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My Business Journey With My Gen Y Team

I personally believe that there are two types of employees in this world – one who is motivated by “money” and the other who is motivated by a “leader” in a business. This view is regardless of whether they are Generation X or Generation Y.

Generation Y employees may be perceived as being self centred, having unrealistic mindsets and possessing minimal loyalty towards employers. The reality is that my business has been built around and assisted by purely Gen Y employees therefore from my experience I actually don’t think that the majority of them are as bad as the general perception.

The one motivated by “Money” –

I have seen employees switch from one company to another just for the sake of $1,000 more than their existing salaries. They did not carefully consider other factors such as compatibilities with the new employers or cultures, the long term benefits in their career paths or personal development. By the time they figured out that the working environment was not a good fit for them, they would again, move on to another job. Quite often they would struggle to progress further after numerous job changes because their CV’s have betrayed them – that is a reflection of minimal loyalty and unwillingness to settling into a business.

The one motivated by a “Leader” –

The other type of employee would choose to work for a leader, a leader who could create a unique culture, a foreseeable career path for their employees and a distinguished business where they would feel they could be proud of. To be a good leader, he or she would need to constantly up skill and train hard in various areas such as leadership skills, staff management, building up a unique culture and business vision and other personal qualities, rather than just having the technical skills.

You may be wondering which type of employee I was?

Previously when I was working in a public practice firm I was once offered a career opportunity from one of my privately held business clients. The package was quite appealing and was 30% more than what I was earning at the time. No other firm could have counter offered close to it given the pay structure in the public practice at that time. I was quite tempted to accept the offer however in the end I decided to decline. The main reason for staying was that I was working for one of the top partners in that particular accounting firm and the exposures in commercial experience, the learning curve from the business savvy clients, but more importantly the leadership skills I learnt from him were significantly valuable. Honestly there was no way I could have set up my own firm and expanded in such a fast pace without those solid foundations that I have learnt from working with the partner. Therefore I can say that I was definitely motivated by a good leader.

This view of working for a leader vs for money was also shared and agreed by Simon Madder who is the founder of Prime Financial Group. I first met Simon whilst shooting episode 5 of the Transformation series, created by the No More Practice. Simon shared that his business employed a group of talents who left their high paid executive jobs to work with him because of one reason – they wanted to work for a leader rather than just working for a job. They wanted to be a part of a successful business rather than just being a number in a big organisation.

5 Things I have provided to my Gen Y staff –

1) Lead by example – I’m a firm believer that if you don’t care about your own business, then don’t expect your employees to. As such I have always worked hard but also smarter to set myself up as a role model for my staff. My staff have seen that I have constantly overcome new challenges in order to take the business to the next level. They have much respect for me because they have seen me work extremely hard to transform myself to a business leader, rather than remain a business owner. I always strive to create and sustain a respectable business so they could feel proud to be part of and grow with me.

2) Share your story including setbacks – Honestly speaking my university transcript wasn’t that appealing and I had made some significant mistakes in the early days of my career when I was an employee. However, I have always shared my stories (including any setbacks) to my staff and told them that we all learnt from our mistakes (but not to repeat those same mistakes twice) in order to be a better and more confident person. I firmly believe that talking about your setbacks and what you learnt from them is an excellent way to gain respect from your team. This shows them that you are a real person and that you care about them and want to use your experience to help them to grow and develop theirs. Also eliminating the fear of looking bad in their eyes means you have absolute full confidence to be a true leader. Being a true leader is about mentoring and developing your team. It is also important to map out and provide continued feedback on their career development in order to make them feel they have been cared for.

3) Recognition of good and also bad behaviour – I have always rewarded my staff by taking them out for lunches, or praising them when they have done a good job, including any client’s acknowledgments so their efforts were also recognised by the clients, rather than just by me. I believe that showing the appreciation would boost their levels of motivation, productivity and confidence. On the other hand no one likes to deliver or receive bad feedback. Therefore I would have open and frank conversations with my under performing staff who would be dismissed if the issues could not be resolved. This is not just to protect the business but also to keep everyone else in the firm motivated.

4) Encourage your team to be involved & challenge your decisions – I don’t believe I am always 100% right in making decisions on how to improve the efficiency of the firm and thus I always encourage my team for their feedback or challenge my decisions and quite often they do come up with some amazing ideas. I would take it on board and action it accordingly if the ideas are feasible. I‘d also give my staff the authority to action the ideas on my behalf and as such it would (a) explore their full potentials in decision making which would strengthen their confidence levels, and (b) encourage them to provide more feedback in the future and make them feel they are accountable and responsible for their decisions, which would ultimately benefit the firm but also their personal development.

5) Create a fun working environment – Let’s face it there is no such thing as a 9 to 5 working day in an accounting firm therefore it is important to create a fun working environment by having regular social events such as team building long lunches, exciting outdoor activities or just bringing them along to networking events. Believe it or not, we see each other more than we see our own families, so it is important to have a good, healthy relationship with team members. It is also important to be an approachable and polite boss by doing one simple thing – smiling to your staff when walking around the office. It is a cheap and easy way to make yourself approachable but I have to say it is something that I am still learning to master.

One of my wishes is that hopefully one day my Gen Y staff can outsmart me and share part of the success of my business. By achieving this, it means the firm will have the capability to expand more rapidly and effectively.

Follow me on my business transformation journey, the No More Practice – Transformation series airs on SkyNews Business Sunday 8:30pm and 4ME (Channel 74) Tuesday 7:30pm.

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