153. When Work Follows You To the Shops: Boundaries In Small Towns

SPEAKER_00 0:03

This podcast is for people who know that the workplace can and should be better and are ready to do something about it. You will learn practical ways to change organizational cultures and human behavior without passwords, without box sticking, without performative leadership. I am the boss of Prino Shark Consulting, working with executives, leaders, and teams to create work cultures and environments that actually work for people. I am Prina Shark. I specialise in organizational culture change and human behavior change. I am all about making work better with people who give a damn. So if you think I can help, contact me via LinkedIn. I am here to help you to find decent ways to change the workplace. Let's do this. Hello and welcome back to the Ways to Change Your Workplace podcast with myself, Prina Shah, and I'm really pleased to be introducing you soon to my friend who is called Simone Pickering. And Simone, before I even introduce you and say hello to you, I've got a bit of a spiel in relation to who is Simone. You need to get to know Simone, everybody. So let me tell you a little bit about Simone. Simone is brilliant and works within regional industries and small towns. Simone is a HR gun. She's a guru in all things human resources. Simone runs a consultancy working with businesses across regional and remote communities in supporting small towns. Simone has seen the best and the worst of what happens when everyone knows everyone. And the grapevine moves faster than email. And you know, we've all experienced that at some time or another. So together today with myself and Simone, we're going to be lifting the lid on what it is really like to work in, to lead, and to do HR in small towns. The good, the messy, and the stuff that no one wants to say out loud. Simone, welcome. It's so great to be with you today. Thank you, Prena. I'm really excited to be here. My very first podcast. Yay. My absolute pleasure. And Simone, I have to tell you, and listeners, I am so sorry. I've got a gardener outside. So every now and then you might hear him doing, you know, whatever gardeners do. So that's the noise in the background if we do hear any. Simone, I want to talk to you about so much. But first off, I want to talk to you about something that I have really come across as well. And I've supported some regional towns and small towns, you know, from a consulting perspective. I know you've got far more experience than I have. So the first thing I want to talk to you about is when work follows you to the supermarket. So I want to talk to you about boundaries in regional communities and in small towns. Because I think there's a massive issue that we need to cover. Yeah. I don't think people have talked about it in the detail that we're going to talk about.

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Yeah, so I can give perspective from the point of view of being an employee within an organization working in HR and seeing um colleagues and employees uptown and then being the consultant. So I remember this.

SPEAKER_02 3:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Um about a decade ago, um when I terminated my very first employee on a Friday morning, and Saturday morning I went grocery shopping. And guess who was standing behind me in the line up release? The person whose employment I had just terminated the day before. Oh gosh. Um, so that is really uncomfortable. It's guaranteed that when you go out in a small town, you will see people that you've had to terminate, that you've had to discipline, that you've interviewed, and things have gone really, really badly at the interview. Um, but then as a consultant, then you're coming face to face, you've got that other element of the business owner. Yes. Oh yes, you do. So it's not just employees that you're coming face to face with, it's the business owner there. And as a consultant, my dealings are more with the business owner than actually the employees. And I I have a really strong value set behind the way that I approach HR and quite often that requires a lot of education with business owners, and I don't always see it from my perspective. It takes some some education and some persistence for them to come around and see them what value HR can bring to their business. Yeah. Um, so yeah, it can be a bit awkward when you see people out and about. Yeah. Um, generally, people are quite respectful of your time in that they're not going to be wanting to talk about work issues in that sort of environment. But what I do find is that, and this is great, like this is a really good endorsement for my business, but I will have a client that um is over the moon with the solutions or the results that they got from me. And then someone will ask a question in a Facebook group chat about every cement, and then they'll tag me in it and say, Oh, can you help this person? And it's like, well, you know, the standard HR response to anything is it depends. You can extend any variables that with it that comes with it, and so you can't answer that question, which to them might sound seem like a really simple question, and then um other people reading that that and thinking that that's your advice, and then when it blows up, then that sort of is bad for you. Absolutely. Absolutely. So, yeah, so like I sort of try and control that with saying, Oh, you know, the um original poster, you're welcome to comment me, uh contact me over Messenger, and we can discuss this privately. It's just because there's so many, many elements to to HR and employment law, and um it's generally not as straightforward as what it seems.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Okay. Can I ask you a million more questions now? So we're really going into boundaries and talking about boundaries, please, Simone. So boundaries in respect of time, boundaries in respect of now we're jumping out of work and into social media, boundaries in relation to, oh, I've just sacked someone and they're behind me in the supermarket. And then there's other boundaries as well. You know, we might be going to the same um gym, we might be in the same sports club after work. Our kids might be at school together, we might be doing school drop-offs together, Simone. Um, so can you tell me what kind of different boundaries do you need to have in a regional town compared or a small town compared to a metro?

