The Wize Way

Episode 189: Building a Strong Team Connection in 30 Minutes a Week

• Wize Mentoring for Accountants and Bookkeepers • Season 2 • Episode 189

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Is your firm suffering unnecessary churn because you’ve lost real connection with your staff?

Most firm owners try to grow their teams without ever building the connection rhythms that actually keep people engaged. The result? Surprise resignations, scattered communication, and leaders stretched thin trying to hold everything together.

In this episode of The Wize Way Podcast, the Wize coaching team breaks down how just 30 minutes a week can transform retention, performance, and clarity across your firm, sharing practical insights on:

✅ Why weekly one-on-ones (through your leadership chain, not all on you) are critical to retention
 ✅ How to structure simple, repeatable one-on-ones around wins, goals, productivity, and development
 ✅ The meeting rhythm that creates calm: daily huddles, weekly manager touchpoints, and monthly all-hands
 ✅ How to build real connection so issues surface early, not through surprise resignations
 ✅ Practical ways to scale communication as your team grows, without burning yourself out

If you want a team that feels supported, aligned, and accountable, and a business that doesn’t depend on you being everywhere at once, this conversation is essential listening.

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PS: Whenever you’re ready… here are the fastest 4 ways we can help you fix and grow your accounting firm:

1. Download our famous Wize Freedom Strategy Map for FREE - Find out the 96 projects every firm owner must implement to build a $5M+ firm that can run without them - Download here

2. Need to Hire right now? Book a 1:1 FREE discovery call with our WizeTalent hiring coaches to help find your next team member the Wize Way – Click Here

3. Book a 1:1 Wize Discovery Session – Spend 30mins with our Wize CEO, Jamie Johns, a $7M firm owner who is ready to give you his entire business plan to build a firm that can run without you – Find out more here

4. Work with Jamie and our mentors for 8 weeks - Build a custom business plan for your firm - Apply here

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Wise Way, the show for accounting and bookkeeping firm owners who want more time for freedom and a business that can run without. I'm Fred Ford, your host, and each week we deep dive into the real story, proven strategies, and battle-tested tools for successful firm owners just like you. Our wise mentors want to share their journey of how they've scaled and systemized their way to freedom so you can too. If you're stuck in the grind or you're ready to scale smarter, this is your blueprint. Let's get into the episode.

SPEAKER_02:

So we're here to learn about building a stronger team connection in 30 minutes a week. What does that mean? So this is really focusing on the importance of one-on-one meetings with team members. So I'd love to see either from a raise of hands or drop in the chat who currently is conducting one-on-one meetings with their team members. Great, Liz. No other hands. Justin, I'm not sure if you're um hand up or not. Sean, Aaron, Mina, not conducting one-on-ones as yet with team members. I'd love to hear from you as to, let me just check the chat. Oh, yes, you are. Yep, once a year, Mina. Okay. All right. Liz, have you implemented the recommended frequency of one-on-ones, or is it more sort of quarterly to every six months in your team?

SPEAKER_01:

At the moment it's weekly for the uh senior client manager and assistant client manager. And then I've got monthly one-on-ones for the overseas staff. Um six monthly performance reviews as well, which we're um aim to get done for everybody. Um, some of them uh the part-timers, that might may be just the uh the once-a-year though.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, great. And how have you found uh uh the approach to the one-on-ones? Did we were a bit uh hesitant at the beginning to know what to talk about, or uh did it feel comfortable?

SPEAKER_01:

No, no, look, it's all comfortable. It's it's really effective because uh the main sort of structure is looking at what were the wins for the week, um, what were the goals for the the next week. Um, let's have a look at um the induction plan. So we've got an induction plan for uh the new team members and a transition plan for the senior client manager, and it's having a look at the timesheets, it's having a look at the productivity, just going through um uh you know any outcomes from the the previous uh board meeting and what do we need to do? So there's a lot that we we try and get through in that 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_05:

Uh sorry, I have a question. Does the question like how often do you have a one-on-one, like not team meeting, but a one-on-one with your your individual team members, right?

SPEAKER_03:

Correct, Sean, yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05:

So uh I can see from the chat that but I mean my question, I have like 20 people, so I could never get my job done. So I heard the lady speak there. I'm in my car, but uh it sounds right that she's meeting with the senior people once a week, right? So that that they have to do those are touch points with them, and then the senior people have to roll it down to their team members once a week.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes, absolutely, Sean. We don't expect firm owners with growing teams to conduct every one-on-one for every person every week, because that is exhausting. But it's about meeting with direct reports. So as firm owner meeting with your senior team members, and then those senior team members meeting with their direct reports. So if that's your production manager or senior client manager, meeting one-on-one with their direct reports weekly.

