What are you best at?  When you are managing your employees, where do you feel most comfortable in interacting?   If you focus on your strengths, you will enhance your management skills and guide the performance and well-being of your employees.  

Most managers find managing employees their greatest challenge as people can be a bit chaotic, and you may not always know what to do.  Since you can’t delegate this responsibility, you can choose to reframe your view of this challenge. 

Like each member on your team, you have your strengths as well as areas you are less comfortable.

All managers have some skills and knowledge around managing employees.  What if you were to select the one skill that you feel most confident when managing your team and fully develop that one strength…and do it until you see results with your team.   

You may be a new manager where every aspect of your role as a manager seems challenging.  Take one function and do your best.  This way you minimize the overwhelming feeling that comes with managing employees and start to maximize your results.

Here are skills that you need in managing people:

• Recruiting – find out all you need to know to find the best talent.   Select employees who are high performers with strong communication skills.  Be clear on what functions within your department are needed to meet your deliverables.   Learn about behavior-based interviewing techniques to develop your recruiting skills. 
• Motivation – Do you naturally encourage and motivate others?  Technically motivation comes from the individual, yet the manager can open or close the ‘motivation door’ within each person.    
• Coaching – focus your attention on the details of each person’s performance and guide them to the best of their abilities.
• Conflict Resolution – do you have strong negotiation skills and enjoy creating a win-win for both sides.
• High Standards – Clear about what performance levels are critical to succeed in business.  Are you willing to follow up to insure that your team members are clear about the performance expectations.  Respect for the individual and their strengths is important in this area.
• Listening – is this a strong skill for you.  Do you have the ability to slow down and hear what others say?    This is an important skill and worth the effort to fully develop it.
• Organizing – you are great at organizing and you can mentor and help your employees become more productive.  In addition to organizing, you will also need to be proficient in understanding other’s work styles.

Select one function above where you are most skilled and fully develop your knowledge and delivery.  If you take one area and build your knowledge and skills, you will find that the other functions of a successful manager will become stronger. 

When you are focusing your attention on your strengths, you increase your confidence, feel better about yourself, and in turn increase the well-being of your team.

Take the time to evaluate what you do best in managing employees.  All managers have strength in at least one area…find out what you like best and what you currently offer your employees.  Then provide your employees with the best you have to offer.

Pat

Next Topic
Different Resources For Your Learning

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21 Great Ways to Become an Outstanding Manager  by Brian Tracy
With this valuable step-by-step program, you will learn how to:
• Lead your team to maximum results - so you can stand out above the rest
• Keep your team happy and motivated
• Maximize your natural leadership capabilities
• Build a team to take you to the top
• Make your profits soar
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Other Topics
Can I Make Mistakes With Employees?
Coaching Your Employees Can Be Fun
Help, I’m A New Manager

Management and motivation are used together…a strong manager motivates the performance of an employee.  

What is the meaning of motivation?   (Merriam-Webster): 1 a : the act or process of motivating b : the condition of being motivated 2 : a motivating force, stimulus, or influence (as a drive or incentive).

Can a manager motive the employee to perform?  No and Yes!

Motivation resides within the employee.   When managing your employees you can provide a work environment that is conducive to supporting the employee’s own desire to motivate themselves.   

• There are employees who are only motivated to do just what is needed and not a drop more.   No matter what you do to provide an environment that encourages them to do more, they have set the standards they are willing to extend their energy.
• Other employees seem to be so highly motivated, that even if you short change them with attention and direction, they thrive and move forward.    Of course, you want this type of employee.   
• If your team is not performing at a level you need, then in managing employees, you job is to set higher standards to meet the business demands.  The employee will still decide if they will elevate their performance to meet the new standards.  

Do you find yourself frustrated because you try your best and yet the employees are not responding in a positive manner.  

There is a balance between what you can offer and what the employee needs to add to the mix for the success of the department.

Companies have different cultures and that impacts the manager’s ability to create a strong working environment.   Even within the most challenging companies, try your best to ask the right questions.    

Just keep it simple and do the basics.   Your will quickly discern the employee(s) who will not motivate themselves to higher performance levels.

