Ep170 Transcript 

Welcome to episode 170. And a couple of episodes ago, I talked about why scaling a business can feel harder than starting one. And today I want to continue that conversation, but in a more practical way, because once you can see that growth is starting to create a bit more complexity. The next question is, okay, so what do we actually do about that? And this is one of the places that I’d look first is at those people processes that sit underneath the business. So this isn’t really an episode about automation. I’ve talked about that before. This is a step before that where we actually look at what is actually causing the friction, what keeps being repeated, and which people processes need to be made clearer before you decide whether technology or automation is the answer.
I know that processes doesn’t sound particularly exciting, but I’m not here to, you know, tell you to create a huge manual that no one’s ever going to read or SOPs or anything like that. What I mean is the way that things happen in your business every day. So how do you hire someone how do you onboard them? How do you have performance conversations? How do you keep track of compliance? How do people know where to find things? So, you know, this is where our processes in small to medium sized businesses really start. And unfortunately, they’re often living in someone’s head or their inbox or maybe their good intentions. And all of that can work for a while, especially when the business is smaller. But as the business grows, it gets a lot harder. And it’s not because people aren’t trying, it’s just because, you know, memory isn’t a process. the founder being available to answer every question is definitely not a process. And there’s some recent research from the Council of Small Business Organisations that talks about the pressure small business owners that are under rising costs, workforce challenges, and just that general increase in complexity.
And to be honest, I don’t think most of us need a report to tell us that. We’re living that every day. But this is why process optimization can matter. Not because we want to make our businesses more corporate, but because people are already busy. So the last thing we need to do is to keep fixing problems on an ad hoc basis when they could actually just be avoided in the 1st place. And the tricky thing about process issues is that they often show up in little ways. You know, a new starter waiting a few days for system access, or one manager handling a people issue one way and another manager handling the same issue completely differently.
someone not being able to find a document, a compliance task, sitting in an inbox, not being done. So, you know, each of those things on their own, they’re not disastrous, but when they keep happening, they create friction. And that friction is what makes growth feel harder than it needs to.
So rather than try to fix every process in the business, which could be overwhelming and probably really unnecessary, there are a few things that I would look at first.
And the first is recruitment. I think that recruitment is a really good example of where businesses can be quite reactive, because by the time they realise they need someone, everyone’s already really busy, or someone resigns unexpectedly, or the business wins more work and the team’s already stretched.
So suddenly it becomes we need someone as quickly as possible. You know, the job ad gets written really quickly, interview questions are just made-up on the fly, different people looking for different things, and the decision becomes more of a gut feeling rather than a clear assessment of what you actually need. And sometimes that works out.
A lot of the times it doesn’t. And when it doesn’t, it’s really expensive in time, energy and confidence because a poor hire doesn’t just affect the person in the role. It affects the manager, the team, the clients, business owners and the whole workplace culture. So when I am talking about optimising recruitment processes,
That means just slowing down enough at the beginning to be really clear and to think about what are we hiring for? You know, what does success look like? What skills are essential? What can we train? Who needs to be involved in the decision? And what questions are we going to ask each candidate so that we’re comparing people
fairly, because the more rushed and unclear the process, the more likely we are to hire based on urgency rather than fit. And we’ve all been in that situation. We all know why that happens. And we’re short staffed. We just want relief. But sometimes the fastest hire creates the biggest problems. So recruitment is one process I would definitely look at. The second is onboarding. And if you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you know that I talk about onboarding quite a lot because it is one of those areas that’s often underestimated. It’s often done really poorly. And some people think of onboarding as the first day.
You know, here’s the team, here’s your laptop, your login, here’s where the bathroom is. And all those things matter, but that’s just an orientation. Onboarding is the process of helping someone become confident, connected, and productive in your business. It’s how they learn what matters, what the standards are,
who the clients are, what’s the team culture, how do we work together, how are decisions made, you know, what does good look like? And there’s some research that suggests that structured onboarding can improve retention by more than 80%. That’s a huge number. But when you think about it, it makes
a lot of sense. If you’ve ever started a job where someone said, oh, are you here? I didn’t know you were coming. You remember what that feels like and you remember it for years. You know, so when that sort of onboarding process happens, and that’s an extreme example, but you know, even a little bit less than that, you know, the new employee doesn’t want to be difficult. They don’t want to ask too many questions. They’re trying to work out where things are, who does what, what the expectations are. And meanwhile, as the manager, you’re assuming everything is fine. So the weeks go by, the person is still trying to piece everything together and it’s really tiring for the employee, and over time becomes really tiring for the manager because they’re thinking, why isn’t this person up to speed yet? Whereas when onboarding is structured, people will settle in faster. They know who to go to, what to focus on, how their role fits, and managers don’t have to keep explaining things over and over again.
