Managing Employees

Managing employees takes the skill of balancing both work performance and connecting with the employees.   Most managers focus on maximizing performance, but fail to recognize that empathy and respect are necessary ingredients for effective results.

So how do you balance empathy and performance?

People are not movable parts of an organization.  They come with their own warranties and guarantees or in many cases, no guarantees.    The fluidity of the manager’s ability to manage all the various parts of his team rests on his or her ability to connect with each person they manage.

Companies invest lots of money to find ways to motivate their employees for higher productivity.   They gravitate towards creating rich reward programs to stimulate their employee’s motivation and guide them towards stronger performance.

I believe that it’s difficult to motivate an employee –
rather, motivation is something that comes from the individual.

It’s easy to de-motivate an employee.

Look at the new employee, most of them are highly motivated when they first step through the door, so what happens to them after 6 months on the job.   If an employee loses a percentage of their motivation after 6 months, image the loss to the company as the employee increases their longevity.

When an employee comes into your office with an issue, how do you respond? Do you see your messengers as guides or just complainers?

In the workplace, “Shooting the Messenger” is an expression to describe a manager who reacts harshly to an employee that bears bad news. This person is brave enough to step into the manager’s office to share their concerns. Yet, the manager doesn’t want to deal with the problem so they lash out instead.