Note: This transcript was auto generated then some poor soul sat and listened to it, and followed through correcting any mistakes they spotted. Please however expect human error and shout if you spot an issue. Email: lee [fancy curly symbol] trailblazer.fm.
Verbatim text
Lee Matthew Jackson
Welcome to the WP Innovator Podcast, the podcast for web designers and design agencies exploring the world of WordPress and online business. And now your host, Lee Jackson. Hi and welcome to episode 40 of the WP Innovator Podcast. This is your host, Lee. I’m so happy to see you today. I hope you’re feeling great. It’s been a day off for me. It’s a bank holiday, so that means we’ve got to chill out. I’ve been able to hang around with a few people on the internet. I’ve also been able to hang around with the family, go for some walks. We stole my mum’s dog. That was awesome. For the whole day, we stole it. We had a dog for a day. Now that was cool. And then we got to send him back and then hoover up the hairs and just be glad that we didn’t have a really hairy house afterwards. But anyway, that’s just me. Guys, this is a cool episode because we’re talking about investing in your team and we have Lisa on the line. She was fantastic, giving really good advice about how to invest in your team, how to protect them, and how to protect your business.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Now, quick disclaimer, a lot of this advice is UK specific, but there is heaps of value for wherever you are in the world, be it Australia, be it America, or be it Timbuktu. There is a lot of good common sense in this where you can apply it to your business wherever you are, but also just make sure that if you do need to do anything that we do discuss in this episode, you do need to connect with a human resources or HR or legal representative in your country so that you can make sure that you are following the correct procedures of law there. All right, this may sound a little bit boring and scary, but don’t worry, it’s really not. It’s some really good important stuff in here and in how to protect your team. Also, quickly, if you are thinking of switching off, This also applies to people you work with on a freelance basis. They are also your team, and contractors, other sorts of people like that. So guys, I really hope you enjoy this. This has been specifically put together by me and Lisa because I wanted to ask her these questions, both to help me out as a business to make sure that I’m moving forward in the right direction and investing in my team, but also so that this advice could help you all out as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Alright, before we go into the show, obviously, make sure you go over to leejacksondev.com/group and you will be redirected to the Facebook group where we can all talk about this later on. Alright, have a freaking awesome day and enjoy the show. Hello, this is Lee at the WP Innovator Podcast. I hope you’re feeling freaking awesome today. And I have with me in the studio, a virtual studio, of course, Lisa from Farsight HR. How you doing, Lisa?
Lisa Cessford
I’m good, thank you. How are you?
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’m tip-top and champion. Lisa, we’ve got a whole load of people in America that listen to this, so they’re going to have a feast, aren’t they, of accents today. Two Northerners.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So me and Lisa, we’ve met locally here in the Kettering, Wellingborough area of England. We’re actually, funnily enough, from the same area of the world. We lived kind of like 2 miles apart and never even knew. How crazy is that? Where was it? Whereabouts were you?
Lisa Cessford
Originally Liverpool, but I lived near Ormskirk. That was it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Orton. I could never remember the name. Orton. I could never remember the name of it. Yeah. So we were literally 2 miles apart going to all the same nightclubs because we’re just so cool. Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Actually, I think I only went once to the Cream nightclub. I wasn’t really that cool.
Lisa Cessford
I don’t think I ever went.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Oh, well, I’m slightly cooler.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s freaking awesome, guys. Lisa, she is brilliant. She’s done a lot of work with us as a company, helping us with things like our employment contracts, our employee handbook. And I just thought it’d be great to get Lisa on the show because it’d be good to hear from an HR expert to out, you know, what sort of things we should be putting in place as design agencies with our employees and also with our contractors, etc. So that’s why I’ve asked Lisa to come on and really just to pick her brain and to have her just help educate us on some of the things that we should be thinking of that we may not have thought of. So Lisa, thanks so much for coming on. Do you mind just giving us a little bit of background about yourself, how you got into HR, and a little bit about the company?
Lisa Cessford
Yeah, no problem. I Started out as a cinema manager back in, back in the day, and I had a specialism of people, and that just really got my interest into, into HR. So I decided that was going to be my career, and I started my CIPD, which is the Chartered Institute of Professional Development qualification. Did that, did a few interim contracts, and found out that I really enjoyed that interim side. So decided in April 2009, set up a business just doing interim contracts. Then after my son was born in 2011, 2012, I decided I wanted to basically knock the interim side on the head and focus more on my consultancy. Throughout the years, I’ve done a bit of both, but now I’m focusing purely on consultancy rather than interim, and I’ve just got a massive passion for HR and I just want to help. The reason I started it was to help small to medium-sized companies who don’t have a need for an HR department.
