Having a laugh

Two things today have encapsulated my year. One was the absurdity of bureaucracy which gave me a great laugh. The other was a great email that typifies what SmartCompany is all about.

The laugh came courtesy of Fair Work Ombudsman Nick Wilson. As we all know there have been massive changes to employment laws in the last six months with more to come. But Wilson tells us today that he still needs to target the “hairdresser in Dubbo” who might not be aware of the changes and risk prosecution.

Really? I was intrigued. Surely all the hairdressers in Dubbo and in fact, small business owners across the nation can recite by heart the hundreds of pages that make up the modern awards. And can recite backwards the 10 new national employment standards. And can tell you the difference between the state laws with their eyes shut.

An employment lawyer estimated that it would take the hairdresser in Dubbo a good couple of weeks doing nothing else – and assuming they did not have a legal degree – to get across the details.

It just highlighted for me the disconnect between the life of the typical small business owner grappling with enormous obligations and responsibilities, and community expectations of what they should do and be.

And Nick, I hate to tell you but come January next year I am pretty sure that hairdresser in Dubbo will still be confused, but will still be providing the community with great haircuts.

The second email came from Tanya Newman at Bennets Steel. Here it is:

Good afternoon Amanda,

I just wanted to touch base and say a massive “THANK YOU” for the time, effort, encouragement and sheer inspiration that you send to our business on a daily basis.

SmartCompany has certainly inspired and helped our small regional company over the past year.

Based regionally we find it difficult to attend many seminars put on to help those in small business but your website, and in particular your webinars, allow us the insight that your experts provide.

So from all of us at Bennetts Steel based in beautiful Wauchope we say a big “thanks!” and we wish you all the best for a very Merry Christmas.

Yours in building better business,

Tanya Newman
Bennetts Steel

I could not have said it better myself. Helping you build better businesses is why we get out of bed every morning.

Thank you to all the entrepreneurs and experts who have contributed to SmartCompany this year and shared their advice with small and medium business owners across the nation. Our readership is now at about 150,000 uniques a month, which easily makes us the biggest publication for SMEs in Australia.

And thank you to Tanya and all our readers for your support and kind words.

Next year is going to be the best yet – for all of us!