• Speak to the employee’s strengths – you tap quickly into an employee’s motivation levels.  If you don’t know them, ask them.
• Be aware of your own strengths and use them regularly - this allows you to use those strengths to find the necessary solutions you need to work with employees.
• Listen to your employees…find out what is important to them.  If you can provide a solution for them, then you will tap into their desire to perform.   If you can’t, be honest and work with them to find alternative solutions.
• Provide clear standards and expectations on the level of performance.  Follow up regularly to insure that employees are performing at the expected levels.
• Find time to recognize employee’s contributions…this is the easiest way to enhance an employee’s motivation levels.    
• Be clear with employees that they are responsible for their own levels of motivation.  You will do your best to provide a respectful working environment for them, and you ask them to take responsibility for their own performance within that environment.

Final Thoughts

You focus is to create the best working environment you can…pay fairly, provide challenging work and support employees in their own development.  Be clear about the standards that are needed to maintain a high level of performance.  Communicate to your employees that they have a responsibility for their own motivation levels.   

Question????

What do you find most frustrating in managing employees?  Go to the comment section at the end of the post and share your thoughts.

Next Topic
Can I Do What I Do Best…Every Day?

Pat

Book Recommendation
Now, Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton.

You can take the Gallup poll to discover your top 5 strengths.    The authors believe that you can tap into an employee’s motivation by working with their strengths…as well as your own.   Take the online test and find out your top 5 strengths.

Other Topics
Help Your Employees Build Their ‘Confidence Muscles’
How To Handle An Employee With An ‘Attitude’
Asking the Right Questions

Like any program, you have to market it….what’s the value to the employee to give up their lunch or to stop working. What’s the value to the company?

More and more employees eat while working.  You want to manage the employee’s effectiveness on the job.  This could be a nice break for them.   Visually I believe that we need a change and taking employees away from the PC for an hour gives such a break. 

The most important reason is that you are providing the space for them to develop their knowledge and skills…that’s a win-win for everyone.

What ideas work for lunchtime seminars?   Well you can do a one-time only seminar or a series of seminars to build knowledge on a specific topic.

Here are some great topics:

• Technology – do you have an expert on staff for a particular form of technology?  This is great way to bring the other employees up to speed on what is new.  Since the employee may put in some time creating the presentation, give them a ‘thank you’ bonus of gift certificate to a technology site.
• Careers – bring in HR or a strong manager who can provide ‘how to’ build your career.   This is a great topic for a series.    First, the employees define what they want and continues with further lunchtime meetings to learn how to build their career.  Encourage employees to take control over their careers.  Yes, it’s great if the manager drives it, but ultimately the employee is in charge of their careers.  Give them the tools and it will make your life easier.
• Time management topics – this is a broad subject as there are different models of time management.  Find one that works for your company.
• New industry trends – Great topic for a senior manager to present.  The senior manager provides industry direction as well as meets with employees and interacts with them.  
• You can also bring in a guest speaker…a well-know author in the field.
• Company financials – companies have different opinions about this subject, yet informed employees make better decisions. 
• Business change – bring in lunch and communicate to the employees what the changes are about and how it will affect them.    Have several meetings to continuously communicate the change and gather feedback. 
• Community participation – how the company supports the community as well as helping employees find ways to volunteer in non-profit environments.   
• Work/Life Balance – most companies initially see this as counterproductive because they automatically believe the employee will work less.    If you are managing employees, it’s not the time in the office, but rather the effectiveness of the time. 
• Health & Wellness – bring in a health fair or have a professional come in to speak about exercise, nutrition or other topics that are important to your employees. 
• Allow employees to take teleseminars in their profession.  For example, Society for Human Resource Professionals has several hour-long teleseminars during the month.   Guest speakers provide current information on pertinent information for HR professionals.   
• …and more. 

What To Do 

• Set up a committee of managers and employees to brainstorm around what topics are valuable for the company and employee.
• Select a list of your top subjects.
• Create a list of potential teaching resources – internal and external.
• Create a budget because every action within a company costs money.  The question is the return on the investment. 
• Find the teaching resources that fit your budget
• Create a calendar of lunchtime seminar dates
• Publish the calendar with description of the seminar
• Market to employees and encourage them to participate – this you will need to do on a regular basis.