Lee Matthew Jackson
They can use my skills and my expertise, and that’s why I decided to start You have a passion, you wanted to therefore create some sort of business where you get to do what you love every day and you’re kind of creating a lifestyle business. A lot of people that listen to the show are the same sort of people. We all love web development, we love what we’re doing or design, etc. So we get to do what we do. So big kudos there for going for it. I love the fact you were in a cinema as well. I mean, how cool is that? You start life in a cinema and then become the HR consultant that everyone needs to go to.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah, I’ve got really fond memories of that time in my life. It was good.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Really? Did you ever like sneak in and watch the film?
Lisa Cessford
Oh yeah, we always had to, you know, you have to go into the film, cheque it, make sure, you know, there’s no noise, this, that, and the other. And obviously, if you really like the film, then you could have a look.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So you’re standing there for 2 hours just to cheque everyone was well behaved.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So it’s part of my job. I have to research these films.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah, that’s it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s amazing. Actually, you know what my pet peeve in the cinema is? We always try and teach our daughters to clean up after themselves. So when we go to the cinema, we pick up all our junk and we take it with us. But then we pass all of these seats covered in stuff like popcorn and that. And I’m just like, you animals.
Lisa Cessford
Damn you.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Damn you all to heck.
Lisa Cessford
You have such a small turnaround time. And if it’s a really busy film, especially if it’s been a kids film, you’ve probably got everyone in the cinema sweeping up, trying to get it ready for the next film. It can be quite Full on.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s insane. So HR, now you mentioned interim. Could you just unpack what that means? So for the, for the uneducated amongst us.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah. So what I would do is take a contract, probably a full-time contract, and I would just go in to a business who needed, say they had someone on maternity leave, something like that. And what I really enjoyed was just getting into a business, hitting the ground running, integrating myself quickly into that business, you know, understanding what it needs, etc. Et cetera. So they had sort of a seamless gap. I really, I really enjoyed that, and it gave me such a wealth of experience, and I think it made me a more rounded HR professional to be able to do that, because I’ve done that in both private and public sector. So they had a need for, say, I don’t know, for 6— for somebody for 6 months, and I’d just go in and do what I needed to do and then basically move on to the next contract.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, so, so that’s the interim, and then what you’d concentrate more on though now is actually becoming like a third-party kind of always around, always there. It’s a long-term relationship rather than we’ve got some things we quickly need to do because something’s changed. And you’re now into more of the predominantly we’re going to build a long-term relationship. That’s quite similar to what I do as well, because I’m a web developer for hire to designers. So, and we like to try and create those longer-term contracts now. So although it’s job to job, we’re actually doing multiple jobs with the same people, which is great. So we’re growing that relationship, which is cool. I guess that gives you the benefit as well of Knowing the team, knowing who’s behind the company, et cetera, you’re building a longer-term relationship so that when issues happen, you’re better equipped to deal with it. You don’t have to ask a whole load more questions about who it is you’re dealing with. So we’ve got a design agency listening right now. They might have a team of 4 people. They’ve never considered HR. They, it sounds, you know, what is this human resources?
Lee Matthew Jackson
So I guess quick question here is, or maybe it’s a long question, I don’t know. But what are the benefits of having an HR professional come into a small 4-man business, 4-man design agency with, you know, there’s 4 employees and a boss. And what are the benefits of having some sort of HR support and what should that look like?
Lisa Cessford
Okay. So, you know, my philosophy is very much people set up a business for a reason because they have passion in what they do. However, they’re not a specialist in every single area. So they might have an accountant who does their books and does that sort of thing. And it’s the same with HR, really. And what I— my philosophy is to be a HR partner to them. The benefits are people like to know where they stand. So basically, when you put an employment contract in place, the employee and the employer knows exactly what that employment relationship looks like, what they can do, what they can’t do. It doesn’t need to be a 10-page document. It can’t— it’s important that it’s tailored to the needs, you know, of the company. But there are such things in there, terms and conditions. It’s important that the employee knows how much they’re being paid, when they’re being paid, what their hours are going to be, and things like that. And it’s for the employment relationship, and it gives the employee, it gives them a motivation because they think, well, my employer is invested in me. They’re taking their time to put these processes in place.