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, so just in general, being in a small town, and Kalgooli is not a small town as in 4,000 people, I can't imagine what it would be like to live in that sort of environment. So we have about 30 to 35,000 people, but I'm prominent on social media, so my face is everywhere, and then people will see me downtown and think that they know me. Oh, yes. Um so there's that element of it, but then there's just the people that you come to know through networking and through supporting businesses and things like that. So um, I think that I do a really good job of setting those boundaries. Um, I do a four-day work weekend, so I have a Friday off, and um, you know, that's on the footer of my email, and the 99% of clients are really respectful of that. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 7:43

And can I ask you another question? So you you've clearly placed strong boundaries in relation to you know your your consultancy business um because you will go, oh, that's Simone. Can I talk to you? Can I just briefly chat with you now? You know, like yeah, so you've you've had to work hard on placing those boundaries. How can people who are working within the workplace place boundaries and you know, respectful boundaries as well? What could they do?

SPEAKER_01 8:07

Oh, it's really hard to, and it depends on how what your level of appetite is to have those sorts of uncomfortable conversations as well, and a lot of people aren't comfortable with that. And yeah, it was really something that I did used to struggle with. Like I felt as though, um, particularly when I first started the business, that I needed to be seen as helpful or generous with my time because that presented me as knowledgeable. Yeah, um and that maybe it would be perceived that if I said, Oh, I can't assist you at the moment, that they would think it was because I didn't have an answer. So I had to sort of have a lot of self-reflection about why I felt that way. Fortunately for me, I'm quite introverted. Um, so I'll avoid human contact where possible because when I've spent Monday to Friday with a lot of people in on the weekend, I need that time to myself to recharge. So I'm not actually putting myself in a lot of situations um socially where I'm exposing myself to that. And um now that I'm a woman of a certain age over 50, um, I have the added benefit of saying, Oh, actually, can you send me an email about that? Because I'm not going to remember a word of what you've just told me right now, and then pushes it back in to work hours. Um I think it is a lot of people struggle with being able to put those boundaries in place and not feel as though they're offending people by saying no.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Exactly so. So I will share something with you. You know, I worked with a client who worked in a regional small town area. I won't name them, but you know, uh this was a lot of leadership development training, Simone. And um, one of the things that was happening within this workplace, especially, is that I'm not going to have that conversation with Simone because Simone is also my mate outside of work.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

So the way I had to support this group and really get through to them in relation to boundaries was to separate work and play. I mean, easier said than done, especially when you work in a small town context, isn't it? Yeah. So the kind of things that we discuss, especially from you know, your beautiful example of gosh, you just sack someone and then the day after they're there behind you. So one of the things I talked about with this group was the difference between being friends and being friendly. Like Simone, I'm going to be completely friendly with you while we're working together, but we might not be the best of mates. But it's having that conversation and being okay to have that conversation as well. And then that then applies to, you know, then we started to talk about bigger things such as, well, what about social media? Well, you can absolutely have a conversation with the people that report to you, or you know, your peers, your colleagues, and whatever to say, hey, I've just realized I've done this development course or I've listened to this podcast with Simone and Prina, and I've decided I'm just going to put some healthy boundaries in place and remove you from my personal social media purely because I want to have a healthy separation of work and life. Yeah. You know, and I love the fact that you said that when you do bump into people outside of work hours, they don't generally tend to talk about work. So generally, if that's a good thing, then yeah, I think Kalgooli is a town that works really, really hard.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

