PM Collective - The ART of property management
The ART of property management with Ashleigh Goodchild is a leading platform supporting collaboration not competition through an online community and events throughout the year with one purpose: to create happier property managers. She creates connections for property managers looking to create momentum in their careers and personal life. Join Ashleigh and her guests as they discuss challenges, struggles, mental health, mindset and give advice to property managers and anyone in the industry. To get the support in your property management career, join our PM Collective Facebook and Instagram community.
PM Collective - The ART of property management
Identifying Toxic Attitudes and Bad Behaviour in your team and what to do about it
Navigating the tricky waters of workplace dynamics is no small feat, especially when toxic behavior lurks beneath the surface. Join Joe Shannon from The Efficiency Co and me as we share our agency management experience with candid discussions on distinguishing a rough patch from persistent toxicity. We discuss the Maximizer Plan and discovery workshops, proven strategies that take on toxicity head-on, promoting healthier, more productive work environments. Discover how these approaches can reshape your team's culture, regardless of size, and why understanding the root of toxic behaviors can be a game-changer for your business.
Intergenerational tension in the workplace can feel like a battle of tradition versus innovation, with seasoned pros and eager newbies often at odds. In this episode, we explore the critical phases of team development and challenge the status quo by advocating for an inclusive culture-building approach. You'll hear about an employee's journey from resistance to embracing new systems, and how clear leadership, communication, and trust play a pivotal role in navigating change. Learn how your employees can contribute to shaping an office environment that's not only productive but also supportive and respectful of all.
Motivation in the workplace goes beyond the paycheck. In our conversation, we shine a light on verb-based values and their power to sculpt a strong, cohesive culture. We also discuss the necessity of leaders to engage in self-reflection and solicit staff feedback for personal growth. The episode wraps up with insights on the essence of teamwork and mutual support. Hear how fostering a supportive team environment can lead to better outcomes for everyone involved, from colleagues to clients. Tune in to arm yourself with the strategies needed to support your team personally and professionally, ensuring a thriving workplace culture.
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so today I am excited to have a regular back, that is, joe shannon from the efficiency code.
Speaker 1:Joe, welcome hello, hello, how you going good now, I know this is a really good topic for both of us and something that, uh, is maybe not talked about on a wider spectrum of a wider audience, but we do talk about this topic quite a lot intern, internally, with our safe people. Um, and I do need to put a little disclaimer on a very casual disclaimer, because what we're talking about today is managing employees attitudes and toxic employees in the workplace and um being a hr issue. Um, you know, you and I are going to talk about it just from what we've experienced and what we see and ways that we think can be helpful for business owners and employees to manage these situations, but obviously we've got to be very mindful of HR and laws around that type of thing and maybe go seek professional advice if you have a serious problem in your office.
Speaker 2:Definitely. Look, this is something that I think you and I are going to speak from an agency management level, right yeah, not HR. So if there's any HR coordinators or HR managers listening, definitely hit us up with some advice. If you have some actual legal advice on this, we can definitely share it out as well, I think.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I know that we have got Refoy, which is a really great source of very affordable membership for business owners to be a part of if they do need help with employees and things like that. And then I know that through the Efficiency Co you've also got programs and consulting that you can do to help officers that need it. So can you just tell us a little bit about them?
Speaker 2:Well, we've got the maximiser plan, which can be used for a few different reasons depending on what the agency is looking for. But culture is one of the biggest and that's the first thing that we kind of touch on in the maximiser plan. Essentially we come into the office once a month, run a workshop and do one-on-one meetings with your team, do a full report back to agency management and we manage that change. We kind of curb that culture. We put some immediate changes into place and we also help them over a period of a year or up to a year.
Speaker 2:But we also have single workshops which are super simple, very easy. They're very energetic and they kind of call out any of that toxic culture. One of the biggest things, ash, is actually calling it out and identifying what it is. And you know, sometimes business owners and in that licensee position you might not actually know what the root cause is. So in our discovery workshop this is where we work with the team to unpack that and then we provide up to a 25-page report for the agency to show exactly what those pain points are of the team and what our recommendations would be. We've had great success so far.
Speaker 1:And is there a minimum size that this works better for? Like would you think that you need to have a team of five or 10 or 20 for it to work most effectively?
Speaker 2:It definitely works best with a team of five or more. We can do it with teams that are smaller, except it just doesn't have that same level of engagement. It's more personal. So we just bridge that down into a little bit more of a one-on-one style meeting, rather than a workshop and then one-on-ones.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So. I mean, I was going to say that you probably will find that the bigger you grow as an agency, the more problems you have. But then sometimes when you have a small team, these toxic behaviors and bad attitudes can be heightened because it's such a close-knit team as well.