Lisa Cessford
And that makes for a happier workforce because even the most of us who say, oh no, I don’t like rules, I don’t like this, I don’t like that, knowing where you stand when you’re in a job is really important. So say, for instance, you’ve got the benefit for the employer, say. So you’ve got an employee that it all goes wrong and they leave and they take, you know, pieces of equipment with them or something like that. If you’ve got no clause in there to say that you can recoup any losses, then there’s not a lot you can do about it. So it’s enabling the business owners to put the rules that they expect But it’s also saying to the employees, okay, this is what we expect of you. This is what we need you to work in. And you can still be a relaxed company. You can still, you know, it doesn’t have to be really hard and fast, but it’s just giving both employer, employer, employee, they know what’s what and what’s expected of them.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s so true. I mean, what Lisa did for us guys is she actually had a real good long chat with me about what’s my business all about? What’s the relationship? What does the relationship need to be with Larissa as well? Because as you know, Larissa moved from being an apprentice to actually being full-time employee. I mean, she was full-time anyway. This, I, hey, this one always throws me. She was always full-time as an apprentice, but it’s really hard to then describe that she’s now an employee on a different type of contract. So I always go in circles, but anyway, she’s a full-time contract with us here. And you know, you, Lisa, were able to understand what it was she does, the sort of protections that she needed and the sort of protections that I needed as well. So you gave me a whole letter. It was essentially like a questionnaire. I then filled it in and then you returned to me with a great contract, we had, I think, just one or two backwards and forwards just to confirm a few things. Like I wanted to make sure that things like copyright was covered, et cetera.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And it’s been really good for me because it then allowed me to take all of that contract document with us. And me and Larissa went out for a meal out with the documentation and we actually read it through together. Larissa asked questions about certain things, or I explained certain things in a bit more detail so that we both understood what page we were on, et cetera. We even took a few pictures with the contracts as well, and Larissa signing the contracts as well, because it was a really special moment where it was, Enabled me to help Larissa understand that I’m absolutely invested in her and this contract is in place to help both protect her and the company and to help us know where we stand. Just the fact that you gave us a contract was awesome, but I guess as well, if you had a 50-page contract, that’s overkill. What you then give extra, which I really appreciated, was the employee handbook, which then kind of puts out, you know, if, you know, here’s a disciplinary procedure. Oh, Gosh, that sounds scary. But you know what I mean? But hey, at least you know where you stand.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I can’t just fire Larissa tomorrow because I’m in a bad mood. There is a document that says I’m actually going to respect her and I’m going to have a conversation with her first and say, “Hey, look, there’s a problem here.” And then we’re going to work through that. It means I’m not trying to work out what I do and become a bad manager by reacting. I’ve got some rules and regulations that I can follow in more difficult times. And Larissa is in the same room. Hi, Larissa. We’re burning incense, and I’m pretty sure nothing in the rules in the handbook about burning incense. But we did notice there was a clause about alcohol.
Lisa Cessford
Oh yes.
Lee Matthew Jackson
And I put on Facebook just yesterday that the company cider is in the fridge.
Lisa Cessford
Yes, I saw that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Does that mean I’m fired? So cool. So some of the agencies, they’ve got, they’ll have third-party consultants. There might be a freelancer or a consultant. Is there something you can put in place with those as well?
Lisa Cessford
Yeah, it’s called a contract for services, and it’s very different, obviously, than an employment contract because they’re not employees. Now, I’ve supported people and supported business owners in the past where they’ve had nothing in place. They have had somebody for several years, and they class them as self-employed because they invoice and have their own tax and all the rest of it. And my job is to challenge and to understand whether that is a true freelancer or whether they are a worker or whether they are an employee, because you’ve got the three levels, levels of status. And it’s about, without getting too technical, but what you need to look at when you have freelancers is what is their freedom? So can they, for instance, I mean, this doesn’t go down well with— I haven’t found many businesses where it does go down well, but if they couldn’t come in for whatever reason, could they Could they put a substitute in? So that’s one of the things. Who supplies the items needed for the freelancer to do the job? Do they supply their own or is that supplied by the company? And can that freelancer say, no, I’m sorry, can’t come in today, so on and so forth.
