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An intriguing chat to kickoff the WorkerX Edge series. An intro to your hosts, Jason and Daniel, we dive right into the current skills shortage facing Australian Manufacturing and Trade industries and discuss ways to re focus the issue into an opportunity.
The podcast designed to breakdown business challenges to turn them into competitive advantages to take your business forward.
Jason Button: Daniel, welcome. And can you give the audience a bit of a once over about yourself?
Daniel Roberts: Hey Jason, thanks for having me. Hello, listeners. I've been working in the security screen industry in our family business for just over 12 years now. In that time, obviously, sort of worked my way up from looking after everything from an office function. So, answering phones, doing account functions, marketing functions, getting out on site, helping with the installers when they shift in manufacturing over that period.
As we started to grow, I took a real interest in the business side of the business. And I just think there was so much opportunity. So over that time, we have expanded in size, so we've gone from having five individuals in the team right up to 30 now. So, obviously with that and we speak a lot, Jason, there's a bunch of different challenges, every time you add a couple extra people.
But with those challenges we find ourselves looking at the opportunity and sometimes coming up with our best steps forward as a business have come. From having a forced evolution into changing how we do something, having no choice, but to make a change, and that change being the best thing for the business. My role now is still very much in the business, but as much as I can, I now work on the business.
So, we're looking at our own software development and some of our own product extrusions. And we're looking to expand on all that over the next few years. So it's a pretty exciting time to be in business. And, hopefully in this podcast we can share a few tips or get a few listeners on board that want to reach out and maybe collaborate with us.
Jason Button: Yeah, that's awesome Daniel. As you can probably tell, Daniel's well-versed on a lot of the challenges and/or opportunities, right throughout the industry, so it's going to be really fascinating to cover a lot of this content with him. And a little bit about myself, I've come from a business background, marketing, advertising, project management, economic development.
I've worked with a lot of different-size businesses from small businesses, right through to your large government businesses, private sector as well, non-for-profits, so I've seen a few bits and pieces in my time. So yes, I'm pretty pumped about starting this little podcast with Daniel and seeing what sort of good content we can get out there, send out to you guys and just really, I suppose, open your eyes and ears to the different way of looking at things. And hopefully we can overcome some of the challenges we currently face. So, to kick off, Daniel, I know that this is a pretty big issue that a lot of businesses are facing currently, and that is skill shortages. So what do you take on it, mate? What are you seeing from an industry point of view and why have we arrived at this point where we're really struggling to find people?
Daniel Roberts: Yeah, it's a fascinating space at the moment, employing people. You're juggling multiple obstacles, I think. You've got your current team who have gone through the COVID period probably started off with everyone being uncertain about their jobs. That obviously started to play on people's minds. You then, sort of, in our industry anyway, we found it had the opposite effect where we kept everyone on.
And we actually-- it's all growth in our revenue, growth in our sales, how much product we are sending out, so over the last few years I guess a lot of people haven’t been able to travel so they turned themselves into their work. I think 2022 has probably shown that some of those individuals are probably experiencing some burnouts, so you've got that challenge and then you've also got the challenge when you do put a job advertisement up, attracting some experienced talent. So, in our space, there isn't necessarily a training course or a direct line to apprentices to get people, so you purely have to find—someone has to apply for your job within the industry, or you have to commit to training them up from scratch. So that's obviously the path that we've taken ourselves over the years. But we have found that the actual applications that we've received have dropped.
So, while we're still doing that, it's probably not in mind with how quickly we're growing as a business. Over the last few months, obviously, you and I have spoken about it. I think there's a massive, massive opportunity to collaborate with other businesses to identify your strengths and them to other businesses, but also, identify your weaknesses and not be afraid to ask for help.
So, what's your thoughts on that?
Jason Button: Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really good point. Because from what we've seen from an industry point of view and what we see in a lot of trade spaces is, for one of a better term, poor training standards. It's been really difficult, I guess. It's been really difficult to see how the different methods have evolved over the different generations and people's viewpoints on work and so forth. So, I think, the old training method of sink or swim or the apprentice or the junior's got to get in there and if it breaks, he or her has to pay for it and all that sort of stuff.
It, sort of, isn't really flying and cutting it with some of the newer generations coming through. I'm not going to say they've got a level of entitlement or anything like that, but probably, there's varying levels of patience, of waiting to build up that sort of IP and knowledge bank and wanting to get stuck in straight away.
