Transcript
Welcome to episode seven of the Scafol Surveying solutions podcast where today I'm joined by Jason Radcliffe. Um, and we'll be discussing work life balance. Uh, when being a residential building surveyor, normally at this point I'd introduce our guest, but in this instance I'm going to let Jason do it, um, and tell us about himself and what he does on a day to day basis.
Because there's a, uh, many, many strings to your bow, should we say?
Yeah, well thanks Rhodri. Yeah, no, I appreciate it and thank you for having me on because it's, it is a topic that we don't talk about as much as we should do and uh, I think the pressures of just day to day living can be quite, quite intense. So I know it's great, great to be here.
Um, so I'm Jason Ratcliffe, I'm the well being surveyor. Uh, I run Steren Surveyors, um, which is an RICS um, accredited um, or regulated firm surveyors. And I also look at the home health, Well I do the home health experts, um, support service as well and the heal your home podcast.
So that's pretty much me in a nutshell. There's a whole array of things around that, that I do like the elemental cube and my uh, PhD in thermal optimization strategies. But in essence, uh, yeah, I'm a fully fledged surveyor day today.
So I'll fly right into the first question then which is quite open ended. Um, how do you manage demands of your workload which you've obviously just outlined. Um, not only as a residential surveyor, but obviously are the kind of uh, interests and passions that you have whilst ensuring your personal time and well being is in cheque.
Yeah, I mean that, that is the golden goose question really, isn't it? I think mine purely because I failed for so many years that it um, I, I ticked the, I uh, suppose checklist of things that everyone thinks about when you think about well being work life balance. I was getting enough sleep, I was eating enough kind of, you know, in the nutritional sense and I was making sure that I was doing a lot of physical exercise.
So I was kind of, I thought I was doing everything right, even though my, my work life balance was definitely out of kilt. Um, I was just, I was just sort of ignoring everything else, thinking that I can kind of press on. But I think the problem is, is the underlying thing is stress.
I think that that is something which then can't be accounted for within, I suppose, those main sleep and nutrition and you know, workout routine, stuff like that. It is the thing that tripped me up and I ended up, um, getting really unwell. Um, I got, I was, uh, diagnosed with burnout a few years ago and then that led to, uh, some serious infection, um, which I then fought off.
And then I ended up getting a prolapse disc in my back because of it, and then ended up getting a small, um, kind of mini, um, stroke, all because of the stress levels I was putting myself under. Um, and it was an eye opener and it was something that I was going, well, wow, this needs to change.
I was in my late 20s at the time, so all of that stuff shouldn't have even been entering into the issues or the realm of reality for a long time. But, uh, so that was, that was the key turning point for me. So then I was looking at my life going, look, how am I going to change this?
I want to grow what I'm doing. I'm really passionate about it. It is something that is needed, but also I need to make sure I'm okay and uh, my family is okay. So that, I suppose that was the pivotal point. Whenever I revert back to reviewing what I'm doing, I'm kind of thinking, well, okay, let's make sure that the boundaries or the lines aren't crossed.
So it's kind of going, uh, well, for example, I'm prepping for my Ph.D. for example, or I'm going on site for a survey. It's making sure you've got the allocated time where you're not deviating from what you're supposed to be doing. Because it's very easy to be kind of going, oh, I've got the hour slot, I don't know, prep for my survey or my day today.
And then all of a sudden an email comes in and you go on a trail. So it's kind of making sure that the time you allocate for the things you're supposed to be allocating is actually for that. But that also means well being and time with a family. So even if you, you've got deadlines that are really pushing you, you're stressed out, you know, but you've promised your kids, for example, you're going to take them to the park.
You know, for you that might be something that's not a big deal if you, if you miss it or you're late. But obviously for them that can, that can cause a huge amount of discord between you as a parent. So making sure that all of those kind of time management or that diary management is kept as, I suppose, disciplined as possible, I think that's really important.
Yeah, I mean, you talk about stress. So, uh, I've worked in large corporate firms, quite large independents, small independents, and obviously for myself and I find, although they're all stressful roles, um, I think that's just the nature of the industry. There's different kinds of stresses. For me, the hardest was that kind of when it comes to work life balance as an, when employed I have this tendency to want to impress.
I have a need to impress. It's an inherent flaw possibly, um, which, you know, along with being self employed, you have that need to continually work which blurs the lines between that kind of work and life balance, obviously that we're talking about. So for yourself, are there any strategies that you kind of use to balance those blurred lines and you know, define what is and what isn't important?