Final Thought

Knowledge is driving business now and your employees are the keepers of the knowledge.   Anytime you can provide additional development for your employees, you benefit in multiple ways.  First, the employee is able to perform better and they are interested in staying at a company that creates a strong ‘learning’ environment. 
  
P.S.   Each state has a different legal requirement around lunchtime for hourly employees…so check out how you can offer your hourly employees the same opportunities and still be within legal boundaries. 

Next Topic
In Managing Employees, How Much Can You Manage?

Pat

Book Recommendation:
Coaching for Performance, Third Edition (People Skills for Professionals) by John Whitmore.   Managers need to build their skills in maximizing employees potential.   The business environment is very competitive for dollars and for talent.   John Whitmore provides concrete information to build your skill in coaching.  If you think like a coach, you have the ability to groom your employees to produce their best. It’s all about asking the right questions and listening to the answers.   Easy to read and incorporate your new knowledge quickly into action.

Other Topics:
Create a ‘Learning Plan’ For All Employees
Help Your Employees Build Their ‘Confidence Muscles’
Asking the Right Questions

What areas do managers need to communicate to their team?

• Performance of the company
• Company and department goals
• Industry changes
• Compensation and career expectations
• New hires - performance standards for your department
• Ongoing performance feedback to each member of your team

Employees want to contribute to the growth of the company.  If you have concerns that knowing the company’s performance could create anxiety in your employees…don’t worry because if there is a problem, they know already, but just don’t have the specifics.    If you don’t have all the specifics, let your employees know and indicate you will follow up as soon as you have more information.

Where do managers need to focus their listening skills?

Managing employee’s expectations doesn’t mean only to ‘keep their expectations realistic’…though that is important.  Rather it’s about interacting with each employee to know what he or she expects from his or her job, from you and from the company.   Each person has their own work expectations and it’s your job to know what they want. 

I’m not sharing anything new because you have already bumped into employees who are focus on their work environment, compensation, and careers.  

Why is it important to manage employee’s expectations?   Employees are part of the quality of your product or service.    Just as you spend time understanding the competitive environment for your product or service, knowing what your employees want, what motivates them, and how you can be a part of meeting those expectations is part of managing employees.

Knowledge is critical to growth of a company and who has the knowledge…your employees

Business environments are more competitive and so is your ability to retain top talent.  Employees recognize when a manager is supporting them in their expectations.

Top Talent is anyone who performs their responsibilities with enthusiasm, know how and with the drive to do their best.  No matter what their position is within your company, you want to keep them.

What to Do

• Make it a priority to meet with each person every quarter.  A year is just too long…you could lose them before their performance review or right after they receive their bonus.
• Share important information with them on a regular basis about the department and company.
• Always tell the truth and your employees will trust you.   Trust is something you can’t buy, and yet once you have it, you can build a great department.
• If you can’t share confidential information at this time, tell them.   Though don’t make everything you do confidential or employees will catch on real quick.  
• Be open to flexible options - with technology employees can perform their responsibilities anywhere and at any time.  

Final Thoughts 

Managing employees is about setting priorities and standards for your team, providing important information about the company, and actively understanding what your employees expect from you and the company.   Know your employees…or your competitors will find an opening for them.   

Next Topic 
Lunchtime Seminar

Pat

Book Recommendation:

The 7 Hidden Reasons Employees Leave: How to Recognize the Subtle Signs and Act Before It’s Too Late  by  Leigh Branham.   Before you meet with your employees, read this book.   The author provides you with stories and studies on why people really leave a company.   The question for you is do you want to know why before they leave or after?   Even if you have a strong department, make sure you don’t miss that one employee who is not happy as part of your team.

Other Topics:
Create a ‘Learning Plan’ For All Employees
Hiring Top Performers
Can I Make Mistakes With Employees?  

First, congratulate yourself for receiving the recognition that you have strong leadership and management skills and are talented in your field.    Knowing that you have the ability to manage employees will guide you in handling any employee related situation that comes you way.

What works for me when I’m anxious or resistant to handling a difficult employee related situation, I just step back from the situation, take three deep breaths and state my ability to find the right solution to any employee challenge.    Why is this important?   When you center yourself, you show up in the situation clearer, more confident and structure the situation better.   This confidence will guide your through any challenging employee related situation.

