I love the sign created by the manager of one of my stores seeking new staff. Like everything about the business, this does not read or feel like a traditional newsagency.

It is important we embrace every opportunity to pitch our businesses as our businesses and not what people think they might be. This applies as much to what we do in-store as it does to putting u0p signs of vacancies.

Doing this is even more true today in the continued running of the Lottoland TVC that denigrates newsagents and their businesses.

In a business meeting today I was told the health of a retail business can be determined by looking at their toilet. A clean toilet = a well run business, he said.

I think I agree with him.

Consider this, a full time  employee who does the bare minimum to keep their job, has been on performance review twice and is  regularly ill so as to maintain accrued sick leave at close to zero takes two days sick leave, is paid the next day and resigns late that night by text message effective immediately, saying they have taken a job elsewhere and will not return to the business.

While I agree with the rules employers must follow to ensure fair employment conditions, for genuine fairness rules should be in place to ensure fairness from the employee to the employer.

There should be tougher consequences for full time employees who leave a job without a notice period. In the scenario outlined above the employee had two days accrued annual leave and no accused sick leave. This left the employer with little capacity to deal with the lack of notice as allowed for in the Award:

If an employee fails to give the required notice the employer may withhold from any monies due to the employee on termination under this award or the NES, an amount not exceeding the amount the employee would have been paid under this award in respect of the period of notice required by this clause less any period of notice actually given by the employee.

It is situations like the one above that encourage small business retailers to hire casuals rather than full time employees.

This also reinforces the importance of previous employment checking, beyond reference checking.

I was in Darwin today for the last of the current series I have been running on social media and website engagement for small business retailers.

Most at the session today were from newsagencies. We had a terrific discussion – it went over time.

What thrilled me was the interest by these newsagents in the opportunities of social media platforms and other online tools for finding new customers. The interest here in the NT among newsagents is greater than I have seen in larger cities.

The session takes a road of its own based on attendee questions and discussions – this made today’s session a treat thanks to the higher level of engagement by NT newsagents.