Um, and to help maintain those stress levels? Uh, um, or there's always good, there's always going to be stress, isn't there? Let's be honest. You can't just say I don't want to be stressed. But how do you balance those, those grey areas to um, sustain those stress levels at uh, uh, a realistic level, should we say?
Yeah, so exactly right. You were saying about this. Different levels or different types of stress, that's exactly kind of what you need to be identifying. So that was one of the first issues I had. So not all stress is the same. Obviously we have good stress because we want to either kind of do well in our role or we want to do well for our clients or whatever it may be.
So that kind of pressure that you put on yourself obviously evolves into stress. But I suppose it's about the level of stress and the continued level of stress. If you have short term, you know, high levels of stress because you've got a project deadline, you're trying to get out, you can manage that by then saying, well, okay, I know this is short term, after this I'm going to make sure I've got enough time to replenish myself.
So whether that's then taking on less work, whether that's Making sure you go and you go and relive your hobbies or you revive things that you need to do. For me it's touching back to nature, so going, but going to the beach, going uh, you know, leaving my phone, which often is my work kind of connection in the car or at home.
So I'm not subconsciously thinking, oh, I can quickly cheque that email, you know, completely disconnecting, going on a walk to, you know, the woods or along the beach or going to play rugby with my kids. It's um, it's, it's those things that are really important to then just completely disconnect you from your, the work you do.
Because obviously the problem we have as surveyors is we most of the time love what we do, we're passionate about it and um, obviously we want to help people, that's why we do it. But the issue is that passion can drive imbalance in your life because there are, there is too little surveyors out there, there is too many people needing help and you know, especially kind of for uh, people like us, we want to be there for those people.
And I think that's the issue because then you put your wellbeing on the back. Bur so I think you, you know, to be sustainable in your own life. It's, it's that going back to the diary management, even if you haven't finished something that you need to do, but it's kind of at the end of that time you've allocated for it, you need to be realistic with yourself and go, look, is it more important that I finish this or do I really need to go for that walk?
Do I need to go for that swim and retake my, my kind of well being back into my own hands? So it's managing that on a day to day basis is so important.
Yeah, I mean, so one of the things I do at uh, Scaffold, obviously part of my role is, you know, I kind of support our users and stuff like that and you know, help them troubleshoot, um, different bits and pieces. But I've noticed obviously I don't receive calls between nine and five.
Like you know, as a surveyor, is it not a traditional 9 to 5 working job? In many instances I often field calls and queries, um, you know, 8, 9, 10 o'clock in the evening. Hence why I thought this would be quite a valid kind of subject to discuss because that's when surveyors are working, that's when they're in the office doing uh, the admin side of things which leads to all the kind of points that you've just discussed.
So how are you able to maintain a consistent schedule of work? Do you find yourself frequently working outside of regular hours, choose deadlines and clients needs or do you have a way that you can kind of combat that with um, making sure that you construct that balance and draw a line under a day and settle into that kind of family uh, role?
Yeah, no, I'm not a 9 to 5 guy. I think um, you know we've got people in place that obviously can be there between the, I suppose operating hours of a business. But for me it's very much as and when I'm very good at uh, doing kind of shorter periods of high intensity work rather than sitting there for eight hours in a day and just plodding along.
So I, I'm good at kind of getting up in the morning, kind of smashing uh, out the admin side of things that I need to do for the day and then maybe kind of going on site and then maybe picking the kids up from school and taking them for an ice cream or something and, and then when they go to bed or settle down in the evening, then I can then pick up my laptop or you know, if there's any questions and things coming in from clients being able to do that.
So it's really just balancing it rather than seeing it as a 9 to 5 nowadays it's kind of balancing. Well, you know, if you've got a holiday, let for example you've got access to maybe a Saturday or a Sunday might be the only days that they allow access. Okay, that's fine.
But then make sure you have a day off or two days off in the week to complement that. So then you can then make sure that you're uh, you know, doing the things that you need to be doing such as reconnecting with your family rather than, than working seven days because you feel like that's necessary.
So yeah, I think that it's important to kind of just take it kind of day by day or week by week and say, okay, I may have to put the extra hours in on this day. I may have to work a bit later till kind of 11, 12 o'clock at night if need be.
But I'm going to make sure that I've got a lie in or I'm going out for breakfast with friends or family and reconnecting and taking that next morning off. So yeah, it's making sure you're trying, you've got a, I suppose you've got a pot or a glass of uh, water.
