Managing Employees

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.  

A “people friendly” environment reduces stress, decreases turnover, and supports higher levels of performance with employees.  Organizations today are addressing the “people friendly” environment with additional programs that support work-life balance.   And..that is great. 

It’s a good idea to ask yourself if you are a “people friendly” manager.  Managers have good intentions and try their best to support their staff, yet it can be easier to manage the business vs. managing employees. 

My focus in this post is to stop you long enough to reflect on your interactions with your staff…when you are managing your employees, how do you treat them. 

In my last post, I said my next topic would be “different types of employee goals”…but I decided to write on another topic.  A question that all managers face in managing employees:

…can I make mistakes with my employees and still be effective in managing them?  

Note:  Some mistakes are illegal…become familiar with the federal and state employment laws.

The mistakes I’m talking about are human in nature….being too busy to focus or to listen to your employees.   

I’ve certainly made mistakes with my staff….didn’t listen enough, was annoyed, rescheduled 1:1’s with my staff more often than I should, and yet I still managed to do a fairly decent job in managing them.  

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.

Micro-management is a term that has surfaced in the business world to indicate when a manager watches everything an employee does and tries to control their performance. The basic reaction to this style of management is it stifles the growth of employees as well as the business.

An employee knows immediately when they are being micro-managed. However, a manager doesn’t always recognize that they are micro-managing their staff.

How do you know if you are a micro-manager?

Do you get frustrated if someone on your team makes a decision without consulting you?