So 12 hours are the norm. Um so people value their free time. So I think that that guides it a lot. That that you know they don't get a lot of free time, so when they do, they don't want to be in a headspace of work. Um, and I see that, you know, a lot was coming through on my mailTIM stats from the newsletters that I send out. A lot of business owners are reading them at 11:30 at night. Wow. So if they're doing those sorts of days when they're out in the wild, they probably don't want to be thinking about work.

SPEAKER_00 12:21

I love it. And for those who are thinking about work and may welcome and you know approach you about work questions. How do you deal with that when you're off work? You're off duty now, Simone.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah, it depends. And um, if it's a friend, like a D1. So I have a small core group of friends um that are like my little girl gang, and they are all business owners. Okay. So I don't have a problem with that because they also provide me support in the context of their business, our spirit of ours. Um but then um it's what it's really coming down to is juggling as to how much you're gonna wear for free, really, isn't it? As a computer, that's the thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:04

That's the thing, and what boundaries you want to place as well. So going back to this team that I supported, the other conversation I had with them is okay, uh, Joey's gonna bump into you at the supermarket and ask you about that project tomorrow, and it's you know, it's the weekend. Yeah. You are well within your right to say, hey, I would love to talk to you about that on Monday when we're back at work, not right now, and just kill the conversation, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:28

Yeah. Um, and it and you have to be you have to sort of choose your wording depending on who it is that you're speaking to. Um, but generally I try and end the conversation there and then. Um, but uh what I have found overall is that most people it's it's just hey, can I catch up with you next week? I ask you a question about such and such.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

That's fine, isn't it? Okay. Um, I'm gonna ask you a bit of a prickly question now. So I want to talk to you. Uh actually, I want your perspective. No, I'll ask you the question first. So a big HR thing has just happened within the workplace. It's supposed to be confidential, Simone. Yep. But the word is out and the gossip is out, right? And this really happens in small towns so much. Yeah. So for people who are going through this, what advice would you give to them? How have you supported people through this? So uh have you been through this yourself? What can people do?

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, both. I've been through it as an employee, put in that situation, um, and managing those situations in the workplace. Yeah. Um I I have tried, so you know, like a good 10 years ago, have tried that hardline approach of this is not to be discussed. Good. I I find though what actually has more impact is to ask the person to picture themselves in that person's shoes with everybody discussing their personal life. Genius. If that was you, how would you feel? Having to turn up here every day, knowing that that's what's being said about you, knowing that everybody knows that you're going through this at work, that you know, this is what's happening in your personal life. Yeah. Um the amount of people that, you know, like when something, a tragedy happens in a family and someone has to take urgent leave, yeah. To me, that's really, really obvious. Unplanned leave like that, that something terrible has happened. The amount of people that come to your door and say, Oh, she's letting the team down. Why isn't she here? Because they don't get that something terrible has happened and I can't breach that confidentiality and you know, your old dude, her mum just died, back off a bit. Yeah. Um, so I just say, Oh, I I just want you to just to reflect on what circumstances may require that type of urgent leave. And I think if you could have approached that a bit better. Perfect.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Um, okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

So I think 10 years ago, 15 years ago, HR was very much about directives. Yeah. Now I think it's about let's think about the human behind that and what what might have actually driven that behavior that we're addressing what it is that why they're not actually at work, what's going on in their life outside of work that's impacting what's happening here. Yeah. And think about this a bit more from a human level rather than an operational level and and uh how it's affecting productivity targets for this short period while they're going through that.