And you know what they say is if it's you know, draining and you're not replenishing that then eventually it's going to dry up and you're not going to have anything for anybody else, let alone yourself. So you know, it's balancing that and I suppose balancing it with your clients is really important because you know, when you're moving home it's one of the most stressful things you can do.
So for clients they're one in the report yesterday, before you've even been to site most of the time and it's like, come on, on, come on. And it's like, it's then kind of saying, look, I really do care about this and I am going to do a very good job for you and support you.
But it has to be realistic because at the end of the day, yes, it's very easy to say, wow, you know, you're the face of a company but you are still a person. And if you've got, you know, five to 10 surveys or whatever outstanding or whatever it may be, you know, you can't then be sitting up from 6am till 3 in the morning every single day just so that they can get it in a 24 hour timeline because it just doesn't work work.
So it's, it's about managing people and being transparent as well because you're kind of saying look, I do care but at the same time I, uh, it's not feasible to, to do things within a crazy deadline that's just not viable for me.
So where do you draw the line then? So for example, there's two, there's two kind of sides to this coin. Firstly, as an employed person, um, a lot of employment these days, particularly in surveying, the larger the company, the more push there is on bonuses. So I'm going to talk about the, you know, the main thing, the main reason people work is money, um, earning a living.
So a lot of the employed larger companies have quite heavily incentivized bonus schemes which the more you do, the more you earn. Um, and then as a self employed, which is the other side of the coin, basically if you're not working, you're not earning, um, which is the black and white of it.
So how do you strike that balance between I've done a job on Saturday, so I'm going to give myself Monday off, but then someone comes in and says I really need a survey and then you quote and then you get the job and you're thinking, well I bet they need it now.
And they're only using me because I can do it sooner rather than later. Do I take that job or do I not? When do you know when is it better to walk away or when is it right? Uh, I need the money because let's be honest, you know, in the day we live in cost house, cost of living crisis and energy bills and our crikey, I could go on and on, you know, you need the money.
So where do you, where do you draw that line between it's more important to live than, uh, earn? I know there's cliches, you, you work to live, not live to work and so on, so forth, but it's, that's the hardest thing I find is turning away work when I know, um, when you're employed in certain, in certain industries, you know, you can shut the laptop at five o'clock.
Or computer at 5:00. Happy days. When you're a surveyor, you don't know how busy it's going to be next month. Oh, it's December, it's going to be quiet. Oh, it's not quiet.
Oh my God.
I've just worked another month so you know, I'm rumbling on. But you get the point. Where do you draw that line? Yourself?
No, absolutely. So for myself it's so self employed wise. I think it depends on the state and the financial health of the company. So obviously if you are uh, as a self employed kind of professional, you know, I, I find if you, you're struggling or the cash flow isn't quite there, then yes, I will definitely be pushing and probably tipping the work life balance a bit more towards work rather than life.
Because I'm kind of going, well if I'm say for example your thing of saying, well I've worked this Saturday, I was going to give myself the Monday morning off. Um, in those situations, if you do then need to get that cash flow in, it might be then more beneficial on the short term to go, okay, we probably need this in, let's get it in.
But it's checking in with yourself if you're really feeling burnt out or you're feeling like you really can't concentrate and um, facilitate that instruction correctly. It's, it's almost worth saying, look, let's just, let's just be honest about this because obviously it's your reputation on the line as well if you end up overloading yourself and imbalancing kind of massively unhealthily.
You know, I would never, I would hate to put myself in that position where I did a rubbish job because I was just taking on too much work and I just wasn't concentrating. And then I kind of just give a report out that just had loads of errors and I was just, you know, just because I needed the money.
Um, I would rather be honest about it and say I wasn't feeling up to it. Just say, look, I'm really sorry, this is the, this you can kind of stick to your guns. This is the date that you can kind of do or I can do if that's okay with you.
Amazing. If not, I'm afraid you'll have to go elsewhere because I think it's better to have a protection or reputation than in m. You know, and maybe have a little bit of a struggle until the, that next job comes in. Because let's face it, jobs will always come in.
Then, um, then put something out that you shouldn't have done because you're trying to overcommit and then you end up damaging your reputation. And you know, Cornwall in the southwest is a small place really. Everyone talks to everybody else. You know, you start doing a bad job, people will pick up on that and then, you know, businesses won't refer you and you, you, you lose all your credibility.
And you know, worst case scenario you can lose your, your professional kind of, I suppose, licence to trade. Um, it's, it's that balance. And I think, um, what I try and do, which is I suppose the most perfect way of doing things, I think is having a few months of optimal work.