Lisa Cessford
So you’ve really got to look at before you put anything in place is, is this a true freelancer, can they go and work elsewhere? Are they exclusive to you? And if the answer is, yes, they are exclusive to me, we need them Monday to Friday, 5 times a week, then that’s not the right contract for them. However, in other cases where they’ll be needed for, say, a specific project, so they’re there for the life of the project and they’ll do this, that, and the other, then yes, that might be more, that’ll lend itself more to that. But employees have to be very careful because I’ve had in the past where the business owner believes that they’re freelance, that it comes to it, the relationship comes to an end for whatever reason, and then the freelancer then says, I’m an employee, you’ve dismissed me, and then we end up in court. And, you know, whether you settle beforehand, whether you take it the whole way, it’s still going to cost you money, and it’s going to cost you money, it’s going to cost you reputation, and most of all, it’s going to cost you time. And time which you can’t really afford.
Lee Matthew Jackson
You can’t get back unless you’re Doctor Who.
Lisa Cessford
Well, yeah, that’s it. You have to be very, very careful in this area. This is not really for me, but there’s something called IR35, which a lot of people will have heard of, is when the Inland Revenue basically investigate people to see if they are true freelancers and things like that. So with the employment, we sort of help with that as well, because they do target at the moment a lot of— I think they’re targeting a lot of builders, a lot of doctors, um, and things like that, to see what the relationship really is.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So for a company to go down that line, I, I assume the benefit there is as well is if somebody— if you’re employed, if you’re quote unquote employing someone under a freelance, you know, that you think is under a freelance model, but the way that they work with you actually represents more an employee, then they would, I assume, court would say, yep, they’re actually really an employee, not a freelancer. Therefore, you’ve not been paying tax and you’ve also not been giving them the rights they’re allowed to. You’ve not been giving them their holiday allowance as due to the statutory contract. Because I think if I’m right in saying that if there is no contract in an employment, then like some sort of government statutory basic contract applies, like a basic list of Yeah, so the accrual of holiday is 28 days, and that can include bank holidays. This is obviously UK stuff now we’re talking about. In the USA, I’m guessing there’s going to be some sort of similar protections in place, probably anywhere in the world. But yeah, carry on.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah, it is very different. I have spoken to an American HR consultant, and it is so different. It was really, it was really interesting. Yes, so they would look at holiday pay and things like that. But what would happen in a court situation, you would first have a hearing to decide whether the person is an employee worker or self-employed. If it is deemed that they are an employee, then their claim is valid. So then you go to another, then you have to take it to another hearing then. So you’ve got even more time because there— because the first one is only proving your employment status, then the second one is where you were unfairly dismissed. So it’s even more time. And yeah, so that, that can, you know, if they’re found to be at work, then you, you can sort that out quite easily because you can work out how much holiday pay, etc., that they’d be owed. But you’ll still be out of pocket.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah, I suppose there is a risk though to employers because, for— from my understanding, some house insurances actually give you a budget to do things like employment tribunals, don’t they? So as a quote-unquote, I’m not sure if I’m an employee or not, I could in theory go and get a budget from my insurer to sue the company that I feel is unfairly treating me as well. So I guess it’s a good thing for employers to be ahead of the game and to really make sure that for every freelance contract they are entering, that it really does truly represent a freelance contract and that they’re getting some advice from HR consultants of their country, obviously. So, obviously, all of you UK guys go on to farsighthr.co.uk, obviously. But if you’re in America, then feel free to go to farsighthr.co.uk as well, and she’ll recommend you some good HR consultancies over in America as well. Because I’m sure, Lisa, you know the sort of company to look for. You could probably point them in the right direction.
Lisa Cessford
Yes, of course.
Lee Matthew Jackson
But I mean, all of this as well isn’t really to scare people. It’s more— the reason why I wanted to get you on really was just because I wasn’t aware of half of this. I have freelancers who work for me. I wasn’t aware of this. From what you’ve said, I’m pretty sure, although we’ll probably need to talk afterwards, I’m pretty sure they’re still freelancers because they literally have the freedom to do what they want and they just work now and again for a few hours here or there. But I just wanted to bring this to people’s attention so as not to scare them, but actually to put to enable people to put something in place, and it can just be a really simple document like you did with us, which therefore means absolute peace of mind. It’s just something you don’t need to worry about, and you can then just get that contract out of the drawer every time you get another contractor who is pretty much doing the same as the other contractor. It’s just something you can rinse and repeat then, and they’re like, “Wow, this is a great company to work for.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I’ve got this cool contract with this company that I’m consulting with.” Again, it’s that credibility. It’s the, “We’re investing in you, Mr. Contractor or freelancer or employee. Yeah, pretty damn awesome. Cool. So now disciplinary, everyone hates that word. Yes, I hate that word because I used to be an employee and like you’d get threatened with disciplinary, etc. So the minute that word comes up, what would your advice be if there is an agency and they— who’s listening and they feel like one of their employees is taking the proverbial P155? I’ll let you work that out. Kind of a quick high level, what would you recommend they might want to look at doing, or what is the consideration process of taking someone down a disciplinary process?