So, is that sort of what you've seen in the past? Like how, I guess, if you’re doing in-house training (I think that's one of the big issues and I suppose the collaboration is the flip side of that once you've got people up to a certain level) but just going back to official training or recognized training what's your take on the training standards?
Daniel Roberts: In our industry?
Jason Button: Yeah, I think in the industry, but also, I suppose, you obviously liaise with quite a number of people, you know, suppliers and so forth and have a lot of people in your network. I mean, what's your take on it? ‘Because obviously, some of our listeners they're sitting in their business, they might have some senior guys there and might want to look at that additional capacity, but it's that partnering up with getting that, person who might be green or from a different background coming into the business and getting the best, I suppose, return investment on site when you're looking at doing your training.
Daniel Roberts: Yeah. I think training in our space, there'll be other industries in the same situation where you put someone on who you’ve got to train from scratch but you’re not giving yourself the time during the day to focus on their development because you’re giving them the full run of installations or you’ve got X amount of product that has to go out. So, it's a very hard space because you might not necessarily be able to afford to give up that time to slow down, to get that person to a position where they're then independent and you are getting some from your investment.
So, I think that's where the collaboration piece is quite handy, right? Because you can sort of balance collaborating with another business who is doing the exact same things as you, whilst you're still putting the time and effort into your own training your own support resources for your team.
So, you can be doing that, maybe, take the foot off the pedal, personally, 20% because you want to put that 20% into that new individual, but actually working with another business and saying, “Hey, can you take on a couple of extra jobs for us?” and making it a win-win.
Obviously, other countries must do similar to that. Do you know if, like the other countries overseas and stuff, look at collaborating a little bit differently? I mean, in the EPL, we talk sport a lot, they obviously loan players out sometimes. Why can't the same happen from an industry point of view?
Jason Button: Yeah, I think in my time in economic development and we've talked about this a little bit, the term business clustering is quite strong over in Europe particularly around Scandinavian companies countries. The whole idea around business and your frontline product or service, and then you've got these immediate competitors that you almost, sort of, need to build these walls around your business to protect what you've got. They sort of push away from that. I mean, we still hold onto that a hell of a lot in Australia. You might be sitting there right now and going, “Oh, what are these guys even talking about? If I call up the bloke down the road, offering XYZ the same with me, he's going to tell me to go jump.”
But if you're able to break down that initial barrier and that initial idea around competition and go, “Well, hey, let's just sit back, have a coffee or a beer and go, well, in my business my guys are quite strong in this aspect of service delivery. You guys are particularly strong in this aspect of fabrication or whatever, and there's this massive government tender coming up and neither of us could have a hope in hell of winning that from an individual level but if we create a joint venture and we combine our resources, we've got a much, much stronger chance of being able to win those sort of contracts and win that work.”
So really on one hand, yeah, you might sit there going, “Oh, well, I've got to protect what I've got from my competitors because they'll eat into my revenue,” but if you shift your thinking and looking at that sort of collaboration and clustering and joint ventures and so forth, you can actually open yourself up to a whole new world of revenue and opportunities and things like that. So, it is a very interesting space, Daniel and one that I've seen quite a bit over, the last sort of five years on how people think about working in with another business.
Daniel Roberts: So, in your opinion then, how should a business approach another business in the same space and maybe open the lines of communication in terms of setting up a collaboration? What should they be looking for in another business and how do they go about identifying what they should give up in their business functions and what maybe they should look to take on?
Jason Button: Well, I think ultimately it comes back to trust and rapport. There's no specific science behind or magic silver bullet behind building a relationship right, straight off the bat. It's often over a period of time and getting to understand what both parties want out of a transaction where there is opportunity.
So, the way I would look at it depending on - probably a fair chunk of our audience listening, is potentially an owner-operator. So, they probably sit there and go, “Well, I don't necessarily have the time to go and talk to competitors on that level,” but really, I think once you've made that decision and you've set some time aside in your business to look at that there's so many different opportunities, like networking opportunities and things like that, that a lot of the local and state government places offer.
I know, Daniel, you and I have had lots of conversations in the past with a lot of the industry engagement or employment people from government, which are happy to act as that third party intro to a few different businesses looking to achieve common goals and objectives.
So that's one way of doing it from a networking point of view. You know, if you find yourself with a perceived competitor at a networking event - it's dropping the bravado and dropping the ego out and being able to just approach the individual and with a mentality of, “Okay, it's not a pissing contest. Let's just step back and just have a really good chat, share what we go through and what are some of the opportunities,” and you might find that way over a period of time and a period of catching up with someone that once you sort of break down those barriers, people are more than willing to open up a little bit more once they don't feel like they're feeling threatened or anything like that.
So, generally, I think that's the best way to go about it, mate, is being as open as possible, and that goes down to little things like how you speak and opening your body language and things like that. People pick up on a lot of those sort of cues.
Daniel Roberts: Yeah. And perhaps some of that fear is even just underestimating just how much work is out there, right? You might think that your share of a slice of the pie, you sort of said, you're cutting up what potentially you can get out of a job, but I think potentially collaboration might be something that people see as a negative because not enough work to go around, to share components of one job.
Jason Button: Just the other thing there, Daniel, it's probably sometimes perceived as your own weakness too. That'd probably be a fair comment. “I don't want to open myself up because I know that this particular process that I've got or the way I've got this individual, I know I've got to take this action, but I'm sort of pushing back on and not taking that action on my employee or whatever, because they're doing some good work or whatever,” but I suppose when you start to open yourself up after you become vulnerable and that fear might come from your own sense of weakness as well or, “If I let someone else into the tent and start to understand what's going on, they might point out some of the areas where I know that from an individual basis I need to fix, but it makes it all that more real when someone else comes in and points it out for you as well.”
Daniel Roberts: Mm. Do you think sometimes we may also try and hold onto trade secrets thinking they're an edge, but we are actually not maximizing our opportunities from potentially being more transparent with them, both with customers and with other businesses?
Jason Button: Without a doubt. Short answer.
Daniel Roberts: Yeah.
Jason Button: Okay. So, let's have a bit of a shift then, let me throw down this question to you, Daniel. If we don't start to look at different ways of overcoming skill shortages and start to entertain things like collaboration, what's the particular future of, let's say, the security screen industry? What is the future of it? What does it look like for the future individual or employee, what do their skills look like? What does an employment arrangement look like if we don't start to look at doing something different?
Daniel Roberts: Well, I think there'd be some businesses out there that don't have a direct succession plan. It's not a family business. It's all been done by the business owner, the whole process, thinking of retirement in the near future or somewhere, five, 10-year plan. I mean, if you are wanting to either sell that or have some sort of passive income come from it, you’re going to have to have some structure in place to be able to do those jobs if you remove yourself from the business. So, succession planning a big issue that might arise if people don't start thinking outside how to get their business flowing without themselves necessarily doing all the work.
Also I think this year, more than ever, we've seen probably more leave, particularly sick leave. And when you're scheduling customers and customers have also had to cancel a lot more because of sick leave as well. I think we have had over a hundred weeks’ worth of leave in the first seven months ourselves this year. I think that could be a sign of what's to come or could become more permanent for business owners. That's a lot of time, obviously, that's going to come from somewhere, that's coming out of your growth profit, or adding to the bottom line. So, you've got to sell more to just cover the cost of that. Not to mention, obviously, normally you can produce more in terms of product or coming into summer, you want your turnaround time as short as possible, so sick leaves have turned into an opportunity to maximize.
I think, in terms of getting people into the industry, it's got to be something that excites them, right? You have got to have a reason to want to change your trade or be someone who's leaving school and go, “Oh, there's nothing more that I would like than to join the security screen industry.” You know, I'm not saying there's not people that have said that in the past, but typically, you may fall into the industry and some people really enjoy it, others don't, but how do you attract someone who's never even considered it?
There's going to be more to it than just the job. And people do like to upskill or feel like they've got a career opportunity ahead of them. So, they can start somewhere and, maybe, end up doing some sales or an agent model or something like that. They have got to feel like they're working towards something.
I probably could go on all day about reasons to collaborate right now, but some people out there listening could be, if they lose one key person, that's the end of this they're planning for summer, or they might not even have time to plan for what they want to achieve in summer, because they're out there doing the everyday tasks right now themselves ‘cause they've already lost that one person or they've given up even trying. The ones that will understand your pain more than anyone are other people in your industry doing the exact same thing as you.
