Managing Employees

Every manager in their career stumbles across a challenging employee….one who frustrates them and takes a lot of their energy to manage. “Challenging” employees come in different shades of grey. In addition, what one manager considers frustrating another may not.

Note: I’m addressing performance-based issues for managers. Serious issues such as violence, sexual harassment or drug abuse are situations where a manager must work with legal or human resources department.

Some Challenging Employee Issues for Managers:
Someone with an “attitude” (note: you can never address an attitude, only the actual behavior, otherwise the employee does not know what to change.)

You are the manager and that includes coaching your staff. Your primary focus is to find the best employees, train them, set standards and guide your employees to higher performance levels. It’s about reframing how you see your role as a manager from demanding to coaching performance levels. Coaching an employee includes knowing their skills, depth of job knowledge and the basic gifts or talent they bring to the table.

What is coaching? Coaching is a more enjoyable way to interact with your employees. Like a coach of a sport’s team, you want to encourage your team, ensure they know how to play, know the rules of the role, clarify any misconceptions, and be there to listen and support them as they grow in their job knowledge.

Employees want to succeed in their work and you as their manager can guide them to that level. To be successful as a manager, I would suggest that you focus more on the employee’s strengths than their weaknesses. Since we tend to get more frustrated by what an employee is not doing, we can fail to recognize the value that they bring to the table. In another blog entry, I will focus on how to deal one-on-one with an employee’s weakness.

Employees can be challenging as they come with different styles of communication, motivational levels, attitudes and desires. If you only have two employees to manage, well you life is certainly easier than a manager who has many employees. Yet you have to do the same thing they do…..get the most from your employees in order to meet your business objectives.

In your role as a manager, your primary responsibility is to maximize the performance of your team. Most managers don’t receive training on how to be a good manager. If you are one of them, then let’s start with step one: