Employee management is one of the toughest tasks for any leader or manager because it’s a hit or miss: do it well and your team will succeed but let something slip and everything falls apart like dominoes. So much of a business’ market performance relies heavily on employee performance so the employee management process is important and needs to be done diligently, properly, and carefully.
Done properly, you will have loyal and hardworking employees who will be more than willing to work with you on making the company astoundingly successful. Here, we will go through the top 7 employee management tips to help you get the job done.
The basics of employee management
Before getting to the nitty gritty of employee management, we need to understand its basic fundamentals. Paying close attention to these items will minimize the work for managers, make mentoring underperformers more manageable and keep top performers at the top. Employee management is a series of processes and procedures that help managers and leaders monitor, measure, and engage with various employees.
- Selection – Get off to a good start by hiring the right people for the job. Sure you can train people and teach them the ropes. But if someone’s qualities and qualifications are not aligned with the job description, it may be better if you hire another applicant altogether. It will save you more time and effort down the road.
- Evaluation – In order for employees to be successful, you have to help them chart their way so they can visualize the goal and achieve it. You need to sit down with them and define their goals.
- Observation – After outlining their goals, you need to conduct regular coaching sessions to track their progress.
- Interaction – Encourage everyone to communicate with each other, including you.
- Recognition – Remember to always praise in public to reward the performer and inspire others.
- Correction – Always admonish and correct in private to avoid embarrassing anyone and demotivating them.
Keeping these basics in mind when you’re building your team can help make employee management a little easier. Below are the top 7 employee management tips to help you.
1. Keep the door open
A lot of companies swear by the open door policy but not a lot of people are comfortable with it, especially leaders and managers simply because they have too much on their plate. One of the most fundamental employee management strategies is to make sure that your team knows that your door (even proverbial, at times) is always open if they need anything. When you say this, be sure that you also demonstrate it. This is important if you want to build trust and encourage transparency.
Make yourself available as much as you can. Pause for 5 minutes just to check in on one team member after another every now and then. Let them know that they can always come to you, even when you’re in the middle of something, and get their buy-in to always stay open to you. Make it a mutual commitment to keep the communication open and free-flowing between you and your team.
2. Be flexible
Like it or not, your team is composed of different individuals and one management style that works for one team member might not work for someone else. This means you will have to be flexible and clever enough to change things up, connect with them on a different level and relate to them another way. This is important if you want to see coaching and mentoring sessions make a difference.
One person might like being checked up on regularly while someone else might feel it’s a little intrusive and suffocating. Make sure you take the time to find out which works for whom and then create your coaching and management plans based on your findings. Doing this shows your team you not only want to get the job done properly but you also care for them enough to ask.
3. Lead from the sidelines
Another role that a leader has to play from time to time is that of a coach. It’s simply not enough to show your team what the goal is. Leading them to success means showing them how to get there as well, or at least what they can do to get there on their own, with minimal intervention from you. Show them where they are and where they need to get to. Then, chart their course and map out their plan of action. Commit to doing this weekly, measuring their progress until they get their goal.
It’s important to use these coaching sessions to make them feel that their efforts mean something and that nothing is impossible through hard work. If you notice someone slipping or failing instead of progressing, be diligent in catching this early so you can coach and correct the behavior right away. Bringing their goal back into focus so they never lose sight of it again is also part of the job. Keep each coaching session documented, with the coaching log available online for anyone to view so if they need to check their target or your coaching notes, they will be able to.
4. Spotlight on the goal
Not having clearly defined goals for a team is like running into a basketball game with a blindfold around your eyes. Give your team the goals that they need to shoot for, clear and well defined, and make sure they commit to achieving it and working hard along with the rest of the team.
If it’s a team effort and you need to delegate certain jobs or roles to different team members, make sure they understand what’s expected of them and even why you’re entrusting them with the job. Check for understanding before you release them to the bullpen to clear up any confusion or questions. Make sure that the goals are documented and the file kept in a central repository so it’s available for anyone to access so they can check on the goal when they need to be reminded of what they’re working towards.
5. Praise in public discipline in private
Maintaining your team’s morale is important if you want a committed group of people working with you to lead the company to great success. One sure fire way to ruin someone’s spirit is to highlight their failure in front of everybody else. This is not only embarrassing but also demeaning and will put you, as their leader, in a bad light.
If someone did something wrong or is underperforming, coach them in private. Admonish them, even discipline them but keep it private. Show them that, in the workplace, everyone is respected and given another chance to redeem themselves. However, if someone is doing well or has succeeded in something, make a big thing out of it. Celebrate and lead the team in congratulating the person. The best employee management strategy is being able to do these two properly.
6. Reward and recognize
We can all agree, being recognized for even the smallest of successes can mean a great deal and boost confidence. Take one day out of the month, or even the week, to celebrate every milestone – big or small – and give everyone a pat on the back as part of your employee management scheme.
Perfect attendance, improved productivity, and high-quality assurance score – celebrate them all. Doing this not only encourages positive behavior but also shows your team that every job well done is recognized and rewarded. It doesn’t have to be an extravagant reward. It can be small but meaningful. What’s important is that every effort is recognized and rewarded accordingly.
7. Be the benchmark
Being the leader or manager might sometimes feel like you’re constantly under the microscope or that you’re always being watched. Well, this is true to some degree. Whether you like it or not, or whether you’re comfortable with it or not, you will always have people in the workplace who are looking at you and looking to you for guidance, direction, and inspiration.
The employee management process includes you as the manager or leader being their role model. In everything that you do or say, keep in mind that you’re leading a team and you always need to set a good example. That example needs to be of hard work, excellence, and dedication to the wellbeing of the team and the success of the company. Don’t just tell them how to do well. Show them.
Employee management strategies done right
The best employee management is most often easier said than done. The good news is, there's software that provides you with all the tools that you need to carry out your employee management strategies. It’s called Bitrix24.
Bitrix24 is a one-stop shop for all of your employee management needs. From communications to task and project management, HR management and file storage – it’s all you need to inspire your team to succeed and drive them to excellence. The best bit of all, Bitrix24 is free! You can also give your team access to forms and even coaching logs to encourage transparency. Sign up for free today and become a better, more able employee manager.