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, yeah, it's awful. Okay. Um did that actually very much so. So it's a real practical strip script. So if that was you, how would you feel? So really flipping it and putting them in the other person's shoes. That's a beautiful way. Can I ask you then? So one last question before I summarize, Simone. Uh, what is one boundary you wish more professionals in small towns would put in place tomorrow? Uh nepotism. We're gonna talk about that. Go on, tell me more.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

So there's two there's two things that that are sort of creating the capability of the workforce in regional towns. First of all, you don't have the talent pool with the capability required to be in the roles that they need to be in in areas, and particularly with resource towns, it it's a transient town. So people come and go. Um so people will end up in positions that are amazing for their career because they get a lot of exposure very quickly and a lot. But that does also mean that people are being put into jobs that they aren't qualified for, that they they're not being supported with the training for.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

Yeah, and that's good and bad. Like imagine, wow, if you're in a regional town, the opportunities you would have are just immense compared to somewhere in the metro region, but then that's dangerous. It's a bit of a double-H then in that respect.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Yeah, so if you had if you had a really good leader, and yeah, so I'm all for when I recruit, I'm all for what potential does this person bring. So, first of all, I'm looking for values alignment, and that to me is more important than skill. Yeah, unless, of course, you know it's a doctor and have that trade. You have to be skilled, you have to be a fitter to be in that fitter's position. But I'm actually looking for values alignment and how they're going to add value to the culture. Yeah, then I'm looking at could they be a future leader? Yeah. Do they have some potential there that we can build on? So if you are with are joining an organization with with very limited experience and you're being given this amazing opportunity, but with that amazing opportunity comes an amazing leader that's going to help you develop. Yes, and how powerful that could be for the organization.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

Now that just gets my brain to thinking, we really need to focus on not only developing the executive and the senior leaders, we really, from a small town perspective, need to be bringing up the capability of all of these emerging leaders as well. Ongoing, because, and you talked, and I'm going to describe what you said. So you talked about resources towns. So people who don't understand what that is, we live in Western Australia and Simone lives regionally in Western Australia. Resources towns are towns which are linked to mining industries primarily. Yeah. And where they have a transient workforce of people who do two weeks on, two weeks off, or contract kind of jobs. So then as a result, these towns are really impacted by short-term people who are coming to live there one year or two years. So let's say if, you know, Simone, I don't know if you're married, but if your husband goes to work in somewhere regionally, you're going with him. Yeah. And therefore, you're going to have to find a job in this random town because you're a plus one. Yeah. So these plus ones is what you're really talking about, and the skills that they bring and how we can best utilize them, right?

SPEAKER_01 20:26

So I just want to touch on the nepotism, and then I want to expand on that further because I know you're really going to love what I'm about to say about the community. So then the side to that is giving your brother-in-law a job, giving your cousin a job. And there are companies here in Kalgooli with 50 employees and 20 of them are relatives. What happens? What happens when that person's not performing? And then the rest of the team has to try and work around that because they know that person's not going anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 21:02

So you imagine the culture there. Then coming into that organization and trying to change that culture when there was a deliberate intent to build a family culture.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Yeah, right. And I I have issues with family cultures as well. Which I just want to go back to the community thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