Lisa Cessford
Okay, so there’s minimum requirements that you need to look at. So you may need to have an investigation into the matter, depending what it is, and that is a fact-finding exercise. So you would gather the evidence, whatever that might be. That might be that you need to speak to somebody, to speak to other employees, etc., get gain witness statements, but more often than not, it is just about gathering evidence. And it is difficult for small businesses because they don’t have a lot of, you know, a big management tier in place. But if possible, if the person who has done the investigation is separate to the person who is basically chairing the disciplinary. An employee who is facing being invited to a disciplinary meeting, it needs to be in writing, okay? It must be in writing. You must give them enough time to obviously prepare a case. However, you can give them 24 hours’ notice of the meeting, okay? Obviously, it’s dependent how big the, the investigate— the disciplinary is. You must give them the right to be represented by a work colleague or a trade union representative, okay? And that is— you do not need to deviate from that, but you do need to give them that right, and that should be in writing.
Lisa Cessford
If the offence is serious enough, you must state that their employment basically may be at risk due to the matter. And obviously you need to state the allegations in there. You get a lot of employees who go, ‘Well, I don’t want I don’t want to let them know what it is. You can’t do that. They need to be able to defend themselves.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I must say, that’s pretty universal as well, because you wouldn’t want— like, in America, say in America, and someone’s going to court, like, he— they need to know what they’re being accused of, as it were, so they can prepare the case.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah, natural, natural justice. Yeah. You know, they need to obviously to, to be able to defend themselves. And then at the meeting, you know, obviously make sure just little things like you’re not going to be disturbed ‘You know, it’s confidential.’ I always say at the very start of the meeting, if they’ve got no one with them, you say, ‘I invited you in here, I gave you the right to representation. Did you want anyone with you?’ And if it really comes down to it, ‘Do you need me to adjourn so you can get somebody?’ Obviously you’re not adjourning for days, that’s not going to happen, but you must give them that right and document that right, whether they say yes or no. Obviously outline the allegations and then go through whatever evidence you’ve got and what— and then ask them for, you know, any mitigation or their side of the story.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. And do you have any advice as well for people who, like, if you suspect there’s a— maybe this is, maybe this is an impossible question, I’m not sure if I’m asking the right question here, but like, for someone who doesn’t necessarily— for an employer who doesn’t necessarily want to go down the disciplinary procedure like too soon, because obviously that assumably can create some sort of bad taste in the mouth, is there any kind of like halfway house that an employer might be able Yeah, well, that’s the—
Lisa Cessford
you’d start off, really, depending what it is, you’d start off on the informal route.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Let’s just pretend it’s not something terribly illegal, but it certainly feels like it needs to be addressed. It’s repeated a few times and we need to address the behaviour, but we’re not really sure we want to necessarily make it all too formal, which potentially might, you know, straight away strain relationships, etc.
Lisa Cessford
Exactly. But what you shouldn’t do is shy away from issues. So say there’s repeated lateness. And what you need to do is you need to have a conversation with them. So it’s just a one-on-one, you know, you’ve been late a few times, need you to sort it out, need you to get into, you know, whatever you need to do. Because at that time, you’ll find out if there’s any issues. They could be, oh, you know, I’m looking after, you know, childcare or whatever, you know, I’m struggling to drop my child off and then get in. Or, you know, it could be a variety of things. My car’s My car’s, you know, off the road, so I’m having to get 2 buses in, and, you know, I’m struggling. So you can actually find out what is the issue. However, it’s important to make a file note, and that note is your note. That’s the manager’s note. And you say, obviously, if we have to come speak to you again, you know, we potentially may take the matter further. But if you let them get away with it and away with it and away with it and then say, right, that’s it, I want them out, I want them out, you can’t do that then.