So if your new starter is taking longer than you’d like to get up to speed, or if every onboarding experience completely depends on which manager they have, that’s a good process to review. And it doesn’t need to be a huge software program. It can be a simple checklist. You know, the first week plan in 30, 60, 90 days.
you know, who should the person meet, some clarity and what they should know by the end of week one, month one, month three. And you know, all those things just make a really big difference.
The third area to look at is performance management. And I’m not talking about performance management necessarily in terms of formal warnings and difficult conversations and paperwork. I’m just talking about the normal rhythm of conversations between managers and employees. So how do people know what’s expected? How do they know how they’re going? How do managers give feedback?
How do issues get picked up early? How do we make sure people aren’t surprised six months later by something that could have been discussed in week two? And there’s some research from Gallup that says that managers can account for around 70% of the difference in team engagement. Now, it’s another big number, but when you think about it, it makes sense because for most employees, their experience of the organisation is filtered through their manager. That’s the person they hear from most often, that’s who explains the priorities, who gives feedback, you know, who they go to if they’re struggling. So if managers are inconsistent, the employees experience.
is inconsistent.
And I’m not blaming managers, managers carry a lot. And managing people is not a lot of the time the easiest part of their job. You know, they’re often doing a lot of this without a lot of structure or a lot of training on how to manage people well. And there’s some more Gallup research that says that Manager engagement is dropping. So again, it’s not surprising because managers can end up with a job that’s much bigger than the job description ever said it would be. So if we want our managers to have better conversations, we need to make it easier for them. So, you know, that’s just things like saying, here’s our guide on how we do one-on-ones, quarterly priorities, you know, conversation templates.
Could be training managers, how to give feedback. You know, it’s just the point is that performance should just be a normal part of business conversation, not just what we talk about when things go wrong.
So, at the end of the day, people are people, workplaces are workplaces, and they’re not always easy to manage, but a process will make it easier.
Another one I’d like to quickly mention is compliance. And I know it’s not very exciting, but it is one of those areas where relying on memory can create problems really quickly. If someone’s licence needs renewing or mandatory training needs to be completed or contracts or policies are in lots of different places, it’s all fine when one person knows how it works. But if that person goes on leave or leaves the business or gets too busy, suddenly the process falls over because a person is not a process. So even things like a simple compliance tracker, clear ownership and reminders, that could take a lot of the risk out of the business. So sometimes it’s just having a look at, you know, one of the things that we’re actually doing now. So the process probably exists somewhere in the business. But is the process clear, repeatable and shared or is it just sitting in one person’s head? So if you’re thinking, yeah, okay, maybe some of our processes are a bit messy. Where do you start? You start by looking at where is the repeat frustration.
So where are people asking the same questions? Where are managers getting stuck? Where are new starters getting confused? Where is the founder still being pulled into decisions? Where would the business struggle if one key person was away for two weeks? And those questions will usually point you to the process that needs attention.
first. So choose one area. If recruitment is rushed, then that’s where we begin. If compliance is just sitting in someone’s inbox, and no-one ever gets to it, start there. And then just ask what would make these processes clearer, easier, and more consistent.
Because often the businesses that scale well are not the ones with the most sophisticated systems. They’re the ones that have enough structure to stop the same problems from happening over and over again. They have enough clarity that managers don’t need to guess. They have consistency so employees know what to expect.
But I have enough processes so that the founder is not the person that has to answer every question. So good processes don’t remove the human side of the businesses, they just create more room for it because when people aren’t wasting time hunting for information, guessing on what to do, waiting for the manager,
You can actually spend time getting work done. Managers can spend more time coaching and supporting. New starters can settle in faster and the organisation becomes calmer. So my question for you this week is what is 1 people process in your business that feels heavier than it should. And what is the one thing you could do to make that process clearer or more repeatable? Because process optimization in small business isn’t about being corporate.
It just means making the important things easier to do well. And that’s what helps you to keep growing without everything becoming harder than it needs to be. And if you’ve received value from this episode, I would love it if you could leave a rating or a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify so that other business owners can find this podcast to help with their business. Episodes are released on Mondays, so click subscribe and you’ll be notified of when that’s available. Thanks so much for joining me. If you have any feedback, questions or ideas for future episodes, head on over to AmplifyHR.com.au or connect with me on LinkedIn and we can start a conversation.