Here are some thoughts around handling the existing manager who has been replaced by you: 

• The individual was replaced because they were not able to handle the full scope of the position.   The company decided to keep this employee because they can still contribute to the department.  
• They have knowledge…information that you need to step into your role smoothly.
• They feel vulnerable regarding their job as well as embarrassed that they haven’t met the essential functions as a manager.  
• They want to be recognized as providing value to the department.
• They will probably not exhibit vulnerability, but rather anger, passivity or challenging your abilities to handle the role.

What can you do to build a relationship with this individual?

• Information gathering…Ask your manager or read the employee’s file so you can understand their previous strengths and weaknesses.  I say previous because your leadership could potentially bring out or enhance their strengths.  Their management responsibilities may have hampered their abilities. 
• Listen…this is your greatest skill in any difficult situation.  Ask questions and listen to verbal and non-verbal answers.
• Respect…Before meeting with the individual assume the person has the right to your respect.   When you filter your thoughts, questions and interactions with an employee through respect, you will be able to build a stronger relationship.  Even if you decide an employee can’t handle the essential functions of a job, you can handle the situation with respect.
• Openness…Engage the employee around the change.   It’s good to discuss the ‘moose’ in the middle of the table.  The ‘moose’ is that they were removed from their management responsibilities.   Be open about what happened and how you can support them in the transition.   You have a great opportunity to reframe their thinking about the situation.   They could potentially be relieved they no longer have to deal with the responsibilities.
• Clarity…For this employee it’s important that you provide clarity around expectations of their performance and behavior.    Request their support in creating a strong department.   People want to feel good about their contribution.
• Trust…Everyone seeks comfort in a situation, so listen to what each person needs to perform at his or her best.  Your response to their needs will be the stepping-stones to building a strong working relationship.

Final Thought

As a new manager, you need to give some time to managing your relationship with your employees.  For the manager you are replacing, set a time for yourself; say 6 weeks with your active participation in building the relationship.  If you have done all of the above and the employee still resists your role as manager, then you will need to address that issue.    Don’t wait too long because negative behaviors become embedded between people and it’s more difficult to entangle and change.

Next Topic
Managing Employee’s Expectations

Pat

Other Topics:
Are You A ‘People Friendly’ Manager?
Recognition – Ways to Motivate Your Employees
Asking the Right Questions

********************************
Brian Tracy speaks to corporate and public audiences on the subjects of Personal and Professional Development, including the executives and staff of many of America’s largest corporations.  I have purchased several of his CDs and have found that he presents the information in a clear, systematic and informative manner.  “The Science of Self-Confidence” is great to purchase for yourself and your employees.   Bring the tools in house so that employees can focus on building their confidence.
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http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_50/b4013001.htm

In reading this article, I learned an innovative and effective way to managing employees.  What I gathered from this article is that the manager is most effective when they help their employees become ‘accountable’ for their performance. Today’s manager has to be focused on results and not on the employee’s presence in the workplace.  That is when flexibility in the workplace becomes a viable option.

Read the article and form your own opinions.   Don’t get bogged down in their specifics, but rather allow yourself to appreciate the work environment and how it promotes accountability, flexibility, loyalty and ultimately the bottom line for the company.

So having said that, let’s look more at workplace flexibility.

What exactly is a flexible workplace?    Generally it includes flexibility around hours worked, days, physical space where you work, part-time hours or job sharing.  Creating the right program for your company depends on you, your employees, your culture and the willingness to let go of established business policies. 

What flexible workplace options do you now have in place?  Evaluate how they are working and whether you can enhance them or should further market your programs to your employees.

A flexible work environment actually creates more employee accountability.  A parent is focused when they can work late tonight to complete a project and then can go to their child’s performance the next day.    This type of flexibility creates a strong working relationship between managers and employees.  It is not the only criteria for employee loyalty, though it does add significantly to higher performance levels.   Whenever we promote ‘accountability’ in employees, we win on the performance levels.

Before assuming that you can’t change the current structure and that work in the office between 9-5 is the only model, it is helpful to brainstorm on other possibilities.   There is an art to creating possibilities.   Being open to a flexible work environment doesn’t mean that you have to make major changes right away.  Rather, you can create small steps that build on change.

Check out the book “The Art of Possibility: Transforming Professional and Personal Life” by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamin Zander.  The Authors open the door for you to explore ways to create a new perspective.    Whenever we make a change in our perception, we grow as professionals and members of our community.