Lisa Cessford
So, it is really important to just get in the habit of documenting things because once you’ve got that documentation in place, and I’m not talking about formal documentation, I’m just talking if you have a daybook or whatever, you just obviously write it down, you know, date, I spoke to blah, blah, blah about being late, whatever. And then, if you want to take it further, you can say, well, here’s the evidence that I spoke to you. It’s all about that. And I know that can feel a bit over the top and everything, but it’s just getting into the habit of good practise, really. So if the issue doesn’t resolve itself, at the end of the day, if you haven’t got reliable staff, then that’s affecting your business and you need to be able to deal with that.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I suppose the good thing about writing those notes as well is, if it is several weeks between, our memory is not perfect. In fact, I believe scientifically our memory is abstract and our memory of something changes every time we re-remember it. There you go, there’s a bit of tech for you. So it’s really good to actually make some notes, put it in Evernote or some sort of app if you want to, because a lot of people I know use Evernote. So it’s dated, you can just put a tag against it for that staff member and then you can just pull up those notes because if it does have to go to that next stage where we’re like, okay, we’ve spoken to you now on 4 different occasions and these are the 4 different conversations we had where you said you were going to do this and we supported you by changing your starting time, you know, forward by 15 minutes— sorry, backwards by 15 minutes or whatever. At least you’ve got all those notes there and it’s then not necessarily a he said, she said from memory battle, which again will sour relationships. That’s really good advice.
Lee Matthew Jackson
I appreciate that. Like I said, Larissa is in the room. Larissa, I assure you I’m not asking any of these questions questions about you. I’m very lucky to have a perfect employee. She’s awesome. Thankfully, I’ll never need your help there. So that’s cool. Right. Okay. Another big question then, performance management, which sounds far more exciting. Now, I unfortunately have a really negative experience about reviews and performance management, Because it seemed to be that whenever I went in to my manager, he just spent an hour telling me all the stuff I did wrong that year and what I need to do better next year. So, I’d actually leave feeling so freaking deflated. So, is there any advice you can give to us as managers who are listening to this podcast right now? Like, how can we— again, it’s a big subject, so maybe only a couple of pointers, and obviously people connect with you afterwards for more support on this, but how can we A, kind of set up some good goals, and then B, kind of create a performance review that is actually edifying rather than my past experiences. And I’m pretty sure even you’ve probably had that experience.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Maybe when you’re at the cinema, let’s not diss them, but I imagine at some point you must have had at least one conversation with a manager who, like, you just felt it was the whole thing was really negative and you couldn’t remember them mentioning anything good you did. You’re like, oh, this is frustrating, isn’t it? All right, I’ll shut up. Go for it.
Lisa Cessford
What you’ve got, you’ve got the two elements, okay? You’ve got the appraisal side of things, um, which is seems what you’re, you know, alluding to. At the end of the— whenever appraisal time is, you get your appraisal, okay? Um, performance management, all the rest of it. Now, at that appraisal, there should not be any shocks. So you should not come out of there thinking, oh my goodness, I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that. I didn’t know that’s what they thought about me. It’s a two-way process. It’s about obviously reviewing performance, but it’s also about let’s look what objectives have been, you know, completed over the year. Let’s set objectives for going forward. And what would you like to do more in the company? Is there anything training, etc.? However, throughout the year, you should be, whether it’s a formally meeting with your, with your staff or informally, you know, it doesn’t have to be, oh, let’s have a performance review meeting. So you’re, you’re constantly looking at their, their objectives that you’ve set them. If you feel, um, so say for instance, you set them this objective, it’s 3 months down the line, and they’re just really not getting it, or they’re really not doing it, don’t wait till their appraisal at the end of the year, because of course it’s not going to get any better.
Lisa Cessford
So you need to sit down with them there and then and say, right, this is not working, and, and we need to address this and we need to sort this out. On the, on the other side is the performance management side of things, which is if your employee isn’t performing— again, doesn’t need to be formal process straight away. You just need to take them aside and find out what is going on. Why aren’t they performing in their role anymore? It could be that they were, they were great, and now they’re just not. Make a note of it. And this is, for me, this is one of the most crucial things, and managers really shy away from. And I’ll go into a business and they’ll say, he hasn’t been performing for 6 months. He hasn’t been doing anything I’ve been telling him, this, that, and the other, and I say, well, what have you got? What evidence have you got to demonstrate that? And they say, oh, well, I don’t really have anything.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So it almost becomes like an opinion then, doesn’t it?
Lisa Cessford
Yeah, yeah.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Without anything.
