Managing Employees

Managers are always seeking different ways to interact with their employees, help them perform at higher levels and still have enough time to meet the business requirements of their department.    Managing employees can take a lot of time, yet if you think in terms of the basics, you may be pleasantly surprised to find yourself with more time to meet your business objectives.  

Keep it Simple

If you focus on 4 areas, you will find that your employees will perform better and be happier with their contributions in the company:

1.  Clear Around Expectations

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.

There are different personality types in the workplace. If you only have two members on your team, you can see the diversity. Differences add value as individual perspectives can increase the effectiveness and productivity of a group. When a group works well together, there is enthusiasm and everyone benefits from individual contributions.

It would be great if all managers had employees that arrive at work on time, never complained, were self-motivated to perform at above satisfactory levels and were happy to at work. This doesn’t always happen.

“Striving for excellence motivates you; striving for perfection is demoralizing.” –Harriet Braiker

Take a moment to ask yourself where you put your emphasis on – excellence or perfection.

Do you have an understanding of the difference between excellence and perfection?  Being clear around the differences will help you make better decisions for yourself and in managing employees.  Let’s first define the two words:

Perfection: the quality or state of being perfect: as freedom from fault or defect

Excellence - very good of its kind : eminently good

What is perfection?