So Kalgooli has has always been a residential mining town. We we have never had FIFO, which is the people traveling in and out for like what happens in the Pilbora. So have always been uh a residential town. So the people would live here and they would work here. And you know, someone might come in for a short term project or or something like that, and they would stay into in some motel style accommodation, but it would be a month and then they'd and um a combination of COVID. And um workforce modeling by some of the bigger mining companies, we have been changed to a FIFO town. And one of the reasons why the bigger companies like to have a FIFO workforce is because when someone's staying in camp accommodation, they're less likely to blow a shift because they can't leave that camp accommodation. So they're going to go to work rather than spend a 12-hour shift hold up in a dollar. So that solves some absenteeism problems. So rather than addressing absenteeism problems as a leadership issue, we're addressing it as like a structural issue. So what that has meant is that those partners aren't coming. And the amount of people, um, and I don't want to make this gender-based, but the amount of people that were the wives of mining engineers that had these amazing qualifications, like marine biologists in the middle of a desert, um, accountants, lawyers, all of that, um, those people are no longer in town. Because the mining engineers and the geologists and the metallurgists, and even down to dump truck operators and underground operators, they're flying in and flying out, and the family's staying back in Perth or Bustelton or whatever regional town is a lot prettier with a lot more services than Kalgooli. Then the flow-on effect means that the children aren't here, so we we don't have juniors in shops. So shops like Bras and Things and Cotton On have had to reduce work hours because they haven't got juniors to staff. So then if you're a leader and you don't your you like your leadership capability is at the low end, yeah, because you've got and opened a business that never gone out to develop yourself, yeah, and you can't retract retain employees because of your leadership abilities. Yeah, um, those people are just gonna leave town.

SPEAKER_00 24:14

Oh my gosh, what a massive impact. Yeah, okay. So we need to have other talks about this topic as well, Simone. Gosh, we can really deep dive into this.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah, so you so think about that, but then factor in that you know, there's an expectation of 12-hour shifts Monday to Friday. You spend Saturday and Sunday with your wife and children, you're knackered, you're tired, sporting clubs get impacted, your children aren't seeing their father, it has implications on the health system, it impacts the mental health system. The flow-on effects are wide-ranging. Yeah. But the main focus is on profit.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Ain't that the truth? More money, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And flipping back to what you talked about nepotism. So I understand nepotism more and from a more favorable perspective, in that, well, blah blah is reliable, they're blood. Yes. So I get that as well. Yeah. So we're going to talk about this, but I think for now, I'd like to wrap it up. I think we've talked about so much, Simone, and you've given so much valuable information. You've talked about boundaries from a time perspective, from a social media perspective, supermarket, you know, personal time perspective when working in a small town or regional area. Um, I love the sentence that you posed when, you know, the gossip comes out about whatever's happening in the HR world. Well, if it was you, how would you feel about this conversation? So, really flipping the script to try and enable more compassion and more empathy as well. I talked about being friendly, but perhaps not friends on social media and just having healthy boundaries. Yeah. So I highly recommend, and I know you're a high believer in healthy boundaries as well, which you preach yourself and you practice yourself. And then we got into the conversation about nepotism and why that happens. And I understand it so much better now, but I think I want to have a different conversation with you about that more in detail. Um, and the fact that in resource towns, people come and go, but then if you have fly and fly out, and that's so for people who don't understand what fly and fly out is, that's temporary people who do shift work, uh, one week on, one week off, or two weeks on, two weeks off. Yeah. What an impact on the town that has.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

You've just blown my mind with also to the all the so they they're not living in houses, so they're not renting, which means they're not shopping from our shops and they're not buying from our supermarket. So they're a mining camp set up like you would expect in a very remote mining operation, like in the middle of the where we have these mining camps scattered around town that have their own restaurants and um, you know, like a uh venting machine with stacks and and drinks. So we have So they don't even leave the town then, you don't even have to leave that place.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

We have to do a 12-hour shift.

SPEAKER_01 27:04

You know, 10,000 people working in this FIFO workforce that are you know, sort of draining essential services, cloud, wow, water, yeah, yeah, um you know, driving on the roads and things like that, but not actually contributing to our community at all.

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Wow! That's another conversation. We're gonna talk about this. But for this one, Simone, thank you so so much for your time. When talking about boundaries when working in a small town or working regionally, I've learned so much from you. More to come. Thank you. I look forward to our next step. If you like this episode, check out the show notes and sign up for my newsletter. That will help your workplace to be less shitty. It's full of novel ideas, good food for thought. And if you like this episode, pass it on to at least two people who will benefit. That's your good deed done for the day. Also, remember to subscribe to the Ways to Change Your Workplace Podcast via your podcast provider. And I will see you in the next episode.