Lisa Cessford
Exactly. So what you need to do is when there’s a problem with performance, again, it’s like the informal disciplinary side we talked about. You sit down with them. Them, you find out what the problem is, and then you take appropriate steps. And it may well be that it does need to go formal and that you do need to deal with it. And people shy away because— and managers shy away because they think it’s a long, protracted process. It’s going to be even longer if you don’t start it in the first place, because by the time then I come in and it’s— we’ve got to start from scratch. We can’t, you know, just all of a sudden— and then it’s like, well, I want them out now because they’re not performing. And it’s well, hang on a minute, you know, you haven’t done your job either. So it’s about, you know, if they’re making mistakes with their work, documenting that, or, you know, having some sort of way to document it. When you set up your business and you take on staff, don’t just expect them to just, you know, that’s that. You’ve got to work the same way you’ve got to work at whatever you’re doing.
Lisa Cessford
You’ve got to invest that time in your staff. And at the end of the day, if they’re not performing, then it’s your company, it’s your reputation. So you need to put that work in, get that evidence, have them conversations, and then it will be so much easier when you, you may need to exit them from the business, or you may be able to turn it around. I’ve seen that before where all they’ve needed is a frank discussion between the two, and things have turned around.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s what you want as well, isn’t it? You want your staff to be passionate and excited about their job. And if they’re not performing, sometimes it is literally, you know, something they’re just not happy about. And having that conversation really opens up, opens things up. That’s really cool then. So I think what I’ve taken from that then is that, you know, so me and— I’m gonna use me and Larissa as an example. We had that great meeting, we read through your contract, we then made some notes about What is it that Larissa wants to achieve over the next 5 years, but what does she personally want to achieve in the business over the next year, and what would I like her to grow into as well? We then listed those down as goals. Now, what I could do is now do nothing about that until next year and then moan at her for not achieving anything. She’s actually already way on her way, to be honest. One of the things was to set up a project management meeting. She’s already way ahead and already started setting and all that and getting bossy with us, which is funny.
Lee Matthew Jackson
But, you know, I think what the ideal is, is what you’re saying is she’s now giving me funny faces. Sorry, I’m scared of her. But, you know, now it’s a case of if I’m going to really support her as an employer, then I can, you know, I’m going to regularly cheque in with her, you know, once a month. If I feel there’s a problem, I’m just going to have a nice candid conversation. I’ll make a note of it. But have a good candid conversation, just saying, “Hey, is there a problem here?” et cetera. So that way, at the end of the year when it comes to the big performance review, then it’s a conversation where I can say, “Hey, look, you’ve done really great on these. We missed out on this, but that’s fine. Let’s work on that over the next year,” et cetera, so that we can create a performance review that is a positive experience where some goals were achieved, she’s feeling edified and excited for the next year’s worth of goals, et cetera. And I’ve supported her throughout the year. Because again, I just wish you’d had that conversation with like 19 of my last managers.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Yeah. Yeah. Because they would like set me goals and then give me absolutely no support throughout the entire year. They’d never cheque in and they’d feel annoyed with me for like an entire year, but they wouldn’t actually tell me they were annoyed because I didn’t know I was upsetting them. So it was like, oh my gosh. And then it would be like, ah, you work alongside them every day. Exactly. And then hashtag awkward meeting at the end of the year where I’m like going home like, I don’t want to work I don’t want to work for this company anymore. I want to find a new job, you know, spend, spend like hours on the job websites and then calm down about a month later and then end up staying there for another year until the next review. And then I get annoyed again.
Lisa Cessford
That’s a month of non-productivity though.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Exactly. Yeah.
Lisa Cessford
Whatever you do, you know, if you’re feeling like that, you’re feeling demotivated, you know, every minute you can, you’ll be on job sites, this, that, and the other.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So I’m going to be, I’m going to challenge you if you’re listening today and you like hitting your staff over the head with a book. Number 1, that’s probably illegal. But number 2, maybe take some advice from Lisa here because this is great and see how you can better help your staff. To be honest, WP Innovator listeners are freaking awesome, so I imagine no one listening actually is like that. But if you do know anyone who is like that, then send them along to Lisa to help them reprogram their brains.
Lisa Cessford
What’s really important to me, and this is the, the message that I want to get to all business owners and, and managers of staff, is without your staff there is no business. So they are your most important asset, and you need to treat them like that. You know, they add value to your business. A lot of times they will be the face of your business. They will be the first thing the client, the customer sees. If you don’t invest in them and, and nurture that relationship and give them the help and support that they need, then when they get to that client, when they get to that customer, who knows? So you really— people really— business owners and managers need to invest in their greatest asset, which is their staff. Otherwise, they haven’t got a business.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Amen.
