Paulette Kolarz is the Managing Director of Bespoke HR, an Adelaide-based boutique consulting firm.
How does your day usually start? Are you a morning coffee or a 5km run around the park kind of person?
Definitely coffee (one of those oat milk people) and obsessed with the Apple Fitness app treadmill workouts (my personal favourite is Scott for a 10, 20 or 30-minute quick workout each day).
What are the most important attributes of a manager to build high-performing and motivated teams?
Clear vision, defined and lived values and behaviours, personalised connections, trust, and being clear on areas of accountability.
Post-Covid there are so many pressures on SME businesses today. What do think will be the biggest workplace issues in 2024?
Managing challenging business environments and profits, while balancing increasing costs and team expectations. Rising complex compliance requirements including psychosocial obligations and early legal threats.
While we are seeing small shifts in candidate availability due to increased restructures and redundancies, candidates are still choosing employers and making decisions to leave early if things don’t feel right, making onboarding programs essential.
Workplace flexibility? Why is everyone talking about it and do you think it really makes a difference to attracting and retaining employees?
It definitely makes a difference in attracting and retaining employees. It is the number one most requested benefit of new applicants and we are generally seeing a rhythm of up to two days from home (where applicable).
Flexibility, however, does need to be defined to confirm what it means in each organisation. Accountability areas need to be clear for this to work effectively. Where these things are clear, team members will report they are far more productive working from home without office interruptions.
We are hearing employers on the other hand generally reporting a decrease in overall productivity with traditional work week times being thrown out, employees coming and going at different times, meshing school pick-ups and other life requirements. This is making work more ‘stop/start’. We would estimate this impact is around 5 hours per week, per team member, when comparing traditional work rosters to current work expectations.
We are definitely moving to an environment that is focused on ‘working to live’ and not ‘living to work’.
Work, sleep, repeat. How can managers and their teams find better work-life balance? How do you do this?
Some tips that can help manage feelings of ‘same old, same old…
- Pre-book leave at least 6 months in advance. I personally like to look a year ahead and think of things on your ‘list for living’. Have an alternative ‘bucket list’ too. Proactively highlight things you want to do. These might be places to visit, short 4-day trips, special lunch with a friend, etc.
- 90-day sprints can help with clarity, but you need to identify things to celebrate. I think sometimes we can get caught in the hustle or negatives and we forget to recognise the achievements of ourselves and others.
- Set a theme for the year and ensure your vision is clear and your team understand how they can help bring that vision to life. Our theme for 2024 is ‘momentum’ and our vision is that ‘every employee is matched to a workplace they enjoy coming to work at each day’. It is much more inspiring when you know the why behind the hard work and effort.