Speaker 2:More detrimental, right Like to the business. If you have two people in your team and one of them is extremely toxic and that then flows onto how they treat customers, that is something that's really detrimental to the business because that's 50% of your team, Whereas if you have a team of 10 and you have one toxic person or someone who you know has had a bad home life and they're taking it out on clients or the team, that's 10% of the team, so it's a little bit easier to manage.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. So let's talk about, first up, what is a toxic employee Like. We all know what what bad attitude looks like, but let's talk about what a toxic employee, how would you, how would you describe that person in a workplace?
Speaker 2:It is going to be different for every workplace. I will start with that. I think there's a really big difference here between a toxic employee and someone who's having a bad time and there is. You know, we all go through seasons in life and sometimes you go through that season where you're not on your A game and it's important to recognize, people have personal lives and that sometimes comes through to work. But in my opinion, a toxic employee is more so somebody who is out to actively out to dishevel the team, actively out to be better than everybody else and rub it in their face as an example. There's so many different traits of toxic employees, but it's more so someone who is actively doing something that is detrimental to the agency and is not willing to change or even see the fact that they're doing something detrimental in the first place. There's a little bit of a difference yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think that that's a very good point of you know, mentioning that it's a long term and identifying that it's just not a bad, a bad day or um, you know someone's having. That's actually a really big part of it, um, does it? It shows in obviously different ages, so they can be young or old, that would be fair to say. Are we seeing any trend in?
Speaker 2:yeah, we'll be honest. Look, I'm working with a fair few agencies at the moment and there is a bit of a trend towards people who are in the older demographic, who are almost getting ready to retire. They are now becoming or, in opinion, the ones that I have seen in that demographic are quite toxic, because, one, the care factor is less because they're getting ready to retire and, two, they've got all of this experience and knowledge. But unfortunately, the world has changed in such a rapid pace. Our industry has changed in such a rapid pace In the past five years. We're now doing things so differently to how we were and I, in all honesty, I sometimes see the older generation going well, no, I know the best way to do it. I've done it for 25 years, I am the best at it, but that's not how we do it anymore. You know, five years we've changed. We've massively changed. You don't have to go to a final bond and take 3000 photos and it's terrible if the young ones aren't taking 3000 photos and they're not bad property managers, it's just. Times have changed. So that's one element. So the older demographic, yes, can become toxic, definitely. It's also a period, kind of a sense of hierarchy or superiority there that comes into it.
Speaker 2:The younger demographic though so I'm talking ages 20 to 30, in the working environment, in in agencies also can lead to quite a toxic behavior, because I have a big thing against this. This young CEO, girl boss mentality that comes in, and it's not just girl bosses. But there is this rhetoric that you hear quite a lot. That rhetoric often translates to the younger generation thinking that they don't need to work as hard as what the older generation thinks. They need to work because I've got to safeguard my mental space and my capacity and all of these words, which is true in a lot of sense. But when that comes through to a work and they go, well, no, I'm not putting in as much because my personal beliefs I don't want to put in as much effort. That then ruffles feathers with the older demographic. So it kind of plays off of each other in a way. So you can get it everywhere, you can get it in every demographic, but they play off each other Very different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So what's interesting about that is that the toxic employee could potentially not be triggered by everybody, but only some people. So the younger people might be triggered by the older person and the older person is triggered by the younger people. But there'll be people out there that are working in a teams with this old hierarchy that's been in the business for 20 years and maybe not be triggered by it and not see them as being a toxic. So I guess one of the the probably the main things to take away is it's only when that person is affecting the running of the business, the running of the processes, that's when it's an issue. So not everyone is going to be triggered by that same person. So what will happen, I guess you might see, is when new people come into a business and then we start getting those little clashes and things like that.
Speaker 2:I really like it when new people come into a business. It takes us back into what we call the norming and the storming phase. There is four phases to team development and Professor Hackman, he's a Harvard business study methodology here he is very, very clever in putting in these five different conditions and five different conditions of an effective team. But before we get to those five different conditions of an effective team, you need to think about the forming of a team, which then goes into the norming stage of a team, which is essentially where you've set a team up. That's forming. You've put everyone in a room and said, right, you are now a property management team or you are now a sales team.
Speaker 2:The norming phase is when everybody starts to test each other's boundaries, a little bit like that what do I say to this person? Can this person do they like this word? What type of language can I use in my office? Then we get to the storming phase, which is where people really test each other's boundaries. This is like actually pushing the envelope with other people, right, and this is where you see a lot of kind of arguments come from culture, conflict come from, and people generally go through this phase and sort it out themselves. Sometimes it needs management intervention and we finally get to the performing stage, which is where everybody's a well-oiled machine and we're working well.
Speaker 2:But what's really funny is when a new person comes into the team, by default we go back to the norming phase. Every time there's a change in that team, we go back to the norming phase. So that's why you see agencies with such large retention of staff working so well because they're constantly in that performing stage rather than going back to the norming stage. I know there's a lot of ings in there, but when you kind of unpack it, you go well, it makes sense, right. Someone else comes in, it's a new personality in the equation. So we have to find our boundaries again. We have to go back to square one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, interesting what happens when the toxic person is the business owner.