Take some time to brainstorm around flexibility in your workspace.  Bring a group of employees together from different departments or different passages in their lives.   Give them the charge to come up with as many suggestions around workplace flexibility as they can.   Allow them the freedom of creativity.  

Final Thought

It’s important for you to be mindful that how you managed employees in the past is not going to keep you competitive in business or in the talent market.
  
Next Topic
Member Suggestion: How Does The New Manager Handle The Existing Manager They Are Replacing?  

Pat

Other Topics:
Manage By Listening
How To Tell If You Are A Micro-Manager
Are You A ‘People Friendly’ Manager?

********************************
Brian Tracy speaks to corporate and public audiences on the subjects of Personal and Professional Development, including the executives and staff of many of America’s largest corporations.  I have purchased several of his CDs and have found that he presents the information in a clear, systematic and informative manner.  “The Science of Self-Confidence” is great to purchase for yourself and your employees.   Bring the tools in house so that employees can focus on building their confidence.
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Companies that support continuous learning are usually successful because training affects the bottom line of a business.

Since there is a shortage of talent with the necessary skills and knowledge to meet business demands, why not take your internal talent and grow them. Compensation is important but if you follow employee surveys, you will find that ‘learning’ is critical to an employee’s satisfaction and to the overall retention within a company.

Manager’s first reaction to providing training is that the employee will then move on to another company.   We know that long-term loyalty is not offered by employee or employer, so the goal is to maintain higher retention levels for the effectiveness of the business.  Training is one tool that works. 

Employees respond favorably to employers who provide advance training.   Just make sure that the training can be applied to your specific business.   Guide your employees in their training efforts by informing them of the business goals so they can make suitable educational choices.

The ‘x’ and ‘y’ generations expect to be challenged and look for opportunities to develop their careers through new projects, promotions and access to formal learning benefits.  Employees want the certificates and advanced degrees and are willing to do the work and consider training a required benefit to working at a company.  They recognize that advance education is critical to their future employment.

What needs to be done?  

• Create for each employee a ‘learning’ plan based on his or her current roles as well as their career growth within the organization.  
• If you don’t have the budget to provide a tuition-reimbursement program to your employees, spend time brainstorming on how to create your company’s ‘learning’ culture. 

Here are some ideas that you can start your brainstorming with:

Internal Learning

• Business knowledge – create a training that presents the business basics so each employee can understand how their responsibilities support the business.
• Career paths – yearly review of the employee’s career growth within the company.
• In-House Training – subject matter experts can share their expertise to build and enhance the depth of industry knowledge within the company.
• Library – build the company library by creating a book allowance.   You can allocate a certain amount for each employee to spend each year for business-related reading materials.  They would have to put in a ‘book request’ with justification.   You reimburse the employee for the book and then add it to the company library.   This way you encourage your employees to build their industry knowledge as well as add to the library so others can increase their knowledge. 
• Mentoring – this is a classic program that is part of succession as well as management training programs where you partner strong performers with more senior management to learn the ‘ropes’ of the business. 
• Stretch projects – provide employees with ‘stretch’ opportunities with project or leadership work. 
• Subscriptions – bring in appropriate business related magazines or journals for the continuous growth of employees. 
• Training Manuals – create appropriate learning manuals for specific procedures within the organization.  
• New Employee Training Programs – this is critical in the success of an employee.  Even if you are a small company, have a program in place that successfully integrates the new employee into the work environment.  See my previous posting “Retaining Your Talent – New Hire.” 
• …and lots more.

External Learning

• Formal educational resources – colleges and universities
• Professional organizations offer specific classes on industry information
• Business organizations – For example, American Management Association
• E-learning training on specific topics
• Online degree programs are providing advanced degrees to meet the demands of time and information intensive environments.

Note: If there is a performance-related issue, sending someone out to a training session may or may not be the answer.  What is critical in creating a ‘learning’ plan is that the training matches the individual.    Performance-based issues can be attributed to a lack of knowledge, interest or an inability to perform the essential functions of the job.   So use your training efforts and dollars wisely.

