September 2020 marks Edge Energy Services’ thirteenth year in business. Thirteen years managing the energy portfolios of some of Australia’s largest names. A client list, performance, and retention record anyone would be proud of.
On this day, R U OK day, and thirteen years after I started this journey, I have made the decision to share my thoughts and concerns regarding this professional world and incredible industry that I’m fortunate to be a part of.
The year 2020 has been unprecedented in terms of its impact on all of us, and there is no better time to shine a light on some things that are not OK, and more disconcerting, do not make people OK.
Am I OK? No! I am not OK. As I come off the back of a morning with another senior staff member in tears over a client’s behaviour, I am most definitely not OK. I am tired of corporate bullies and rightly or wrongly have made the call to put everything on the line to speak up about it.
You see, my business is a small fish that feeds off big fish. For the most part, we cohabitate perfectly. Like a remora on a great white, we add value and receive food and protection in return. But as my good friend and life coach Rex Urwin has often told me, “if you swim with white pointers Stace, don’t be surprised when you get eaten”.
I have knowingly and willingly represented the largest white pointers of the corporate world since inception. And for the most part, we’ve enjoyed collaborative, constructive, and highly successful partnerships. But there is no doubt that there has been far too many fish feeding frenzies on the way.
Edge has been through far too many staff. And whilst counterparts that know me stand around the water cooler discussing whether or not I’m the Ellen DeGeneres of the Australian energy market, let this please be the catalyst to doing something a little more constructive.
Let me start with being crystal clear in my message, I am responsible. As the founder and managing director of Edge, the buck stops with me. For too long I supported an internal manager who didn’t culturally align with my values or vision. But more critically, for far too long I have put our food source first, regardless of their behaviour. Whilst I have placed expectations on staff commensurate to their salaries and experience in the market. I have been guilty of delivering this with the full weight of consequences should these expectations not been met. I have inadvertently passed the corporate bullying on internally, and this is not OK.
My first ever client belonged to one of the largest names in the market, if not the world. A behemoth. Let’s call him Mr Smith. Mr Smith placed expectations on me, then a one ‘woman’ band, commensurate with my experience and fees. He did so clinically, and respectfully. He paid his way and paid very well. He demanded nothing more, and nothing less, than what I was contracted to do for him and his business. If he wanted more, he paid for that too. He made it clear what was expected of me and my performance. He made it clear what would happen if I failed to meet those expectations. Mr Smith would be a client no more. He was professional, firm, and fair. I worked tirelessly to deliver above and beyond for that portfolio and loved every minute of it. I grew my team, and firmly established my business off the back of Mr Smith and his portfolio. The portfolio thrived.
Unfortunately, Mr Smith is the exception, not the rule. Too often my team are subjected to unreasonable delivery expectations, services outside of scope, and fee bashing. We are called business partners in vendor packs, contracts and when branded up internal documents call for such, but in reality, we are far too often treated like anything but.
My team can be made to feel like the punching bag of a corporate’s internal political locker room. We are the scapegoat when things go wrong, and the non-existent entity when things go well. And we constantly operate in fear that our termination for convenience clauses will be enacted, or worse, far worse.
Have members of my team not been OK over the years? No, they haven’t. And my failure to protect them has led to the obvious, them leaving, or me asking them to leave as they aren’t tough enough to fit the mould required ‘to be one of us’.
Am I OK? No, as my business navigates one of its toughest years, I’m most definitely not OK. I started my business because I was in a role that shone a light on large corporate consumers being exploited in the trading room. I wanted to deliver that value back to them, and as a country bumpkin from farming land outside of Childers, naively believed they’d support and reward me for doing so. Back to a Rex metaphor, I was the frog wanting to help carry the scorpion across the river. I’m a strong swimmer, the scorpion can try to, but it doesn’t come naturally. I can swim the scorpion across the river, too easy. But in the end, it’s a scorpion, their instinct is to sting me. They can’t help it, it’s in their nature.
COVID-19 led to a collapse in energy prices in the National Electricity Market. My team sprung to action to do what we do best, identify opportunity and deliver value. We conducted contracting beyond current contracts, we opened existing contracts, we did anything and everything to ensure our clients benefited from the prices this pandemic has played a key role in delivering our industry. And as the scope crept, and the pricing proposals were left unexecuted, and the terminations for convenience were enacted, and much worse… we were stung.
As the 20 to 30% savings were delivered to billion-dollar corporations, we took the emails delivering our fate, and the texts and calls singing our praises and saying hopefully we will work together in the future.
Am I OK? No! I am not OK. As I type I receive an email from the same senior from earlier this morning who is for the second time this year at breaking point. Wrongly or rightly I have always seen my staff like family. I see my role to ensure Edge is strong enough to provide for them and their family. When I lay with my six-year old son in his bed at night and he says, “mum you are always working, when can you close it?”, I genuinely think of them.
Am I OK? No! But I will be. Edge Energy Services is now Edge2020. And it is much more than a name and brand change. It’s a change to the way we do business. It’s a change to the way we juggle our families and work. And it’s a change to the way we work with our clients.
Despite the gloom in this article, we have some of the most amazing clients. Clients that treat us like part of their family. Clients that treat us with respect, acknowledge the value we deliver, and will support us through COVID-19 and long beyond. Mr Smith type clients.
Whilst the same people stand around the same water cooler spending their time ridiculing the name change and branding; we love it. It represents a structural change in one of the most challenging years in history, and the vision of an enormously talented group of energy experts and support staff that genuinely love this industry and the value we can bring to portfolios that want to work with us.
Stay safe and look after one another.
Stace
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