Speaker 2:I have a problem with the saying leadership comes from the top. Culture comes from the top and I agree it does. That, definitely does. But a business owner doesn't have to be the director of culture. A business owner is not the culture of the business. In my opinion. When I speak to business owners and there are a few that I work with and they are outright the problem and they know that, they acknowledge that and they go look, I can't work in the same capacity as my team can work and I'm probably not good in that environment. And what I generally say to them is culture really is representative of the worst type of behavior you as a leader are willing to accept. So it doesn't mean, if you know, if you're not so nice speaking to people, if you say some things that ruffle feathers, if you play favorites, whatever it might be. If you're willing to accept that from your team and you're willing to do that, then you're allowing that culture. But you can set a line in the sand and kind of take a step back from that and allow your team to be the culture. So there's another level to it. The team itself has to be able to drive that change and keep culture going.
Speaker 2:There's so many agencies that the business owner steps out. The team is the one who is running the culture. The way that I think of culture in an agency, especially in real estate, is the culture is a character of a business. This comes from Simon Sinek, so you know, when we say like, oh Ash, do I have good character, am I a good character, am I a good character and repute, when we apply for a registration or a license, that theory transitions to a business in the culture. The culture is the character of that business. So if you have a negative culture, then you don't have a good character, and I think leaders can acknowledge that, put some things in place and then take a step back. They don't actually have to play part in the culture. So maybe if you are one of those leaders and you think that you're not great for culture, take a step back. Empower your team to drive the culture that you think is best for your agency and then try not to get as involved.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think that I'm definitely not a toxic boss or anything like that, but I do agree that it's really good when you can get your team to a point where they create their own culture. And I think that that's what we've got, not because that's what my intention was, it's just the way that it's developed over the years and they have their own culture. And do you know, one thing that I never did on purpose, but I now see how our office runs a little bit differently and something that we do, which I think is really good, is that each of our team members have their own role in the team, so just by default. You know one of the girls. She's responsible for doing our team lotto, so everyone pays her each week and she does the lotto. Another person that was new to our office she was really wanting to get into footy tipping, so she said, can I arrange footy tipping? We're like, absolutely so, that's her job. Someone else loves Melbourne Cup, so she runs Melbourne Cup sweeps each year.
Speaker 1:Everyone's got their little role in the office. And I think that if you potentially could have a situation and I mean I'll be honest, I'm probably the first to say that I would fluff around. I'm not the best person to directly deal with a toxic employee, so I will fluff around a little bit with it and probably distract them and say, well, okay, how about we give them a role in the office so they can feel that they've got control of something you know? And that's how I would probably deal with it, as opposed to head on, I would trial and see if that actually worked.
Speaker 1:But it's something that I find quite interesting. We can do it with our number because we've got, say, we've got 10 in our property management team. That's a nice number for everyone to do a very little task. I guess it's harder as it gets bigger.
Speaker 2:You can't find 20 tasks for 20 employees, but something just to consider anyway yeah, everybody has their favorite thing, right, like, everybody should be able to do the thing that they love within the business. If someone else is doing it, that's cool. Collaborate, do it together yeah like, everyone has to get something out of it. We all get something different out of work. We're all here for money, but at the same time, we all get something different out of when we go to work, and that's a massive part of culture.
Speaker 1:Yeah, with the older demographic now everyone's well. A lot of people have got an old person in their office who's been there for 20 years. Generally I'll just say it's the trust accountant that's been sitting in the same chair for a long time, and I say that like hardly the trust accountants aren't the toxic ones in the office. They're pretty quiet. But what I would just want to get to is if you have someone let's say you've got that older person in your office, they are toxic. They are stubborn, not wanting to change their ways. Do you just wait for them to retire or do you ruffle the feathers and deal with it? Because I'm thinking that I think I would just rather them retire in five years and put up with it then. Is that the right or the wrong thing to do?
Speaker 2:It is totally different for every business and every person Like how long until they retire? Are they thinking of retiring? Can the business afford to allow that culture to decline whilst you're waiting for them to retire? Look, in my personal opinion, I honestly believe that dealing with the problem is the best solution. I don't think that delaying is going to be any sort of solution, because it can be detrimental to the rest of the team. Then team members will leave, then we go back to the storming phase and you have to introduce all this new stuff.
Speaker 2:In my opinion, when we're dealing with someone in the older demographic, a lot of the issue that I've come across and the blockage that I've come across is the mentality of I know best because I've been doing it for longer.
Speaker 2:I am so against the mentality of the years in the role equals experience, or the years in the role equals how good you are, because it's not the case, as we were saying before, everything's changed in the last five years.