SPEAKER_05:

So you're saying it's it's a linear, it's a one-on-one all the way to the bottom of the chain, like low down, they have a team of five or ten. You can't have a meeting of 10. You need you, it's one-on-one, like all the way down the chain, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so it this leads into our ideal team conversation as well, where we recommend five to seven people in the ideal team overseeing a million dollars in fees. So this is part of the challenge when you have more than that in one team, that it does create a lot of um additional one-on-ones that need to happen. But it's looking at how you can create that structure so that you have the direct reports, you understand clearly who is overseen by which team member, and then those senior team members are overseen by the firm owner to support them because our our one-on-ones are critical to retention and you know, getting to understand what makes each individual tick because we're all different. Can't have one group meeting and think that it will meet everyone's needs when it comes to those soft skills. So, one of the things that we've recently put into the wise bolt is some great uh resources in supporting you in how to conduct a one-on-one. We've got some great questions. Now, just to be clear, these questions aren't to be covered in one meeting. They are just guide questions, and you can work your way through them throughout your meeting rhythm. So this might take a few months to get through all of these things, but these are here as a guide for you and your senior team members who are conducting one-on-ones in how to really foster those strong connections with your team members. So I'll just check that is sharing on the screen. So, you know, it goes through different areas of how to gauge engagement level and how to ask questions on the personal side.

SPEAKER_05:

Christy, are you gonna share this in uh is this accessible in the WhatsApp or are you gonna how do we get hold of this document?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, this is in the Widesbolt, and Selena will post the links for you and it'll also come out in an email following the call. And we'll have a slide up shortly with the different sections that these links are in.

SPEAKER_05:

And Christy, what's the preferred time limit? 30 minutes, right? Or really an hour between an hour and 30 minutes?

SPEAKER_02:

It depends on the frequency. If you're having them weekly, 30 minutes should be sufficient. But if you're doing them every fortnight to once a month, then you'd want to look at, you know, allowing up to an hour. There's nothing worse than being rushed with a team member, but preferably half an hour, so that you know, again, it it's non-billable time. We don't want to have you know all of our team out for an hour every week, but looking at what you can gain from this. And the more you do it, the more comfortable your team member will come.

SPEAKER_05:

But if but if it is a contractor model, then it is billable time for the contractor, right?

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. Yes, it is well, it's charged time that you would be charged, but it wouldn't be to a client for a contractor.

SPEAKER_05:

Yeah, I'm with you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. So when we say billable, that's referring to client work with billing out their time. So uh Liz, I'd love to hear from you again. Have you used this resource to help you build out your one-on-ones, or it's more based on the conversation flow you've had previously?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, look, I've I've read the book and I've read that um that SOP. Um, I've I've also given the senior client manager that book to read as well, plus Audible. So we've we've read it, we've listened to it, we've we've got the SOP. Um so we're we're picking up parts of that um that that are relevant, but it's more on our uh the our normal sort of structure now where how um that we we um we we use that uh problem solving structure to approach it. Um so that's how we we approach it.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, great. Okay. Thank you. So yeah, you can see from this document that it really dives in deep because so often we can have team members leave or have a personal problem that they don't share and and you are at risk of losing them or at risk of poor performance. But if they have a relationship where they can communicate with their manager, then you have the ability to support them and hopefully retain them. There's nothing worse than a surprise resignation because there was something going on in the background for a team member. Also, not to allow poor performance because there's personal things going on, but sometimes we need to coach our team members through how to separate outside the world to inside the world. If you think about the amount of time a full-timer spends at work, it's often more time with your colleagues than it is with your family because that eight-hour break in family time isn't always you know spread with everyone. So it's really an intimate space that you want to be able to create connection and rapport. Has anyone here had a surprise resignation that they've found out afterwards that there were things going on in the team members' personal life that you didn't know about and maybe could have retained them? No, that's good. Certainly seen it with firms that I've mentored in Wise Growth that um have yeah, had that issue come up. Um, just reading your question here, Mina. If you wanted to come off mute and ask that one, you're welcome to.