Lisa Cessford
I’ll get off my soapbox now.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Seriously, testify. That was awesome. You’ve obviously listened to a few of the podcasts because normally I ask, what’s the one piece of advice that people should go away with? I think we’ve just had our answer before I even asked the question. That is amazing. Invest in your staff because they are the mouthpiece, they are the representation of your business, they are your business. In fact, I had this conversation just with Karthik the other day. We’re looking at changing the company name. We’re currently called Lee Jackson Dev, but the problem is it’s very much focused around me, and I actually feel uncomfortable with that because I actually feel like we’ve got a team now of really good developers. There’s me, there’s Larissa, there’s Karthik, but then there’s also a whole slew of freelancers as well, which I believe are legally freelancers, but I’ve got to double-check. I’ve got a team of freelancers as well who all are really, really skilled. Karthik is actually a lot cleverer than I am. I am at Code. He’s amazing. I feel uncomfortable with that idea. But when I then said to the team, “Hey, I’m thinking of changing the name and I’ve paid for some advice on naming options,” Karthik then said, “Why?
Lee Matthew Jackson
You’re the business. You’re the genius.” I said, “Well, that’s really sweet, but no, I’m not. It’s not all about me at all, Karthik. Without Karthik, we would not produce some of the most complicated jobs that we’ve produced.” We’ve coded some of the most complicated things that I would not have I don’t have the first clue how to do, and yet Karthik has been a hero and done some really complicated work. It’s the same with Larissa. Without her being around doing all of the HTML, the CSS on a day-to-day basis without complaint, these sites wouldn’t get finished because I would just be one person on my own. I would be a freelancer in my own right, not being able to produce all the work we produce. Again, really resonate with that. Invest in your staff because they are your business. I guess the only reason why I know that is just because I’ve had experiences with bad bosses. I knew what did not work for me. So I’ve always just tried to apply the opposite in my business. But again, I feel really great that we’ve connected and that, you know, I’ve got you as kind of this extra help and support and someone I can just call up for advice as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So what are the best ways of people to connect with you? And then we shall say goodbye.
Lisa Cessford
I, I have a website, um, www.farsighthr.com, which has got all my contact details on. And yeah, just drop me a line, drop me, give me a call, and I’m very happy to have a chat, come meet people, you know, whatever. I’m very flexible around that, but we can just have a chat and see what the problem is or, you know, what they need to do.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Are you happy as well for me to drop your Facebook and LinkedIn into the show notes as well?
Lisa Cessford
Yes, yes, I was going to say, you know, obviously if they contact you, you can point them in my direction as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson
That’s amazing. Thanks so much for giving up your time. I was actually 4 minutes late to this, guys. I’ll put my hand up to that. I got stuck in traffic, but Lisa was super kind. I also had to cancel our last recording because I had a few family emergencies. Again, Lisa was super awesome about that. I appreciate you being so flexible with me. There is evidence how flexible you are and how understanding you are. Thank you so much. Thank you again so much for giving your time time to give us such amazing, practical, flexible HR consultancy. Thank you.
Lisa Cessford
No, thank you for the opportunity. I really appreciate it.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Have an awesome weekend, mate.
Lisa Cessford
Same to you.
Lee Matthew Jackson
Much— take care.
Lisa Cessford
Take care. Bye.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So I trust you enjoyed that episode and it’s given you lots of food for thought. Please do come on over to the Facebook group. You can find on leejaxondev.com/group. Be great to have a conversation around this. What are you doing with your team, your contractors, your freelancers, your employees? What contracts do you have in place? Have you had some issues? Is there anything you want to share? Any success stories? Any horror stories? Let’s all be honest, it’s a great group to be a part of. It’s all private, so no one else can see it. And if you apply to join the group, me or Larissa will let you on in, and we can just have a great conversation All right guys, next week’s episode we’re going to be talking to a web developer who specialises with Divi. That’s a theme as well as a builder. It’s a backend builder but also soon to be frontend visual builder. Figured we better start talking about others other than just Beaver Builder because yes, you know how much I love it. But we’re going to unpack Divi, talk to Leslie all about her business and how she runs a that specialises in producing websites with Divi and providing people support with that as well.
Lee Matthew Jackson
So, that’s going to be a cool episode. I’ve already listened to it because I was already in it. It was cool. She’s funny. I love it to bits. So, I know you’re going to enjoy it. See you next week. Have a freaking awesome week and keep innovating.
Lisa Cessford
Yeah!
