Managing Employees

Your employees watch closely how you manage them, your boss and your peers and they will emulate your behavior.  How you manage your relationships with other managers will affect the relationship you have with your direct reports.   You lead by example!

Becoming a strong manager means you will need to develop skills in managing up (your boss), managing employees and managing your relationship with other managers.  All departments in a business need to interact and effectively work together for the success of the company.

How do you know if your employees are in the “burnout” zone?   Sometimes a tired employee is still a happy employee…one who has worked hard and feels totally satisfied from their accomplishments.  Other times, the employee is stressed and barely holding on to their performance levels. 

Burnout is when your employees are exhausted and don’t have the energy to do their job with enthusiasm and high levels of performance.   The causes can be the job responsibilities, the business structure or even their own personalities can impact stress levels.  

Happy New Year!  

My wish for you this year is a strong working relationship based on mutual respect between you and your employees.

Creating Employee Goals

The business goals are in place and now it’s time to align your employee’s goals to the business. 

Most businesses have two parts to their performance management systems…evaluation of last’s year’s performance and creation of this year’s goal(s)…employee deliverables.  I would suggest that you use “deliverables” to your employees as it’s clearer regarding what is expected of them…to deliver.  

The year is ending and most companies are evaluating the year’s results and ramping up for the new year…new business plans and new budgets.  The new year is also a time when many companies start organizing their yearly performance review process.  

As a HR professional, I’ve heard the groans whenever I mention “performance reviews” and I do understand.  The yearly, or in some companies twice a year, performance reviews take a lot of time.   Since most companies have some form of performance review process, you have to ask what is gained by their yearly ritual.

To be successful in managing employees you have to build a repertoire of skills to motivate employees.  Creating a strong working relationship with your team members occurs when you increase trust with each member of your team.  A team is a group of people, each one influencing the effectiveness of the whole.  A team is successful when they have a trusting relationship with their manager.  

What is trust? 

The Merriam-Webster dictionary provides several definitions though this is probably the one that is most familiar:

Trust: assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something b: one in which confidence is placed.