SPEAKER_04:

Hey Chrissy, hey Gone. Hi Mina. So it's sort of a similar question, I think, to Sean when you've got a a bigger team. So um I'm the client manager in my team, but there's a whole second team. So do you let them do it and just be comfortable that that's the way it is, or do you pop in show face or what what what do you do?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, to an extent it's at your discretion. You know, if we look at Jamie's role at Sky, HR is his portfolio as CEO, but he doesn't conduct every single one-on-one because he can't with 50 or 60 staff. But in the early days, he was conducting them. And it is important that your team have the stickability to the firm owner because you should be the constant, not a client manager necessarily. I mean, you know, fingers crossed, our SEMs don't ever go, but you know, life life, and they can go. So you want to make sure that your team members have a relationship and respect with the CEO, that it's not scary to talk to them about problems, because sometimes they might have an issue with their senior client manager that they can't really talk about with them. So you still want to have some sort of light touch with them, whether that's through a quarterly check-in that you pop in. But yes, as as you're growing out your business into the second team, there's only so much time in a day. So I understand that senior client manager would perform those one-on-ones with their team members in their production team.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_02:

So we'll just cover off a little bit more on this before we open up to all questions, um, not just related to this topic, but anything else wise related that we can assist you with. But when we look at, you know, the frequency, as I said before, ideally weekly, but fortnightly to monthly is okay, particularly again, depending on the time that you have, it depends on how withdrawn you are from the day to day. When you look at setting your internal meetings, we encourage you to pick one day a week so that as you progress along your freedom pathway, you have your one clear day a week. If Jamie was here, he'd show you his calendar and his sky day is Thursdays. On a Thursday, his calendar is full of his internal meetings with his team members. For me, it's Tuesdays. So after this call today, I've got my monthly team meeting, and then I've got a series of one-on-ones and a performance review with my team. So I know that on a Tuesday, that's my internal meeting day. This may not seem as important as you're early into your journey, but you will find at some point that you've got little bits of everything happening everywhere, and it becomes a bit chaotic. Or people don't respect your calendar as much, they just move things around wherever. The sooner you can own your calendar and the responsibility of it, the better, and choose that one day a week where you will have your internal meetings. And you may need to start off two days a week. Maybe you've got other things in place, but starting to have your CEO hat on and really focusing on when you can have those meetings and encourage you to do the same with your senior team members so that their one-on-ones happen on the same day each week.

unknown:

Liz.

SPEAKER_05:

What about the we the team members? Speaking about one-on-ones, well, how often should the the team meetings happen and all hands, like all teams? What's the best recommendation there?

SPEAKER_02:

So we have a few different meetings that we encourage. So there's the weekly managers meeting with the senior client managers and firm owner, if the firm owner is not a senior client manager, and that's where they look at um higher-level things, which we have an agenda on that we can make sure you've got access to as well, Sean. As far as an all-in team meeting, you may have an office-wide if you have multiple locations or a team-wide meeting, you might do that once a month. Just depends on how your office runs. For us, we're a team of nine, including admin. So it works for us to be once a month. But it That makes sense.

SPEAKER_05:

That structure makes sense. All hands once a month. Now, hours, how long is that like one hour? And then the senior team leader meeting weekly, is that an hour, half an hour? What's the time commitment recommendation?

SPEAKER_02:

Depends how good you are at sticking to an agenda, really. So, you know, in general terms, about half an hour.

SPEAKER_05:

Well, depends on how much you hate meetings and how quickly you want to get through things to be efficient and respectful of everyone's time.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. There's there's multiple factors that go into how meetings are conducted and held. You want to make sure that it is respectful use of everyone's time. So, you know, important to ensure that there's a clear agenda. And from managers' meetings, we have an agenda sample for you in your WISE Hub and in our WISE Vault. And we encourage you to use the meeting section in your WISE Hub for those internal meetings. And, you know, for your monthly meeting, you may have a set agenda for that as well of looking at the high touch points if you're looking at schedule of the team or new business, whatever it may be that regularly comes up as a talking point. Maybe something that you collaborate with your senior team members on of what are the main things they'd like to be informing each other of. I know for us we recognize a superstar of the month. So uh as part of our recognition process that we're building out. So Lena, can you thanks, Sean? Or thanks, Selena, for getting that. Um, yes, so in our monthly meeting, we recognize our superstar because recognition in our team NPS was one of those little factors that sometimes wobbled. And I felt like we were a pretty loving team and really shouted out about everyone throughout the week, but it dropped off now and then. So we've implemented a monthly superstar where the team members vote anonymously on who they feel has gone above and beyond in the last month, and then that person is celebrated in our monthly meeting. They get a special background to use in Zoom for the rest of the month, and they get a gift voucher. Um, so yeah, that's that's a nice little way of but could you repeat that, sir, Christy?

