Being a manager can be difficult– you have to balance your needs with your employees’ needs at all times. You’ll also need to find ways to help employees succeed if they’re flailing so you can, in turn, help the business. There are also more unpleasant parts of the job as well. For example, you could be the person who has to suspend an employee or let someone go.
Here are some tips to help you more effectively manage your employees and create a respectful work environment:
Incentives for Employees of All Levels
While it makes sense to reward your most senior level employees so they remain wholly committed to the company, it’s important not to ignore employees on the lower rungs as well. If you want to create an entire team of dedicated employees who are motivated to succeed, it is important to reward everyone – not just those at the top.
Make Safety a Priority
Safety isn’t just important, it’s critical to employee morale. Use services like Azuga to reward employees who use safety procedures consistently. And as always, lead by example. Make sure that you always follow safety protocols.
Provide Feedback Regularly
Feedback is extremely important for employees to receive. However, it’s not just feedback that’s important, you also have to be able to tactfully deliver that information. As a manager, you will need to learn how to be tactful when an employee’s performance is poor or something needs to be changed about their behavior.
At the same time, it’s critical that you also listen to employees.
Make sure that you’re not sending nonverbal cues that you are unavailable or unwilling to talk such as crossing your arms or have your feet pointing to the door – these gestures could suggest to an employee you don’t really want to talk.
Set Expectations for Employees
Before you set the goals for those under you, you need to create the right context. Encourage your employees and recognize hard work. Nobody gains anything when recognition is withheld. If employees don’t feel like they’re meeting the requirements made of them, their self-worth and performance may suffer as a result. Develop your employees, don’t just manage them.
Learn How to Navigate Change Effectively
Companies change – people are hired, people leave for other jobs, and people are fired. In the midst of all these changes, strong leadership helps you weather the storm. If a major change-up in terms of process is being implemented, give your employees advance notice. You should be able to tell them how or if it will change their position(s) and if the expected duties will be altered due to the change. It’s also helpful to give employees context for why the change is being made. Empower your employees with knowledge.
Another pro tip: give your employees adequate time to adjust to the change. Some employees will transition to the change more easily than others – and that’s okay.
Keep Tabs on Remote Workers
50% of the workforce works in at least a partial telecommuting role and 80-90% of employees have noted that they would like to work remotely at least part of the time.In all likelihood, you may find yourself having to manage remote workers.
Here are some other tips to manage non-local workers:
- Build a community: Ensure that your remote workforce is engaged.Celebrate birthdays and company milestones like year anniversaries.
- Be mindful of employee goals: It’s rare that an employee will stay with the same company for several years or more these days – so be respectful of an employee’s ultimate goals, even if that means he or she won’t be at the company forever.
- Figure out the right way to communicate: It’s important to have set “check-ins” with your employees to make sure they’re content and to track project progress. That could mean you set up a Slack channel for your remote team for example or use a project management system like Trello.
- Focus on results: Remote workers may not be working standard 9-5 hours, so don’t worry so much about their time stamps as much as their actual results. Are projects completed on time and done satisfactorily? Are your remote workers prompt with their replies and communicative? If the answer to these questions is “yes,” everything is likely under control.
- Build trust: Working remotely only works based on a system of trust. You have to trust that your workers are doing what they need to. With that said, it’s a good idea to set up guidelines for people who work from home.
In Conclusion
As a manager, you have an important job: you help develop junior employees and in turn, help the business grow. Using the tips in this article, you’ll be able to successfully manage the employees under you so you can streamline your productivity and improve your work relationships simultaneously.
