Rae Phillips, Director Inspire Success
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Employees today have a legal right to request flexible working arrangements with their employers. This may be requested for anything from balancing work with children or other carer responsibilities to meeting study commitments or lengthy travel times to and from work. While some employers may view this right as an inconvenience, others are seizing the opportunity with both hands and finding a combination where everyone comes out a winner. As winner of two micro-business awards in 2010 and 2011 (the most recent one having been awarded at the inaugural Mercedes Benz/Central Coast Business Review Business Excellence Awards this month), Rae Phillips, owner of local human resources business Inspire Success, shares with us how one of the keys to her success in business is flexibility.
What is a micro-business?
Micro-businesses make up a large proportion of the SME's that operate on the Central Coast. They are also a significant force in the Australian economy as they:
- Employ a large portion of the Australian workforce,
- Facilitate innovation, and
- Offer a host of specialised and niche products and services to the market.
Employing up to 5 staff members, the owner/operator of a micro-business usually has full responsibility for:
- Financing the business,
- Running its day-to-day operations,
- Having the final saying in the decision making process, and
- The risks associated with running the business.
Home office does not equate to ‘backyard operator’
With many micro-businesses operating from home there is sometimes a misconception that they are less professional than those working from commercial premises. But with today’s technology combined with some clever lateral thinking in terms of flexible working arrangements, the savvy micro-business operator is every bit the polished professional.
The human resources functions performed by Inspire Success require the team to spend time in their clients’ workplaces. Hence there is no need to outlay the cost to lease commercial office space. Working from home also has the significant added advantage of being able to balance managing the business with running a busy household and family. If there is something important on at her children's school for instance, Rae can usually juggle her workload so she can be there.
Ditch the 9-5 mentality
Unless your business is such that all staff members must be available for your clients between certain hours, then there is scope for flexible work arrangements where almost anything goes, provided of course the arrangement suits employer, employee and your clientele. In the case of Inspire Success, Rae engages a combination of permanent part-time staff who work varying hours and virtual sub-contractors who perform a range of administrative and marketing functions. One of her part-time employees can only work school hours at the moment, another is currently able to work longer hours 4 days a week and a third plays a support role to the team as she can only work from home at the moment.
Rather than setting their hours in stone, Rae offers scope for re-assessment of each employee’s hours to suit both their personal needs as they change and the needs of the clients the team is working with at the time. According to Rae “flexibility is a two-way street”, meaning it pays in business to offer flexible work arrangements for your team and flexible options for your clients.
Grow with a plan
One of the more important factors assessed in the judging of the micro-business category is sustainable growth. Rae said the initial catalyst to the growth of Inspire Success was unplanned. It was the result of key members of the businesses she and her team were working with moving to other organisations and taking the services of Inspire Success with them. “The unplanned growth led to a detailed business planning process which involved re-assessing the capacity of my team members in terms of how many hours a week each could commit to work.,” said Rae. In terms of growth, Rae’s advice to other business owners is, “don’t just rely on organic growth. Grow with a plan.”
Stay connected with your staff
Even when individual team members work independently from one another it is important to stay connected through regular discussions and meetings. At Inspire Success, the team actively practices what it advocates to its clients by adopting the following regular communication process:
- Rae speaks weekly to each team member by phone to discuss their progress and the week’s events;
- A quarterly one-on-one session with Rae, which she calls “Investigate” to assess what’s working and what’s not at an individual level;
- A quarterly team “Incite” at a central office location to discuss opportunities to do something differently for their clients and themselves and problem solve as a team.
Rae gave the example of a family owned Central Coast business that had endured 80 unplanned sick days from staff per quarter before management called for help. Rae initiated a series of onsite meetings between herself, the Company Director and every staff member, giving each individual the opportunity to air their grievances. By the end of the first year of conducting the meetings the company saw a dramatic improvement in workplace morale and performance with unplanned quarterly sick leave down from 80 to 22-23 days.
A final word of advice for other micro-business owners
- Work out what you are good at
- Determine who’s going to buy it and why (who is your customer and what is their need?)
- Assess how you can best package what you have that the market needs or wants rather just packaging up what you think they need or want (based on what you like yourself).
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