What advice do you have to effectively work with your best mate/spouse/partner?

This Valentines Day, the Whitsundays Chamber of Commerce and Industry asked some of its members: What advice do you have to effectively work with your best mate/spouse/partner?

Chamber members from McDonalds and Live Life Pharmacy replied.

Jaide Paranomos, Licensee for McDonald’s Airlie Beach, Bowen, and Cannonvale, shared valuable insights from her experience working with her husband, Andrew.

“My husband Andrew and I have been working together for over a year now, running one of the world’s largest brands in the Whitsundays community,” she says.

For Jaide and Andrew, the key to a successful partnership—both in business and in life—lies in clear role definitions.

“We have defined roles and responsibilities to empower each other to own our expertise and respect our individual strengths. This helps us both focus on what we’re best at, ensuring that we’re the best Licensees we can be for our team and customers at Macca’s,” Jaide explains.

Another important aspect of their relationship is setting boundaries between work and personal life. “It’s also important for us to separate our personal and work life,” Jaide emphasises. “This allows us to continue to build our relationship both as life and business partners, ensuring that we don’t lose sight of the reasons we came together in the first place.”

In summary, Jaide’s advice for anyone working with their partner is to:

• Define clear roles and responsibilities: Recognise and embrace each other’s strengths and areas of expertise.
• Respect each other’s contributions: Trust in your partner’s abilities and empower them to take ownership of their responsibilities.
• Separate work and personal life” Draw a line between professional and personal time to maintain a healthy relationship outside of the workplace.

Chamber President, and Live Life Pharmacies Airlie Beach pharmacist Allan Milostic says that working with a mate or a spouse can be easy and fun, and very effective if you do it right.

“Knowing your work mate well can lead to improved efficiencies, better workplace atmosphere, relations and flexibility as well as increasing the satisfaction of workplace achievements,” said Allan.

“However, it is easy to let personal issues spill over and interfere with a working relationship.”

Allan believes there are three keys to ensuring this doesn’t happen:

• Tact: Being blunt with your spouse or best mate at work just won’t work! Be nice.
• Respect: Like any co-worker your friend/spouse needs to be treated with respect at all times.
• Boundaries: Leave personal stuff at the door, work is work but also be cognisant of boundaries in roles at work. Close relationships can sometime blur these boundaries and potentially cause conflict.