tradies. By the time we’re 30, we’ve got crap backs. Our knees are short. We’ve put our bodies through the ringer, and we’ve been working so hard on the tools for so many years. It’s just an ideal for us to be working like that when we are in our older stages of life.

Ange
Yeah. Right. I’ve seen you throw your back out a few times, in fact, and if you were still a plumber on the tools, I can’t imagine how you would physically cope with the demands of the job.

Andy
Settle down. Settle down. That is absolute rubbish. I am a machine.

Ange
Of course you are.

Andy
No, I’m definitely not that bad, but you are right. Over the years I’m not getting any younger. I’ve definitely got older and the business plan for me was to get off the tools and work on the business side of things and then eventually sell up and I could live the lifestyle I wanted and keep my body in bloody good shape. Hoooooyaaaaah! If you were looking at me right now, you’d see it look like the size of a truck,

Ange
a machine, ,

Andy
uh, maybe, maybe not, maybe not, but you know what? As you have kids, you all wanna make sure you can keep up with them, and sometimes dig holes all day. Being on the jackhammer, it’s physically demanding. Especially as we get a bit older.

Ange
Yeah. Especially when the Sydney Morning Herald released an article this month stating that in Sydney, men are retiring at 65 years old and women at 64. So imagine or think about when you started your apprenticeship at 16. That’s 49 years of being on the tools. 49 years of

Andy
That’s a long time.

Ange
Digging holes working bent under sinks or in someone’s roof. There is no way even the healthiest of people could sustain that.

Andy
And to make matters worse, sorry to be the bearer of bad news listeners, but this article went on to say that since 2000, the expected retirement age for women has risen by 2.6 years unprepared to men, that has risen by 1.4 years.

Ange
That’s not fair.

Andy
Well, no, it’s not . and retirement ages in the high sixties and possibly even in the low seventies are not out of the question in the longer term for Australia.

Ange
Well, it went on to say that it’s kind of bad news if you are a New Zealander because New Zealand workers are also expected to stay in the workforce longer than us here in Australia, five years longer actually for men, and two years longer for women. Crazy, right?

Andy
And look, we did some digging. Currently, the medium age of all tradespeople in Australia is 37 years of age with 70% of all tradespeople between the ages of 20 and 49.

Ange
Well, that means 30% fall out of that bracket, meaning they’re either under 20 or over 49.

Andy
Exactly. I’d say there are a lot of tradies who are still working on the tools over 49. I’ll be a heap of guys who are looking to sell their business, but they’ve got zero tech. They’ve got no systems and may have staff, and they may be average and they have no marketing. All their business just really falls apart when they take a holiday.

Ange
Well, that’s not what any buyer wants these days, is it?

Andy
They definitely don’t. So if you are banking on your business, funding your retirement, I’d have a good hard look at what your business looks like to a potential buyer and evaluate if it’s actually the gold mind you think it might be.

Ange
Hmm, great point. Andy. The reason these retirement ages are going up, up, up is because we are living longer and some people have to work until later in life. Because you may easily live until you are 90 years old, and if you’re retired at 65, that’s a long time to support yourself. And we all know that relying on the government pension is a really hard way to live.

Andy
Yeah. That article also said that Aussie men can now expect the duration of their retirement to be almost double what it was four decades ago. So from 9.3 years in 1978 to 17.3 years in 2019.

Ange
Wow.

Andy
Yeah, it is. Wow. And I’m sure in 2022, that stat is only creeping higher and higher. A long retirement could actually be a good thing. Having 15 plus years to do all the things you wanted to do sounds amazing, but only if you can afford the lifestyle you want.

Ange
Yeah, true. And the cost of living is only going to keep rising.

Andy
So really you need to get your plan sorted out ASAP, because we’re literally not getting any younger.

Ange
Well, speak for yourself. I think I’d get better with age.

Andy
Actually. You do get better with age. . I don’t know what I can say about myself. But baaboong..

Ange
The bottom line is if you want an earlier retirement, but also the ability to live the lifestyle you want. And still be able to afford the holidays, live comfortably, and have all the comforts you deserve. Then getting your trade business a hundred percent whipped into shape is the only way you’ll get there.

Andy
Absolutely. Working on the tools for 40 or even 50 years is not a good strategy, and working into the business until you croak is also a really bad idea. You need to systemize and get your business to a place where it can be that retirement nest egg, or it can continue to run. Without your involvement, you can live that retiree lifestyle and keep a steady income rolling in.

Ange
Sounds awesome. Well, that’s all for the news today. So asking for help isn’t a weakness. It’s called smart business because dealing with staff can be easy when you use the right mediation tactics. Tricky staff situations may seem impossible and may have nothing to do with business and personal, but how you, as a team leader, deal with and manage the situation will literally make or break your business.

Andy
You know what? You need to be a better leader because you have no choice. But learn these skills. If you want to be a successful trade business, it comes with a team and you need to learn how to deal with them the right way. This is what makes them stay with you for the long, long term.

Ange
Yeah, because making decisions by yourself can be hard, especially when you don’t really know what you’re doing. That’s one thing I know our Lifestyle Tradie members love the most is the community of like-minded tradies and partners from all around Australia that are all there to help, when you’re faced with any issue. They have often been there themselves and walked before you and can help solve any problem.

Andy
That’s right. Sometimes we are too close to the issue and can’t think clearly. Isolation with decision making is a real problem for both tradies and tradie wives. I felt pretty isolated in the early days when I was growing Dr. Drip. Lots of decisions and no one to use as a sounding board.

Ange
Well, you had me.

Andy
Yeah, yeah. But sometimes I just want another tradies’ opinion.

Ange
Yeah, fair enough. No offense taken.

Andy
And when it comes to staff, it’s important to deal with it immediately. You can’t sweep these tricky staff situations under the rug, so getting the best advice quickly is worth its weighting gold. And I reckon that’s a wrap for today.

Ange
So before we go, just a reminder, make sure you check out our new podcast called Lifestyle Tradie Audiobooks, where you can get our audiobook Start Up, Scale Up, Sell Up. So no matter what stage your business is at, this audiobook will take you to the next level. It’s written by Andy and myself, and trust me, it is well worth a listen. Catch you next week.

Andy
Hell yeah.