So trying to get as much within the balance as possible, but maybe tipping work over a little bit in that balance when it's busier. So when the industry is picking up, making sure that I'm accruing a bit in the bank. So then the financial stability of yourself and your company allows you then in the quieter months to go, okay, let's rejuvenate.
You know, I may be able to take on um, half the jobs I'm doing in, in the summer months for example, because that allows me to, to tick by. But then it's not, you know, depleting anything in the bank. So then you can almost re. Over the course of a year I can then revitalise.
And um, and I also tend to do a lot of the creative stuff and the, I suppose household or the, the um, tidying up and all the boring stuff kind of in the winter months as most people that are self employed do. So it's then making sure you stay on top of that as well because obviously as a self employed surveyor, uh, you got all the other stuff to think about like PI Insurance, making sure you're compliant, your cbd, all of your marketing, your branding, everything else.
So you can't really do that, you know, throughout the year if you're running flat out doing surveys because you just end up uh, tying yourself in knots. So then it's making sure you go right. It's not just weekly or daily, um, time management, it's monthly and yearly. So you then think, okay, well in this period of time we can then do half capacity.
But then with that half capacity, I know I've already done enough the rest of the year to survive and then I can then start doing all the other nitty gritty stuff that actually really helps you. So I think, you know, it's not, I know I make it sound really easy, but it's, it's you know, life doesn't work like that all the time but you know that's, that's I suppose what I aspire to do year on year.
Um, yeah and I'm getting better at it. I'm not perfect at it at all because uh, you know I get over excited about jobs or you know, potential or opportunities that come in and I can quite easily disbalance that. And then my wife and my family are going what are you doing that for?
So you know it's uh, but again it reverts back to that passion, doesn't it? It's uh, you know if you, if you really really love what you do, it is very hard to say no. And yeah, I've been known, almost have my PhD in my research as my hobby.
So actually I'm not really doing anything apart from surveying and being in the built environment which you know is great, I love it. But also it makes boring conversation at a dinner table.
For dinner. So I'm a techie. You um, love a bit of tech. So there's two ways you can adopt technology. I won't obviously go into tech in too much detail but some people use it to make themselves more efficient, um and some people use it um, you know, for that efficiency purposes to do more and some people do it to make their day to day job easier.
How do you see the benefits of technology in surveying uh these days? And do you see it as an opportunity to do more or do you see it as an opportunity to do the same but quicker and then strike that work, life balance?
Both obviously. I think both are definitely uh, a viable option for me. I mean I prefer scalability especially within uh, well just within those times where you can uh, kind of bring on more work and uh, you can then facilitate more of a workload. I think having that infrastructure in place especially as a micro business or an SME is so important.
So I've built everything that I do around really tight thought out infrastructures and technologies, technology. So like from, from the moment we get an inquiry, I know exactly where it's come from, who, you know, if anybody's kind of recommended us, where, etc and then we've got hourly reports that are update, well updated hourly.
But we can then see where our uh, money's going in marketing, where the you know, the traffic's coming in, where the instructions are coming in. So especially kind of I suppose navigating the you know, economical uh, map as it were. Um, we can then see very easily where maybe money is, I suppose marketing is running Running away with us or where marketing can then be put.
So all of this stuff can, can help so much because rather than previously where you then have to download all the analytics from individual areas and you know, it can take half a day to go through a meeting and things which is just not really viable on a fast pace when you've got many hats, you know, you can then Quickly look, take 10 minutes of your day and know exactly the state and you know, I suppose where your, you're steering your, your business to.
So um, from running a business it's really important, but then from obviously being a surveyor, being able to go on site with all of the new tech out with kind of servers that you can quickly upload all the information straight back to and then create your reports very quickly and thoroughly.
Um, it's amazing because then you can again you can take on kind of bigger jobs. You may be able to relax more. And also it's it for me, it helps segment my day and my work life balance a lot easier because even if you are busy you can go look, you know, it's never running away to the point where it's unrecoverable.
You could always say, okay, this is getting, I need to put the brakes on now. I can't really take any more work because it's really busy at the moment, but I've got X amount of work I need to get out. I can get these out efficiently and know exactly where we're going.
So we've got a traffic light system as well in um, in the business. So that if anything kind of is coming up to deadline, it then goes amber. If it's on deadline it goes to red. So we can then clearly see where the team's workload is to make sure they're not overloading their diary.