Speaker 2:So potentially for that type of person, if it's the trust accountant, if it's the senior property manager, if it's the senior sales agent, whoever it is in that office who is possibly ruining the culture or taking the culture down to a bad path. I would actually put them in charge of culture. My first step would be to say to that person right, you are now actually responsible and in charge to drive the culture of this team. However you drive, that is up to you, but we will have to work together every week or every month, we will have to continually report on it and talk about it, so that way the person is really cognizant of what's actually going on. And when you put someone in charge of something, naturally as human beings we want to excel at it. So that should hopefully change the way that they think and the way that they position themselves. If that doesn't work, then you're going to have to have a little bit more collaboration and a little bit more discussion and directive there from leadership.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we in our office we have got someone who's been with us for a long time and I I absolutely absolutely not.
Speaker 1:I don't think she listens to my podcast so I can say it, but she's absolutely not a toxic employee, but she is sometimes stubborn when it comes to technology and implementing that and moving with the times, and there are times what I've done and hopefully this is helpful for other people if you've got someone like that in your office is that there are times where I can be flexible with tech that's coming in or change of processes, and I can be flexible and I can say to her listen, this is what I really want to do in the office. And if she puts a you know, digs her heels in, then there's sometimes I'm okay with that and I'll say listen, you just continue doing it the way you want to do. For example, she doesn't want to use a VA. I want to get VAs in the business. So we've got a plan for her to continue managing her portfolio without vas. She's happy, I don't really care. That's something that I was willing to be flexible on. But then there would be times where I was introducing tappy, for example, in our maintenance.
Speaker 1:Um, she was the one that I worried about and I ended up just saying to her this is the reason why we're implementing this is that this one's not negotiable. So you know, we've all she's had a little win in the past. Now I've got a little win where I've said this is not negotiable, I have to roll it out for the whole portfolio. I will work with you. And then I explained to her the reason why we're bringing in this program is so that when you go on holiday, I can easily manage your portfolio and help you more, so that you can have annual leave without stressing about things that are getting done. I explained to her that by getting this program in you know, I've noticed that you've been working lots of hours. I want to try and reduce that back and this is going to help us reduce it back. And then I clearly said to her three months you're going to have discomfort with it, but I know that after three months it's going to. You're going to be discomfort with it, but I know that after three months it's gonna. You know you're gonna be really happy to have it.
Speaker 1:And Tappy actually had said to me the other day that she is she's like got the gold star in her office. She's the one using it the most. But it was. It really just came down to having that chat. So they know what the end game is and they're not just seeing another program, another app coming in, because my team roll their eyes every time I try to do. You know, bring something new in. But then they also have the respect for me that if Ash says we have to do it, we trust her end plan, we trust her plan for the business and what she's trying to achieve. So there's a respect there. But I think it's very hard sometimes for sales-led directors to gain that same trust and respect from a property management team when trying to bring things in.
Speaker 1:So if you are a sales-led director, I guess a couple of options would be to either bring in a head of department who can do that job better for you, or bring someone like yourself in to bridge that gap. So that would be sort of. Would that be what you recommend as well?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I always pitch myself as the fractional GM, so you know how. You can buy a private jet or you can rent a private jet on a fractional rate. You can buy a GM or you can rent me as a fractional GM and I can help you do that change One of the biggest things.
Speaker 1:I heard you say that the other day and I had never heard of fractional general manager, so is it something that's been around for a while or not?
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Honestly, I don't know. I like it, I've just been doing it, yeah, but look, coming back to the person, I was about to say a name, then I'm guessing the name. But coming back to that person in the office, and I think this is a really good example, because one of the biggest things that I think leaders are scared to do is ask why they're worried and ask what are the reasons, and then sit down and actually work it out and do a bit of a mapping process and go right, your concern is X, the solution to that is Y. Now let's look at what's in between. What do we need to do to get there? And a lot of the time, the people who are really resistant to change are just simply concerned, and they're simply worried and they don't know enough about it. Like your person, for example, have they been in the industry for around 20 years or so?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a really long time, and 20 years ago maintenance was managed very, very differently than it is now and that could just be a sign of being a little scared to change. You know, not knowing enough about the software or what value it's going to give, because in that person's mind they've done it for 20 years, they know what they're doing, they add the value. It's also a little bit of ego there. Everyone has an ego, we all do it, but that person might've gone. Well, I can manage maintenance. I don't need this Like why do I now need to report to a system? Or why do I need to use that when I could do it myself? But just by what you've done of going, you know it's three months. This is the timeline. I'm unpacking everything. Here's all of the information. This is how we're going to use it. This is why we're going to use it. It's super important because that builds the trust you're speaking about. That kind of puts the staff in the driver's seat in that change, and I'm really passionate about this.