So, if you analyze your own business and, I guess, the functions you do well, and maybe the areas you have now that you feel are frustrating or you need to improve on, and then another business says the same thing, I think there could be some crossover, definitely, and you could actually find that you can build a real strong partnership with another business without dipping into each other's pies and such. And, hopefully if anything, you're able to capture a bigger slice of the pie because you're able to handle things a little bit more efficiently.
Jason Button: Yeah. It really goes to show that you could turn a potential weakness there into an opportunity like using that common ground that you both share. Even like the example that you just used with losing a potentially talented or very experienced individual, which is the cornerstone of your business, that must be a great fear for a lot of businesses, I would imagine in this space.
Daniel Roberts: Yeah. And you know what, it happens in our business all the time. We're trying to get better at it. But when you have this fear that if you lose someone, your whole business changes and stuff, and you probably don't spend that time.
Instead of fearing it, you don't spend that time investing in, “Hey, we've got this really good person right now. Let's make sure we're capturing the processes or investing in a junior or someone who's motivated to step into that space.” Because we always think of it as maybe adding installers is a growth thing, but you also got to do it as plan B in case you do lose someone ‘cause even if you don't lose someone from being disgruntled or wanting to change careers, you can lose them because their partners decide to relocate or move back home, they're not from your state. There's so many different reasons people have to leave a job. They might unfortunately get sick or decide that they've always wanted to travel and have three or four months off and you can't necessarily guarantee that there's going to be a job when they come back because you haven't put the planning in place.
So yeah, I think we've dubbed it forced evolution. I think if you can constantly be planning for your next move. So, you hire someone, what's the next move straight away after that? Who's the next in line or who's training them? Who from your other departments might be able to step in or have learned a little bit of the installation function or the manufacturing function or measuring, ‘cause yeah, you just never know.
You can just have something completely out of your control happen in your business, it can dictate where you go to from there and you want it to, at least worst case, plateau and you can get control of it pretty quickly. You certainly don't want it to cause you to start thinking about how to get out yourself. Especially if you talk, sell your business, so yeah, there's definitely a lot to think about.
Jason Button: Absolutely. So I think, we've covered some territory based on skill shortages in this sort of little bite size conversation. We'll start to dig down a little bit more into some of these other areas and challenges that people face in business.
So, just looking at a bit of a wrap up or summary, we talked in length around current skill shortages, the external impacts on workers and things like that, and things like COVID, gig economy, official trades, poor training standards, that sort of things. We then went into looking at, “okay, well, what, what does the future look like?”
And that goes into certain things like, transition of businesses and what happens to your business when you're looking at exit planning. If you have these good skilled and competent people within your business, where does it take you, and then looking at where the opportunities are next. So, the collaboration piece, not being afraid to open yourself up and talk about where are the weaknesses and acknowledging the weaknesses you've got within your business, but also your strength and talking to perceived competitors or people that can value-add, so you can open up different revenue streams and that sort of stuff. And just what Daniel's touching on there, which is having you think about, okay, you've made a successful hire. Alright, well, what's the next move? Just doing a little bit of that pre-planning in the process, just to make sure that you're always staying proactive and in front of the game.
It's always really difficult in business and I think we've all been there before, where we've had to be really reactive. Daniel spoke about it before with the forced evolution piece. So let's get on the front foot. Let's start to be proactive and go, “Hey, if XYZ happens, this is our plan. We can start to execute”. So I think that's probably a pretty good wrap up for what we've covered off. Daniel, any final words or anything you want to add.
Daniel Roberts: Oh, just as you were recapping then, probably also sometimes some of our weaknesses ourselves as business owners might be more to do with actually working on the business. So, not even maybe reaching out to whether it's a consultant or someone to help with marketing or accounts or anything like that. Maybe that's the angle you need to look at when you reach out for some support in those areas, you might find that you actually enjoy working in the business, not on it, but you do want to see some growth. So you could sort of look at it the other way as well.
Jason Button: Perfect. Perfect. I think finishing on an uptake of growth is always, always a good thing.
Daniel Roberts: Yeah, no, it's good to chat. Hopefully your listeners learn from that, and yeah, obviously, if anybody wants to reach out and start a conversation with myself, I'm more than happy for them to do so.
Jason Button: Best place to get you is on LinkedIn I'd imagine, Daniel.
Daniel Roberts: Yep. On LinkedIn would be great.
Jason Button: Beautiful.
Daniel Roberts: Excellent. Alright, we’ll do this again soon.
Jason Button: Thanks mate.