SPEAKER_05:

You said a uh team member of the month or of the week.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, so it for us, we do a monthly superstar award. So that's voted on anonymously by our team members, and it has to be based above and beyond their role. You can't just win it because you do your job well, that's a minimum expectation. Uh, but for someone who's exceeded their standard requirement, if they've supported team members with their overflow of work or they've above and beyond response to a client or a What happens if you have three teams?

SPEAKER_05:

Then there's to be three awards, right? The best one from each team.

SPEAKER_02:

Yes. I I would think that that's fair and reasonable than doing a firm-wide individual when you've got multiple teams to look at how you can do that per team. And that's where you may do a monthly all-in team meeting as opposed to a firm-wide meeting, because that might get a bit long.

SPEAKER_05:

And then you could do a uh a firm-wide, maybe once, once, you know, a little less frequently.

SPEAKER_02:

Perhaps once a quarter or once every six months to discuss firm-wide things, yeah. Yeah, it's just as your firm evolves, looking at the rhythm that you need to have. We used to do this firm-wide meeting fortnightly, and I got quite fatigued as we grew and it was unnecessary. And then we've implemented more of the weekly managers meeting, our one-on-one rhythm has increased. So once a month is sufficient for us.

SPEAKER_05:

Okay, sorry. So you said fortnightly was too not a good use of everyone's time, right? The monthly was good for that all hands one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

If you had a systemic issue, perhaps the performance issue that the entire team was underperforming and not meeting um budget or time constraints on deadline work, then perhaps you would meet a bit more frequently. But that would, I would look at more of a training issue with the team and ensuring that they're all on the same page for how the work is completed. Okay, so as I mentioned before, the additional resources that will support you with this topic in getting comfortable with your one-on-ones and ensuring that you have your meeting rhythm and routine in place. We've got um section 3.5 has not only the one-on-one agenda and SOP, it also has our career audit, which we encourage firm owners to do first and then roll out across their team so that you can really ensure that everyone's in the right seat or has a career path into the right role that best suits them. And then uh ensuring that you have that daily huddle. I'd love a quick show of hands who has a daily huddle in place.

SPEAKER_03:

No daily huddle. Not to call you out, sorry, that wasn't very fair. Uh great question.

SPEAKER_02:

What counts as a daily huddle? Okay, so our daily huddle is a great one to close off on. Three questions. What are you working on? What will you complete, and what roadblocks do you have, or what hurdles so that everyone knows where everyone's at. These meetings should go for 10 to 15 minutes and are run per team, not firm if you have more than one team. So you want it to be short, sharp, and concise. If there's any challenges that a team member um raises in their roadblocks that isn't quick to solve, that's an offline meeting. If you've got a new team, you may like to have a buffer after your daily huddle of 30 minutes to allow for whoever needs you uh for questions that you always have that space because nothing worse than having the daily huddle and then being stuck in meetings for the rest of the day and the team can't access their client manager or the person that they go to for queries. But you want to have that every day at the same time, all hands on deck in that team. So it's not a if you feel like turning up, do it's compulsory. Also important to keep it short and sharp. So having that clear agenda, whether you use carbon or whatever your workflow management system is to show the work that's coming up, or you know, ensuring that your team are prepared with what they're working on. So, does that align with what you're doing at the moment, Mina, or you've gone a little bit rogue?

SPEAKER_04:

Much uh less formal, uh Christy, at the moment.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. I would say with the size that you are, I would definitely encourage you to look at the resources of the Daily Huddle. I know for me when Thomas was my mentor and he first introduced it to me, I was like, seriously, that's ridiculous. How am I going to have time for that every single day? And we kind of talk about the work all the time anyway. It allowed my team and I to create structure and clarity. And those meetings are short and sharp. Monday and Friday a bit longer because we allow a little bit more social time because we're a fully remote team and relationship building is important. But Tuesday to Thursday, short, sharp, clear. If we're coming into A busy um lodgement deadline period. We may do a pre-huddle huddle with our production manager and client managers on a Monday to make sure that we're all aligned for the plan for the week. But otherwise, these meetings are really quick and simple to execute. So maybe just bring a little bit of structure into that meeting or it might even shorten the length each day that the team are meeting and create a little bit more impact for you and your fellow client managers.

SPEAKER_00:

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of The Wise Way. If today's episode sparked an idea or helped you see things differently, please don't forget to leave us a review. And if you haven't subscribed to the podcast on your favourite platform yet, please go ahead and do that as well. Let's continue the conversation here through YouTube or any other social platforms that you can find us on. And just remember, if you're not a subscriber of our weekly Friday tip newsletter, you can get that to your inbox every week going forward. Whether you're starting out or scaling up, you don't have to do it alone. Let's build a business that works for you, the wise way. We'll see you in the next episode.