Speaker 2:Whenever a change is done, the staff need to be the ones to indicate that yes, it's good to go. They need to be onboarded with change prior to change being decided upon, because really that's how you're going to drive successful change and a successful culture. For sales-led directors very difficult. You can bring someone in, like myself. You can bring a GM in or a head of department in, definitely, but that head of department, that GM, is also going to have their own predisposed ideas. They're going to have their own way of working. For a sales led director, I really encourage you to sit down with your team and unpack it as if you're asking them what do you need, what have you seen? What do you think will work the best? What type of problems do we need to solve? And then you, as the licensee, as a business owner, are tasked with going and finding all the different possible solutions and proposing it back to the team.
Speaker 1:And I think that, yeah, this is a classic example of how we can also sometimes be labelling people as toxic or labelling people having a bad attitude. But we really should also self-reflect and make sure that you, what have we done? Have we, like you said, have we given them all the information they need to know? Have we got their respect? Have have they understood what the reason is behind doing this? Um, and you, you then will actually see that you probably don't have a toxic employee with a bad attitude. They just don't have all the information to be able to have a good attitude about it. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of predisposed ideas out there. People have these little things in their mind, these little hangups. Everyone's different. Someone might have something completely against automation because they don't like the way that Telstra sends them an SMS every time their bill's late and they go. Well, I don't want that for my clients and they feel as though that's going to ruin their personal reputation or the agency's reputation. So they've got a bit of a hangup. It's about finding what that hangup is, having a discussion around it and then figuring out what the solution is and how are we actually going to solve that problem?
Speaker 1:So really I should be retitling this podcast. Do you actually, do you really have a toxic employee, or are you the problem?
Speaker 2:Yeah, hi, it's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me.
Speaker 1:I'll put that theme music at the start of the podcast.
Speaker 2:But I mean, Sorry, it's really funny.
Speaker 2:I haven't seen toxic, toxic employees in the workplace, so it's sort of like really hard for me to provide some insight into like you know, I've seen recently I've seen one in the last 12 months, I've definitely had one that I've dealt with and they had to leave the business. Through the maximizer plan, we actually the me and the business owner made a decision they had to exit the business, um, and it was done in a very clean cut way with HR consultants on board. But the reason why was they weren't just a roadblock for change, they were actually actively undermining the leader in every single thing that they did, because that leader didn't give them a promotion when they wanted it and they were still on a certain pay packet, they were still on the same job title, but the leader had actually brought someone else in after them and had promoted them because that's where they're so valued. That was what the business owner wanted to do and, at the end of the day, that's their prerogative.
Speaker 2:This person took it upon themselves to actually try to actively destroy the culture in the business, and it was from the little whispers in the corner to the closing the door and having whispers with someone else, and then that led to another problem every time there was, you know, a potential change. It was just hard resistance and she would convince everyone else in the office to resist that change as well. So there was very much so toxic environment. But again that was because of something. There was a root to that toxicity.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so mean behavior and then recruiting people on the drive to me. I think that I would find that very toxic. If people were recruiting people to go against someone, that would be mean. Actually, I was just thinking. We did have one situation and we managed her out, and this is probably the only time I've experienced sort of what could potentially have been toxic behaviour.
Speaker 1:Actually it was toxic behaviour and we had a new person starting in our office and everyone else went and had lunch together in the front room but didn't invite her. And it was actually funny because she didn't say anything. But Bill, my business partner, had seen it and he wasn't happy to see that behavior. So he stood up and he said to everyone if you go out for lunch, you invite everybody, like everyone goes, you don't just like. I mean, if you're just going out with lunch for one, with one person, that's fine, you don't invite everyone except for one person. For us that was uncool and so. But what happened after that is that this person then very nastily stood up the next day and she said because we have an open office, she goes, I'm going to lunch and everybody is invited, so I'm not you know, and she made a big drama about it.
Speaker 1:and then that was when we're like okay, not cool, let's, you know, let's. I think that was a warning for that, because that was embarrassing and this poor girl who didn't even say anything and didn't want to make a big fuss because she just started, she was so embarrassed and she didn't do it. So I guess that's probably the only time we've sort of seen what could have been toxic behavior, but it was called out straight away.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's a hard one, because sometimes you can't pinpoint it right, Like until something happens. You have to have a catalyst to actually understand that there is a toxic person or there is something toxic within the culture. And this doesn't happen very often, Like there's not actually a lot of toxic people out there there are definitely a few that I've known of, but it generally happens within a business because something has triggered it. Something has triggered that change and I think it's really powerful for a business owner to be able to one call it out as part of a team always as part of a team and actually ask the team what do you feel like is our roadblocks? What are currently our detractors from culture? Like what is it that you don't like when you come to work? Because business owners don't want to ask that right. Like why would you want to go to your staff and go? What is it you hate about our company? Like what is it that you don't value? What is it that I do wrong?