So um, yeah, I think, I think you know, that even through to AI as well is uh, an incredible kind of way of supporting you as a professional. I think there's too much of a danger of people just using it to replace hard work. I think there's too many people that uh, go, yeah, we can just plug in something to an AI generator and it will generate a report or generate articles and it's like.
But that, that becomes just pointless. What is the point? So, but having it as a, as an assistant, then it works a lot better.
Absolutely. So final question for you. You've talked about obviously how, huh your, your journey at the beginning, uh, in particular and how you ended up getting quite poorly. Um, what, how are you? How do you find your work life balance now, um, and do you think that all the changes and stuff that we've discussed have worked and should you give one advice to someone that might be to relate to you, um, in the early days, what would your one bit of advice be that to them in regards to how they can help strike this balance?
I appreciate the balance is different for everyone. I've got a wife and two kids, um, and you know, I run a business. My work life balance is going to be different to a 20 year old, 25 year old single surveyor who um, no, no, no partner, no kids and live on their own.
So this is more relatable to yourself. But yeah. What would your one bit of advice be and what has worked for you most, um, throughout your journey?
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think the excitement of having an idea put into reality that works so well and take off so much, that was kind of the adrenaline push that ah, almost took me out of any kind of work life balance because I was just, I was just so wrapped up in the excitement and passion of something working.
Um, and also it was facilitating or feeling the need to facilitate everybody's wants and needs which really kind of, uh, especially initially, really took me over the edge of almost. Well, to that point of burnout, I suppose because you're always constantly thinking you're not doing enough, um, because the demand is so high.
So I think the best advice I can give, which I've learned through the hardware of doing things is, you know, do the best you can do and that is it. And it's like if anything above and beyond that, through the time, you know, that's all you can do. Don't build unnecessary stress or pressure on yourself because it is not worth it at the end of the day if a report, you know, takes maybe a day extra to do because you're unwell or because something is complicated or something, obviously be transparent with your client, etc, but don't then cause yourself an absolute burnout or um, any reason to affect uh, you negatively in the long run because once or twice it's absolutely fine.
But obviously if you start getting into a pattern of doing that because you're putting people's needs and the pressure of being a surveyor and a professional over your well being, I think then over the long term of doing that it's really dangerous and you can then end up in a really negative and poor health situation.
So I think, you know, health goes over everything.
So in a nutshell, be transparent with your clients, know your own limitations.
Yes.
And be Honest with your, you know, expectations both to your clients and to yourself. And you should be on the right track.
You should be, because at the end of the day, that passion will always go through. But, um, it's, it's making sure you've got that framework because I think, uh, especially with someone like myself, uh, you know, there is so much passion there, there's so much fire there that, you know, if I didn't keep that framework or restraint in place, it's.
You're not Superman, you know, you will end up crashing. And if you could do a complete burnout and you have, uh, you know, a complete relapse of all mental kind of consciousness, you're not going to be good for the rest of your life. You, you'll be knackered. And, um, you know, plus all the other ailments that come with it and the whole point of life as well, without going to philosophy, you know, full of words, philosophical.
That's the one.
Philosophical.
Um, you know, it's, it is about enjoying life and it is trying to make sure you enjoy life over, uh, over everything else. And yes, we have to have money and yes, we've got to kind of, you know, do our thing, but at the same time we're going to make sure that we're safe and healthy and, you know, we, we're able to have a great time doing it.
Absolutely. Jason, this is a very important subject for me. As I said, I've been through, um, a journey, uh, with regards to my work, life balance and obviously thanks very much for talking us through your journey, um, and being very honest and as you, as you mentioned, transparent about everything.
Um, it's been a genuine pleasure to have you on and I think, think a lot of what you said. There should be a lot of people that can relate to that and hopefully just some advice or a bit of guidance as to push them into that right direction or maybe just make someone that little bit more self aware of what, what they're, what track they're currently on, and a slight adjustment here or there can put them back on track to a better life, better work, life balance, so on, so forth.
I think it's entirely worthwhile. So, mate, thank you ever so much for joining me on my podcast. An absolute pleasure to have you on. Um, and yeah, I very much look forward to, um, speaking to you in the future, possibly on this subject as well, because it's something, there is so.
Much to talk about and I think, you know, no one should be an island. I think that's the big thing. Everyone, you know, everyone has the right to just shout out to somebody around them and say, look, uh, it's not working right now. I need to chat, I need some help.
And I think that's. That's what we need to do as a collective.
Absolutely, mate. Well, thank you again. And, um, yeah, thank you very much for joining my podcast. Have a good one.
And you.
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