Final Thought
Make learning and development part of your conversations with your staff.  Even if your employees are non-exempt, encourage them to take on more challenges, to increase the quality of their work and to learn something new.    Continuous learning keeps the employee fresh and interested in their performance.  Otherwise, they become stale in their work and performance becomes ‘average’ or ‘mediocre.’   Every employee influences the bottom line.

That is why I have this blog…to help you learn how to manage employees better.   I’m not a learning and development specialist and you may have something to teach me.  Feel free to add your comments to any blog post…so others and I can continuously learn from each other.

Next Topic
Flexible Work Environment

Pat

Other Topics:
3 Different Types of Employee Goals
How To Create Employee Goals
Tips For Effective Performance Reviews
That Time of The Year…Again…Performance Reviews

=====================================
BrianTracy.com – Accelerated Learning (Six CDs,workbook)
Learn a system of proven, practical techniques that increase your ability to learn and remember names, facts, figures and business information 400 percent faster than today. Learn how to memorize quickly, speed read, improve your brainpower and multiply your intelligence.
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Here are some ideas to help you decide what is important.

• Are you clear on what you and your team are required to accomplish?  If not, take the time to rectify that.
• You need to know what still needs to be done?  Part of our stress is not knowing all the moving parts.   Gather a list of what is completed and what still needs to be done.
• You now have a list of what needs to be done.  This is the time to ask “why” something is important.  Systems develop and not everything is still important to do. 
• Since you and your employees can each only do one thing at a time, there will always be too much to do.   This is what management is all about…to prioritize and decide what is most important. 
• You influence your employees more by communicating face-to-face rather than email.  For virtual employees, call them.  Email is so impersonal and your goal is to build a relationship with your team members.   If you have hundreds of employees under you, train the supervisors to build relationships with their direct reports.  Limit your email use with employees.  
• If you can’t meet regularly with each member of your team, have senior members become mentors or “buddies” to junior staff.  Encourage everyone to get up and speak to others rather than emailing.  
• You have to be ruthless about your time.   Track your time – where are you spending it…in lengthy meetings or email.   These are your time robbers and you need to figure out a way to diminish those activities.    If email is your time robber, get someone else to pre-read and handle most of your email, have your email automatically filed in it’s appropriate category so you can read when you are ready, or have a separate email address for customers and employees and address what’s important first. 
• Delegate…Delegate…Delegate!   Bring in an intern or two to handle the routine functions of your job or your department.  Your team can also be freed up to handle their “to do” list.   Have someone attend a meeting for you and report back.  Take the time to brainstorm on all the activities that you can hand over to others and then find solutions to do just that. 
• Not all companies recognize that a manager needs to develop their management skills on a regular basis.  Schedule some learning time for yourself.

Final Thought

There is usually one overall focus for any company…to provide a service or a product and build strong and lasting relationships with the customers.  Your employees service those customers.  Since it’s known already that a key component of an employee’s success is their relationship with the manager, it’s important to focus your attention on them.   

Start today…start with something small such as sending one less email to an employee and instead speaking directly to them.

Next Topic
Create a “Learning” Plan

Pat

Other Topics:
What To Look For In a Coach
Have Your Considered Management Coaching…For You?
Are You a ‘Burned Out’ Manager?

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The Experts Guide To Managing Your Time
Solve All Your Time Management Woes. 27 Top Experts Spill Their Secrets, Covering Procrastination, Prioritizing, Scheduling, Organizing, Clutter, Work Life Balance, Efficiency, Productivity, Waste, Wastage, To Do List,todo, Tips, Techniques And Tricks.

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I would suggest the following important points to use as a guide in providing support and guidance in increasing your employees “confidence muscles.”