Speaker 2:The one thing that I notice is leaders often can't ask their staff what they are personally doing wrong. Maybe they don't want the criticism, Maybe they don't want to have to change what they do. There's sometimes a bit of ego in that as well. It's I'm the business leader, I can do whatever I want and they just have to deal with it, which is bullshit, if I'm allowed to say that. But when you think about it in a bit more detail, there is so much power in asking your staff what can I improve on? I do it all the time, nonstop. We were at lunch yesterday and I asked everyone at the table guys, what can I do differently? Hello, marketing, what can I do differently? Is there anything I can do differently in my business? Like, I'm all all ears, and I think it's quite powerful for a, for a leader, even a head of department, to do that within their role and have that 360 degree review almost yeah, yeah, actually yes.
Speaker 1:So when we're at lunch yesterday and there was someone on our table, she was complaining about something and we had said to her think you need to do it yourself, I think you're the problem, like, okay, I needed to hear that, didn't she?
Speaker 1:yeah, yeah, yeah um, yeah, but yeah, not everyone surrounds themselves with people like that, but I, I mean, I'm not that person that needs that friend to pat me on the back and say, yes, you've done it. You know, I like, I like that constructive criticism, like I do actually genuinely appreciate it. Um, but the so we've talked about. So, with toxic employees or bad attitudes, they can potentially be lack of knowledge, lack of understanding where the business owner is coming from. So the first tip would be for that business owner or department manager to understand and speak to them about why they're worried about something. If you are finding that a toxic behaviour in your office is defined by someone not wanting to change or follow processes, so that's the first thing. The second tip, which we've lightly just touched on, which was you know what's happening to them personally, for them feeling like that.
Speaker 1:Now, like you said, a bad day is a bad day.
Speaker 1:Like you, you know, everyone has them.
Speaker 1:Potentially, if that bad day like unless you know of something specific that's happened in their home life, maybe they've had a partner that's left them, that could go on for a couple of weeks or, you know, maybe a month I would probably say after, like I would probably give someone about a week of okay, maybe just work from home, isolate yourself and just, you know, get yourself sorted and then, you know, come back in a proper capacity after that.
Speaker 1:But recognising that sometimes the bad attitude or toxicity in the office can actually not even be work-related, can be home-related and that workplace is their safe place. And yeah, I guess finding out are they bringing something personally into the office, just like we can take work stuff home and it can affect our personal relationships as well. It does work both ways. So if you have have a team member like if you were in an office and you saw um were consulting and saw that there was someone going through quite a bit at home personally, what could the business owner do to help support that person so they don't bring that personal problem into their client experience?
Speaker 2:It's a couple of things here and it's really important to acknowledge that people have. You've seen Maslow's hierarchy of needs. It's the pyramid and down the bottom it's got. You know safety, security, food, water, shelter that is the basic need of survival. There are some people right now working in businesses who can't meet those basic needs of survival. So it can come down to as simple as that person isn't earning enough money, and that is something really simple to tackle. Right, as a business owner, you can sit down and you can go right.
Speaker 2:What is it right now that you're struggling with? And this is what I do in my maximizer plans when we have one-on-ones. This is the type of feedback that I think business owners really need is actually understanding their staff, not just their motivations, their drivers, their workload ratings, their performance ratings, but more so, what is it right now that you are struggling with in your personal life? Is it monetary? Do you have large consumer debt? Do you have? Are you struggling with a blended family or do you have to have the kids every second week and that is becoming a struggle? Do you have eight children? And those eight children are with you five days a week? Nine, you know they're always home and that's making additional stress. What is it that is creating that stress in the first place? That's the first tip.
Speaker 2:You have to find out what the root cause of the problem is. Not many business owners have the ability to have that conversation because if they have that conversation, it starts to, you know, kind of take away their brain power from the business and they don't want to weigh themselves down. I've heard it all before, but you have to have those conversations. You have to know your team on an individual level. Once you've understood what those problems are, you can then, as a business owner, decide how you're going to change it. If you were to example okay, you've got financial issues. You have $30,000 worth of consumer debt, and that is on credit cards and personal loans, on whatever it is. If you give that person $30,000, it solves the problem, yeah, but that's going to create a bigger problem with the rest of your team If the rest of your team find out you've just given 30K to someone cash in hand. So it's about how you then strategically solve that problem. So are you going to coach that staff member in how to do it themselves? Are you going to offer more insight and value? I've got one incredible business owner right now who is openly asking me to go in and get the goals, the parameters from their staff of what they want to achieve in their personal life, and they are with me creating a plan over the next six months to do it.
Speaker 2:We're getting in specialty mortgage brokers. We're getting in financial advisors, superannuation experts all of the people the team would need to speak to to sort out their personal problems. That's just when it comes to money, because that's a big root of all evil problems. That's just when it comes to money, because that's a big root of all evil. When it comes to personal issues, like you have some people who are really nervous, really scared, really insecure. You have some people who are really dominant in their personal life and feel like they can't be the same at work and they're just insecure about it. That's lack of experience and lack of knowledge. So what are we going to do to upskill you? Can we offer something additional to upskill you? Each month?
