So your team is MIA as they WFH. Why communication, culture and leadership are your most important skills right now.

Small Biz Matters – a half hour program each week where you can work ON your business rather than IN it.
with Alexi Boyd, broadcaster, advocate and small business owner.
Date: 14 July 2020

Staff you never see, emails flying around at all times of the day, meetings on a screen… Welcome to the new world of staff and team management for small business. And if you hadn’t already nailed time tracking, online comms and screen sharing you might have just had a steep learning curve in the past few months.

So now we’re faced with this new normal being a long term reality.

Well, for some of us it’s new but for some tech savvy companies out there who are used to rapid growth, remote staff and everything being online it’s business as usual?

So what can we learn from these experts?

Well, for starters a workplace culture that evolves, hiring for values and not a creating a monoculture and crystal clear comms are key. Vu Tran the co-founder of GO1, a successful and fast growing tech company specialising in training software - with an interesting journey of his own to share.

Welcome to the show Vu.

Topics we’ll be covering:

How can businesses foster a strong organisational culture as more team members than ever are working from home?

As a larger business how do you draw on that experience of adapting to change from when you were a startup?

• We’re agile & nimble, we continue to evolve. The business keeps ticking away in the background whilst we continue learning
• As you start you hire what you know. As you grow you need to think of what the culture has to grow into Hire for cultural contribution not cultural fit – hiring for cultural fit makes for a monoculture.
• How do you grow towards values rather than a culture.

How do you find the different staff?

• Sharing the same values as you are a must
• Cultural contribution is the difference – age (diversity of experience), diversity of business backgrounds (NOT typical startups, different industries), culture (different backgrounds)
• Adapting & problem solving more valued than history of what’s been achieved.

How do you remain clear in communication with a larger staff base?

• Example – doctor patient comms.
• When a leader can’t communicate to their managers this has a trickle-down effect of the whole screen
• In crisis’ clear communication from government & health has flowed on to the whole economy
• Think about your customer journeys for one example. They need to feel confident in the product to continue engaging.
• As your team grows it’s important to keep reviewing your business plan and goals every quarter.

o   Focus on key areas & metrics and then subgoals. Everyone in the company knows which goes we contribute to

o   OKR’s is the system; setting objective and goal setting around this. Stretch goals so individuals know where they sit in achieving those goals. The objectives are met from bottom up not top down.

o   Even though we’re digital we still use butcher paper!

o   K.I.S.S

How do you remain clear in communication in this remote workforce?

• Worried about the incidental engagements which aren’t happening.
• What’s going through your mind at this time? Don’t have the answer, keep working,
• It’s not about the TECH TOOLS you use but the culture of communication.
• As leaders we need to be constantly communicating, keep calling people

o   Straight up Q&A with the leaders

How are you dealing with anxiety in your workplace?

• We’re big enough to have support staff
• Find those services which can support you to support your staff like Beyond Blue
• Make the opportunity to talk rather than diving into specific issues. It’s about the communication channels
• The most important thing is to be able to identify mental health issues
• Dispelling the myth  of asking Are You OK achieves nothing. Starting the conversation really does help.
• Not everyone’s a navy seal and has to be ridiculously strong

To find out more go to their website: https://www.go1.com/en-au

About our Guest

Vu Tran is the co-founder and Head of Growth at GO1.com, the world’s largest onboarding, compliance and professional development platform; a global business founded in Brisbane, Australia. Vu oversees GO1.com's structure and strategy, manages projects and stakeholder engagement while also working part-time as a practicing GP

About GO1

GO1.com makes it easy for businesses to train their staff, with the world’s largest compliance, professional development and general training marketplace. By providing a single platform that extends from first aid training through to degree bearing courses, GO1 makes it easy to find and compare the best training options available. The marketplace features over 500,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts. Customers include SEEK.com.au, Oxford University, State and Local Governments and St John Ambulance.