What are you doing in your business for team motivation?
A motivated and happy team will work well together, AND increase productivity. Here’s how to create a healthier environment in your residential building team.
Watch the video now, or read the transcript below.
Duayne
I can’t be the one sitting up here on the high chair looking down at everyone working and spending time with my family going on holidays and expect them just to keep doing their thing.
Amelia
Running a building business is a team sport definitely, isn’t it? Running a good building business is a team sport. But teams can be a really big problem for a lot of builders. How do you actually suggest builders keep their team engaged, working well, and working well together? What do you think are the things that they need to remember?
Duayne
Look, at the end of the day, you can’t do the building work on your own. So, I think the thing is to remember that your team is no different to you. Your team, most of them might have families or they might be starting out in life, young families looking for a house or all types of things. So, I guess showing that you’re actually interested in them, that they are not just someone that you are paying to turn up to site and do the tasks that you want done. Ask them how their weekends were, how they’re going, how they’re feeling, just really making it a lot more personal.
Amelia
I think too, even for a builder, who is still kind of on the tools and doing this themselves, their team can still be there. The subcontractors, the suppliers that they’re working with, it can extend out further than just if you are an operator who’s got apprentices and supervisors and labourers on site and everything. You can think of your team more globally, more holistically, when you start to take that personal interest in who they are, how they tick, what they enjoy, what they need to be able to show up and do their job better. That just creates an entirely different culture and relationship with how you all work together, which just actually ends up fueling better results in your own business, doesn’t it?
Duayne
It’s a flow on effect. For me personally, as well, you want to know that people are invested in you. If you’re working everyday, or whether you are a supplier supplying materials, or a tradie turning up. It can be very disheartening if you’re just turning up to a builder that’s just so “there’s the plans, get it done, hurry up, you are wasting my time, I need to be on schedule, I’m behind.” I’ve definitely found in my years in business –
If you get that personal connection with people, everybody in your team, it just makes everything so much easier.
Duayne
Having people on the same page. That can be things like finding out what motivates them, as well as finding out more about their personal lives and what they do. We are in business to grow and be successful.
Although everyone out there doesn’t want to run their own business and be their own boss and have the stress of the company, it doesn’t mean that the people around you don’t have their goals. So finding out things that motivate them and ultimately, even finding out ways that you can help them work through whatever it may be to make sure that they are achieving as well. Because at the end of the day,
If they’re growing, your business is growing, and it’s going to be better off for everybody.
Amelia
It’s been really interesting actually, one of the things, particularly our ELEVATE members find when they start having these conversations with their team members, is that some of the team members have never actually been asked, “What are your goals?”, “What do you actually want to achieve?” When you start having those kinds of conversations, and a team member says, “Oh gosh, nobody’s ever asked me that before”.
Then what that unlocks for them to start thinking about their own kind of future, their own self improvement. You are not fearful if their pathway is that they actually want to own their own building business one day are you? Because you see that actually is a really great opportunity for you to help them grow, and to grow your business at the same time.
Duayne
We’ve actually got a couple of younger guys coming through now, that have made it very clear that they are on their path to becoming their own builder. I think by having regular conversations with your team, and it is hard, at the end of the day, most of our industry is blokes. When you are asking a bloke “What’s your goals?”, “What do you want to do? It can be a little bit overwhelming. As blokes we tend to just go quiet, push it to the side. I get that in my business. We ask people quite regularly how we can help them and what we can do.
And, we tell them to go away and have a think about it, and quite often, you’ve got to bring it up again. I think just the fact that you’re in that position and you are wanting to be interested in them, find out what motivates them, and do it on a regular basis so that they can see that you genuinely want them to feel like they’re part of your team.
Duayne
One thing for our business is, and it’s no different for Live Life Build, we want people to feel comfortable. We want people to feel that they’re in a comfortable place, that they’re working for a company that no question is a silly question. If they’re having issues, they can come and talk to us. If they have a goal to become a builder. I actually, I love it, although in my mind I think “shivers, in a year or two years I’m going to have to build the team up again. I’m going to have to find someone else”, but I’ve found that they actually put more time into my business, because they want to be a successful builder when they leave and start their own business. It works out well for everyone.
Amelia
One of the things that I love that you do with your team, is that you say to them, look, family is a priority for you, so therefore, if you’ve got a family, then family can be a priority for you, as well as my team members. You’ve done things like, the first days of school, making sure that they can be there to enjoy that with their kids. Making sure that they can take time off for sports carnivals, and that kind of stuff. I know that you’ve had some team members be quite shocked and actually checked in with you and say “are you sure it’s okay for me to take this time?” How have you found getting that across the line, and then what that does in terms of how they work with you and that sense of what that does in your team?
Duayne
I think everyone’s going to be in a different situation. It’s no different to a builder having difficulties with cash, and all those types of things. Members of your team could be in a position where they’re afraid to have the time off work because they need the money in the bank and that sort of thing as well. It depends on what it is and how long it is. We will look after our member. They might need a couple hours off to go and do a kid’s event or whatever. We’ll just tell them to put their hours down on the timesheet. I’m really big on, I can’t be the one sitting up here on the high chair, looking down at everyone working, and spending time with my family, going on holidays, and expect them just to keep doing their thing.
I do think it’s really important.
Duayne
You’ve got to put it out there. I had this when I was contracting. You’re going to get people that just want you there eight, nine hours every single day. That’s it, no questions asked. And when you do go to them and say, “hey, I’ve got this event coming up, can I go to it?”, they get annoyed with you, and I don’t want to be that person. I want my team to feel they can ask me whatever they like. And as you and I learned through growing in business, and especially with LIVE LIFE BUILD, you only get one opportunity, especially with your kids and your kids grow up really, really quickly. So I really encourage my team to go to first days of school, seminars, if they hear that their kid is going to be speaking on parade, or any of those types.