Speaker 2:There's always a solution to the problem, but you have to be a bit more creative about it. It isn't about being directive and giving an instruction be better. You know, leave it at the door. I've heard it all before you know that whole thing. You shake your body and you go right, leave it at the door. It works to a degree, but you can't do that every single day, 365 days a year for 20 years straight, because over time you're going to burn out. So it's actually about trying to find a solution to that problem in a bit more of a creative way, and business owners have the ability to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the good thing with these podcasts is it shares what other business owners are doing so that you know what is happening out. You know in the world. If you don't have your own network to speak to other business owners to find out, you know how they do it. I know from my point of view. We do the education. So we recently had REI Super in who did a very quick 20-minute chat to the team, because I've got a few that are closer to retirement and so we wanted to make sure that they've got a good transition plan for the next five years into their retirement. So we had that, which was really good. We have had the finance brokers come in. If we've noticed that there's people really wanting to sort of get out of the rental market and buy a property, um, talk to them about how they can do that. We've had a money mindset coach and that might be a good one.
Speaker 1:I'll put you in love that one for your whoever you're working with. The money mindset coach was really great because she did a like. We created our own like little mini conference in our office, um, where she spoke about where your money issues come from. So if you're struggling with savings or if you are struggling with holding on to money, um, you know like we've all got different um a different backstory when it comes to it. So, like for me, my mum was very generous. She very unemotional with money, didn't have a lot. But I never knew she didn't have a lot because she always gave me her EFTPOS card when I wanted something and I'd just buy it and assume that it worked. But I only found out later on down the track that you know she didn't really have a lot but she gave me whatever she had. But for me, what it results in is that I'm quite unemotional to money. So I don't care whether I've got it, I don't care whether I don't have it.
Speaker 1:I feel that if I've got money in the bank I would spend it. So I don't like having money in the bank. So you know it's that. But it's interesting because that's my experience of money and why I maybe don't like savings or don't worry about savings and emotional and even going through a divorce as well. I never was emotional towards the settlement because I was like I don't actually really care who gets what. Get something to sort it out and tell me who I owe who to. You know, like unemotional, so that's like super interesting. So money mindset, I would suggest, would be a really great money for people to understand money. But then we've had times and I haven't had to and I'm sharing it again just so other business owners know what other people are doing.
Speaker 1:I don't do bonuses Like in 20 years I've only ever done one year where we've done bonuses at Christmas time and that was because there was a lot of talk around the office with people's families struggling or our team struggling with Christmas presents that year and there was just a lot of discussion about it.
Speaker 1:So Bill and I made a decision that we were going to do a bonus that year for them so they could go get their Christmas presents.
Speaker 1:There was another time where there was a lot of talk about petrol being really expensive, because petrol is super expensive at the moment, um, and we ended up um going and getting everyone um a BP gift voucher, um, like it was, I think it was like $200 or something like that and we said, listen, here's a voucher for everyone. We know petrol's gone up, um, you know, just to give you a little boost. Basically and it's not that I've only done it once, it's definitely not something that happens all the time, but it's nice just to pay attention to those conversations and if you are in a financial position to be able to do it, I like doing things randomly because there's no expectation for me to do them all the time, as opposed to saying we're doing pictorial gift vouchers every month, like it's just a random thing, and I think they're appreciated more, aren't they, when they can't see me like people can't say I'm nodding profusely.
Speaker 2:Yes, there is massive power in doing it randomly, but doing not, not, not randomly, it's doing it because there's a reason. It's not saying going forward, guys, we're going to give you $350 a month for your fuel because over time that becomes unappreciated or it almost becomes part and parcel of the package. So this is the same thing as working from home, right, like? Working from home has now become expected. It is almost what do you mean? I can't work from home three days a week. I should be able to. So it does become expected over time.
Speaker 2:But I think what you do very well and I've seen you do it in action and business owners should be taking this as kind of a top tip. The best tip to addressing toxic culture, staff culture and even just assisting your staff on a personal level so you don't have potential toxic culture later on, is understanding your team on an individual level and on a team level. You have to know the people you're talking to and that sometimes means sitting down and having a very candid conversation and taking the ego away and just having a productive conversation, but, more importantly, knowing the people that work with you and for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, totally. I've seen an office and again I share it in case you are this office where they try to do everything by the book. And you know what? They are doing everything by the book and they're trying so hard to have the culture that the book says they should have. And they do the birthdays off and they do coffees and they do this and they do that and they still wonder why they don't have a good culture. And what's interesting is that it's because you're trying to blanket culture the whole office and, like what you just said, you have to understand each person's needs because they are so different. And that's how you get that true culture in your office, not by having a blanket rule for everybody, because that's only going to keep 20% of people happy, because the other 80% have a different idea of what it is.
