Why Roxy Jacenko admits she’ll breathe down her employees’ necks to get the job done

Roxy Jacenko doesn’t understand what’s happened to Australia, and she thinks it’s time we upped our game.

Roxy Jacenko’s creation of yet another business has made her realise Australia has a problem — a big one.

Sydney’s PR powerhouse says we’ve become lazy and should be like the hardworking Chinese.

Dealing with China more regularly in her latest start-up 18 Communications — an agency helping Aussies and international brands communicate with Chinese consumers — Jacenko’s found they reply to emails promptly at all hours of the night.

She does the same as anyone who emails her can attest. She’ll be replying from the laptop in bed in the middle of the night.

“I’d rather have a permanent headache and lead and be a full service offering no one can keep up with because while they’re at dinner with friends I’m at home on the laptop,” she told news.com.au.

But the problem Jacenko faces is the work ethic of Aussies and those who ask her for a job and leave “after five minutes”.

“I don’t know what’s happened with career advice in schools,” she said.

“It seems to be Australia’s mentality is if you’ve been in a job five minutes that’s OK.

“There’s just a lack of dedication, a lack of care. It upsets me.

“We’re not Australian in the way we once were. We think good enough will do. It won’t. If we want to succeed as a country, let’s put the hours in.”

READ MORE: Why Roxy Jacenko will make her wealthy kids get jobs

Roxy Jacenko isn’t afraid of hard work but says Aussies seem to be these days.

The working mum-of-two said she was too time poor to go shopping and preferred to do things online anyway because of bad customer service.

“There’s nothing worse than going into a retailer and there’s just this lack of care,” she said.

“I just don’t understand it. We talk about retail sales being slow. Where's the energy and enthusiasm?”

Jacenko has come under fire in the past for the reported working conditions she puts her staff through. She has 37 now among five businesses, which started with her most well-known Sweaty Betty agency.

But any mention of being a tough boss and she owns it.

She said if providing a good service meant breathing down her employees’ necks, she was quite happy to do so.

“I don’t want you to come down here and do ‘good enough’,” she said.

“I do expect you to be meeting your KPIs.

“Turning up on a Monday is not a big ask. I’m sorry, that’s real life. I don’t want teary Tuesday. If that makes me a hard boss, I’m happy to own it.”

The working mum-of-two now runs five businesses. Picture: Tim Hunter.

Often left “banging her head against the desk”, she said she recently had a potential employee ask what the minimum number of hours they could work were and what she would do for them.

She said the question should have been how many hours could they work and what could they do for her.

“I still get insulting emails at 7pm on a Sunday saying someone’s poached me, and they’ve been here 10 months and begged to be an intern,” she said.

“How can you learn anything in six months?

“If they’re nice person and do their best, I’ll back them.

“I’m not a hard boss, I’m trying to run a business.

“Everyone in business is fighting to survive. If you don’t have all these things in place you don’t stand a chance.”

Jacenko warned don’t believe what you read on resumes because she once had someone say they were a general manager when she discovered they were an intern.

“Gone are the old-fashioned ways of doing reference checks,” she said.

“We’ve become lazy.”