Managing Employees

Management Skills Training- 4 Good Reasons To Finesse Your Employee Management Skills

You’ve just been promoted to manager, so along with the new office and nameplate comes all of the knowledge you will ever need. You immediately understand how to increase your team’s performance without driving them to look for new jobs, how to handle conflicts with executives, and how to deal with the pressure of long hours and more responsibilities.

Unfortunately the world does not work that way. When top performers take up their first managerial assignments, they rarely start with all the skills to handle daily challenges. Instead of making mistakes over a slow learning curve, you can adapt rapidly by enrolling in a supervisor course.

1. Increase Team Morale and Productivity

You’ll likely want to maximize the potential of your new team, but you may not know exactly how. Instead of making mistakes through trial and error, you can get a head start through effective management training. You will learn motivational tips that boost productivity without burning out employees. You also learn how to empower people through delegation, using their natural strengths and talents to achieve operational goals. Happy teams not only tend to work harder; they also tend to lay fewer problems at your doorstep.

2. Avoid Communication Mishaps

When you make your first presentation to the C-suite, do you know how to get your message across? Do you understand the pitfalls of proposing an organizational change to managers with years more experience than you? While front-line employees typically work with their immediate teams, managers meet with executives and employees throughout the organization. Practicing interpersonal skills through a supervisor course can help you act comfortably in your new role, no matter the situation.

3. Connect with Company Goals

New managers are suddenly dropped into a world of revenue targets, quality standards, and legal hurdles. By taking an effective management training course, you can learn how to understand stakeholder needs and develop strategies for continued success. You gain insight into the best ways to connect your work unit’s performance with the company’s finances and reputation. You also develop a mindset of collaboration and learn how to resolve conflicts when your priorities do not match those of your peers.

4. Operate Within the Law

Finally, one of the most important reasons to go through management skills training is to make sure that you are meet your legal obligations. For example, do you understand what questions you can/cannot ask during an interview? Do you know what counts as harassment versus constructive feedback? A short supervisor course can reveal how to establish clear expectations, appraise employee performance, and perform your daily duties without stepping into a lawsuit.

Even though management skills training is most often geared toward new managers, these courses can help even the most tenured supervisors function more effectively. Choose a course that meets your needs, whether online or in-person, and watch the positive transformation it can have on your professional life.

Get more tips on interviewing, hiring, managing and engaging your employees. Dianne Shaddock is the President of Easy Small Business HR, Employee Hiring and Managing Tips and the author of the eGuide, “How To Supervise: What Your Boss Never Told You Before You Took the Job“, A Step-By-Step Guide For New and Seasoned Managers.

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Are You a Micro Manager? How to Take That “Micro” Out of Your Style

Nit-picky. Anxious. Overbearing. These are just a few of the associations many workers make with a supervisor who is a micro manager. And while to some those qualities indicate a manager who pays attention to detail and wants the team to do well, in reality, they don’t create an effective management style. In fact, a micro manager’s style can trigger workplace stress and decrease productivity.

The signs of a micro manager

Are you a micro manager? Here are a few signs:

✓ Inability to delegate.

✓ Focus on correcting little details instead of examining the big picture first.

✓ Employees who make a mistake are not allowed to complete their project.

✓ Do not allow others to make decisions for themselves.

✓ Require constant updates on delegated projects.

✓ Controlling the flow of information into and out of the department.

Did you find yourself silently (and perhaps sheepishly) saying “yes” to any of those signs? If you did, then it’s time to take action.

Allow your employees to do what you hired them to do.

Successful management is not about checking up on an employee every 5 minutes. Instead it’s about empowering a worker to do his or her job to the best of their ability; that’s hard for someone to do when they feel barraged with constant questions or are required to deliver frequent and detailed status updates.

The company (perhaps even you!) hired these employees because it believed they would be an asset to the business—so let them be an asset. Here are tips for curbing your inner micro manager so you can allow your workers and your department to shine:

Learn to delegate. By definition, delegation requires giving someone else control of a job or project. Effective delegation starts by clearly defining the project and its goals, as well as identifying the right employees to make it all happen. Don’t keep those expectations to yourself either. Make sure relevant team members know what the completed project will accomplish and what their role will be in reaching that goal.

Provide training. If you genuinely believe a worker is incapable of performing a task within their realm of responsibilities, provide the training they need.

Build healthy relationships with the team. That doesn’t mean you need to hit Happy Hour every Friday with the workers. But at the heart of every healthy relationship is trust. By speaking with employees, getting to know them, and guiding them toward success, you begin to nurture that trust.

A micro manager may continue to manage a team, but he or she may never become a genuine business leader. If you recognize any of the traits in your own management style, it’s time to shift course. Start developing more effective management skills today by taking the micro out of your style.

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The 8 Warning Signs of an Unhappy Employee

Transcript of HR Podcast #28: The 8 Warning Signs of an Unhappy Employee

Listen to the audio (7 mins, 39 secs)

This article focuses on 8 clues that you want to pay attention to to be aware whether your employees are unhappy.

These are 8 workplace behaviors that signify that employees may be disengaged or just not motivated and what you can do about it. Being aware of changes in behavior or performance is key as a manager if you want to stay abreast of issues and have a highly functioning team.

Some of the telltale signs include:

Submitting work late.
Frequently complaining no matter how small an issue may be.
Seeming to be overly sensitive when approached with a question or comment.
Inappropriate use of office time or resources or spending a lot of time on non work-related websites or texting or talking on the phone.
Often misses meetings or arrives late to meetings.
When at meetings they are not participating where they seem agitated or disengaged with the process.
The employee may show signs of lack of productivity or the quality of their work decreases. Maybe they do not get work done in a timely fashion.
Using an inordinate amount of sick or personal time.

Now it is easy to take the approach that employees who display some or all of these behaviors are not worth the investment or just maybe a bad apple but taking this approach can be a little shortsighted especially in situations where you’re dealing with a high performing employee who suddenly displays more negative behaviors.

This is where managing can be difficult because it’s your charge as a manager to not only determine what the issue may be but to take steps when it makes sense to help your employees work through the issue. Work with your employees to identify the root cause of their frustration or the root cause of the issue. It could just be that there has been an increase in workload with no relief in sight for them or maybe there’s an issue with workflow or another employee could be the root cause of a particular employee’s problem.

As much as we’d like to think that our employees are at the very minimum respecting us as managers it could be also that your management style is an issue. In addition to an employee performance appraisal do some self assessment as part of this process. Are you a micro manager with employees who are quite capable of working well without someone looking over their shoulder? Or do your employees want some sense of direction or guidance from you so that they can perform the work that they need to do?

Both are opposite ends of the spectrum but for certain work styles when dealing with employees being a micro manager or not offering enough input could cause issues for your employees.

A big part of managing staff includes understanding how your approach impacts staff. Whether that approach encourages them to excel or leaves your employees feeling that they are being taken for granted or unappreciated.

Another thing to think about: Maybe your employees are having problems at home. And as much as we expect our staff to leave their problems at the front door when they come to work it’s not that black and white.

Not many small businesses have in-house employee assistance programs but if you do offer your employees health insurance for example. Encourage employees who are having issues outside of work to take advantage of the services provided through their health insurance.

Now it’s easy to get caught up in the meetings and the paper works that comes part and parcel with being a supervisor but don’t let that part of the job of being a manager deter you from your other responsibility which is supporting, encouraging, and motivating your staff.

Get more tips on interviewing, hiring, managing and engaging your employees. Dianne Shaddock is the President of Easy Small Business HR, Employee Hiring and Managing Tips and the author of the eGuide, “How To Supervise: What Your Boss Never Told You Before You Took the Job“, A Step-By-Step Guide For New and Seasoned Managers.

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3 Strategies to Help Small Business Owners Address Tardiness

The office culture in any given small business is one of a kind. Part of the romanticism, in fact, of starting a small business, or working for one, is that the constricting rules that apply in the corporate world don’t necessarily apply in the small business. Dress code is often thrown out the window, e-mail etiquette is all but absent, and communication is frequently casual and friendly, instead of formal and rigid.

However, the lax atmosphere of many small businesses often leads its employees to get more comfortable than they should, which can be counter-productive at best, and actively harmful at worst.

One of the most common abuses of small business protocol is tardiness. Employees think that because the office is so cool, so hip — and most important, so forgiving — they can stretch their arrival time, sometimes up to an hour.

While your small business may not run on the same clock as a large, corporate firm, you can’t afford an hour of missed work from your employees. At the same time, you might not want to take severe action, either because it doesn’t fit with your management style, or because you haven’t ever done it before.

The important thing to remember is that just because you run a small business doesn’t mean that you can’t have rules. It just means that you have to find a way to enforce your rules that fits in with your business culture. Here are some tips:

1. Have Rules. This might seem like an unusual rule, but you’d be surprised to find out how many small businesses never even take the time to lay out rules for things like tardiness and absenteeism. If you don’t have any rules, get with any other executive officers in your company, and decide on some. Then make the rules known to your employees. It’s not a sin to have rules, or to expect your employees to show up on time. The basic fact is that most people will take advantage of the fact that there aren’t any rules, even if they’re only doing it subconsciously.

2. Nip Behavior in the Bud. What frequently happens in small businesses is that a manager waits until the behavior is out of control before she takes action, often too harshly considering that she never brought it up before. When you notice an employee is late, approach them about it. You can make it “unofficial” but stress that being late doesn’t fit in to the company’s culture. It’s always a good strategy to balance a criticism with a compliment, so a comment on the employee’s great work as of late, followed by a light warning would be ideal. Remember, it’s not about making someone feel guilty. Their behavior will change or it will not. Your job is to remind that what your work place is all about and giving them the choice to reform themselves to fit in.

3. Take Action. If an employee continues to be late, take disciplinary action. The worst thing you can do is make empty threats. If you tell an employee that her salary will be affected if the tardiness continues, cut her salary if the tardiness continues. It’s as simple as that. Action will always speak louder than words. So find a disciplinary model that works, and stick to it.

Learning how to manage your employees and find the right balance between trendy office culture and formality is difficult, but with time and practice, it will get a lot easier, and you’ll find that if you let your employees know the rules — and then enforce them — they will follow them.

Jane Smith is a freelance writer and blogger. She writes about free background checks for Backgroundcheck.org. Questions and comments can be sent to: janesmth161 @ gmail.com

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