Speaker 2:You have to see what your staff value Like. If you, going back to my day in property management, we had a monthly bonus and that monthly bonus was determined on your performance in a way and that became expected. But I never saw that, as you know, something that was a perk For me, that was, yeah, cool, awesome. Because I'm not driven by money and you know my clients will know this I'm not driven by money. It's not my end goal. I am more so driven by getting the job done and being successful quote unquote in the job that I'm doing, getting a good result in the job that I'm doing, sometimes for clients, sometimes for myself. But I just want to do a bloody good job and I'm more intrinsically motivated than extrinsically motivated, meaning I'm motivated from within because I want to do that good job.
Speaker 2:Exterior stuff like money, gifts, rewards it's not going to do the same thing for me. I still love it. Don't get me wrong. I'll take all the gift cards in the world. Thank you very much. My address is XYZ. But at the same time, it's not going to give me as much pep in my step as someone going oh my goodness, you did an incredible job. I want to tell everyone in the world about it. That makes me feel better. I value that more, and your team is the same. There are some people on the team who you could quite literally go and just add on the back once a week and say, hey, by the way, you did an incredible job last week. Can you show Margaret down the street how to do the same thing? Can you show Ellie in the office the same thing? That person will value that more than if you go hey, here's 500 bucks. Well done. Sometimes it's viewed as a cop-out, so you have to know what your team values, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. In summary, employees' attitudes, toxic employees. First step is to make sure they're educated, make sure they understand, make sure that their bad behavior or attitude is not because you. They don't have all the information. So that's the first tip. Second tip would be to recognize if it is temporary. Is it just something that's happening at home? Ask those those questions. Is it just happening, you know, once a week? Is it just happening for the week? Are they normally generally pretty happy people? Is it an isolated event? That would probably be my second tip to recognise that before making any drastic, you know, big changes in the office. And the third tip is recognising in the office. And the third tip is recognising what we would probably consider maybe that true toxic behaviour which is malicious. It's mean, it's recruiting other people, it's undermining, it's going against and it's having a war path to purposely be detrimental to the business or other people, which is very extreme. I'm sure that it happens. But that type of person needs to be, has to be dealt with with.
Speaker 1:You know, whatever HR I haven't had to do it before but with whatever HR, you need to follow in your state, which would be, yeah, warnings and things like that, and but again, it comes down to conversation as well, and things like that, and but again, it comes down to conversation as well, and just having that open and it's tough, isn't it? It's tough. I think, I'm the type of person that would just get you in to be honest and say, Joe, can you please handle it?
Speaker 2:I've got one tip, one more. Can I add one more? Yeah, add one more, if that's okay. Do you have more? I'm sorry.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, no. I only had three to go for it.
Speaker 2:My last tip is more so to business owners and teams If you want to identify a cultural problem, if you want to see if there is a cultural problem, you need to first look at your set of values and you need to see if those values are being upheld in your business. Speaking about values, though, this is something really important to drive a change in culture with teams. I highly recommend you get your values down on paper and you switch from noun-based values which is authentic, honest, transparent, beautiful words, lovely, fluffy words and we shift to verb-based values, and the verb-based value is a doing word or a doing sentence. So we empower investors. We actively care for each other, we listen to each other's stories, things like that. Don't use those examples. We empower investors. There's a brilliant one Use a verb-based noun, verb-based values, and then ask your team every single month to tick in a box if they believe they've upheld and the team has upheld those values that month.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that because I'm the same. I hate those fluffy. You know we're going to act honest. You know all of those boring stuff that you should be doing anyway For me.
Speaker 1:If I was to think about and I don't really have values but if I was to think about one, I would say that our team help each other when they need it. So what that means is when someone's on leave, when someone's sick, when someone's having a bad day and they all do this, you know true to their heart. They all feel comfortable reaching out to someone in the office and saying, listen, I've got a really bad day or I'm not feeling well, can I divert my phone to you? And within the team, they divert their phones to each other whenever they need a little bit of respite. I've got a couple off on leave this week.
Speaker 1:They've, you know, got themselves covered. They don't make it my problem. They don't come to me and say, you know, like, put it all on me to cover, which I I do offer, and I did because I've got two people on leave. I said, listen, you know what. You guys get your phones diverted to me, um, and then one of the other girls in the office is going to handle both of the emails, the inboxes. So we've got that little hand, but we help each other and they, they do that themselves without me having to get involved. For me that's a really important value, Successful marker of culture right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's good for them, but it's also good for the client, because the client has you know, has someone they can reach at all times as well. So that's, yeah, I think that's very important and, yeah, like you said, don't have those values where they're all a bit fluffy. I don't do fluffy, I don't do fluffy, you don't do fluffy. None of us do it, do we? That's why we are friends.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly.
Speaker 1:Well, always a pleasure chatting to you, Jo, and I hope that that provides a bit of insight to employees and employers that are managing, you know, property managers and staff. And, yeah, just a little glimpse about how it's happening in other offices and what options you've got and things to recognise. So a really great chat.
Speaker 2:Good chat, thanks, ash.