• Listen for your employee’s current level of confidence as it may change given the specific project they are working on.  Each person brings their personal beliefs about their capabilities to the job.  As you monitor their level of performance, you can observe how they handle different situations.  In managing employees, you have so many opportunities to be part of their success. 
• Accentuate the Positive – If there is one booster that increases an employee’s confidence it’s focusing on their knowledge, skills or past contributions.  Managing employees by their strengths build their confidence and in turn, adds more to the overall success of the department.  Encourage your employees to acknowledge their contributions to the team.  Try to use the 80-20 rule…spend 80% of your time with an employee addressing their strengths and 20% helping them handle any issues that are hampering their performance.  Why…because you receive the most value from their strengths. 
• Set clear direction and expectations around performance so your team members know what is expected.  The clearer they are about what they need to do, the more confident they will be in implementing their work.
• Train – give employees the chance to succeed by providing training.   Even if you hire talent with experience, they still need to learn.
• Plan – help your employees create and stay focused on their goals.  Their planning skills should cover yearly, quarterly, monthly and daily.   Each day they need to stay focus on what is important and not get swayed by interruptions and reactivity.  
• Proactive – encourage your team members to be active in increasing their level of confidence.   Some ways are to take on new projects, reading business or industry information, and CDs and lectures on building self-confidence. 
• Recognition – take the time to recognize an employee who has done excellent work.   This spot acknowledgement adds to the employee’s confidence and they will continue to perform.  Don’t assume they know that their work was great…tell them. 
• Encourage your employees to take risks…either by making suggestions or trying something different.   
• Follow up on a regular basis with your employees.  It would be great if you could meet monthly, but at least on a quarterly basis.  

Final Thought

Start the whole process over by listening.  Your ability to listen will boost your own level of confidence as well as the confidence of your employees.
 

Next Topic
There is Too Much To Do

Pat

Other Topics:
Asking the Right Questions
Strengths Of Your Employees
Recognition – Ways to Motivate Your Employees

********************************
Brian Tracy speaks to corporate and public audiences on the subjects of Personal and Professional Development, including the executives and staff of many of America’s largest corporations.  I have purchased several of his CDs and have found that he presents the information in a clear, systematic and informative manner.  “The Science of Self-Confidence” is great to purchase for yourself and your employees.   Bring the tools in house so that employees can focus on building their confidence.
********************************

If the issue is performance related such as not providing a co-worker with the right information, then you will need to handle this differently.   The type of issues addressed here is not performance related, but rather different styles in performing work and interacting with each other.
 

Examples of workplace issues

• Employees interrupting others while they are concentrating on a project.   People have different work styles…some need to interact more; others need to focus all of their attention on what they are doing.   This is a common issue within the workplace.
• Competitive issues where employees will try to undermine other’s performance.
• Physical space - each person has different comfort levels around mess.   In a cubicle, there are “neatniks” and “messies,” and those styles irritate each other. 
• Food in the cubicle….some people are sensitive to different smells.
• Borrowing other’s supplies, without asking.
• Playing music – employees like different types of music.

…and many more irritations that employees struggle with that reduce productivity in the workplace.

What are your employee’s responsibilities?
Employees have the right to work in an environment that enhances their productivity.   At the same time, employees need to recognize that they will not get along with everyone and can learn how to solve their problems.  They can’t just come with the complaint and expect you to solve the issue for them.  

There are numerous solutions to the same problem.   For example, what if someone plays music in the cubicle and it interferes with an employee’s ability to concentrate on their work.

• Handle the situation as soon as it surfaces as an issue for them.  The longer they wait, the more frustrated they will become, and their emotions will block their ability to resolve the issue.
• They can present the issue to the other person in the “I” format.  I have difficulty concentrating when the music is on.  Maybe music helps you think but it breaks my concentration.  How can we resolve this issue since we are both in the same cubicle?
• Ask if they can use “headphones” to listen to their music.
• If they are reluctant to speak to the other person, if possible, they can take their work to an open cubicle or the cafeteria.
• They can ask to swap cubicle with others whose style of working is more complimentary to them.
• Speak with the manager.

What can you do!
Employees may have to work with others they don’t like…how can you help them understand their role in the dynamics and help them build their problem-solving skills.

You can’t control every situation but you can be proactive in helping co-workers get along.   Create some “getting along” policies.  Open workspace is common now and employees on more on top of each other.  Most conflict occurs because of misunderstandings and assumptions about the other person’s intentions.  Providing employees with guidelines or etiquette in working together helps minimize many smaller workplace issues.   Create a small committee to come up with some common issues and how to deal with them in the workplace.

When managing employees, it is helpful to understand how each of your team members deals with conflict.  Here again each person has different comfort zones and the more you know about the individual employee, the more you can support them in resolving their workplace issues.  It’s important to handle issues between co-workers quickly because the longer you wait the more embedded the issue will become and the more difficult it is for employees to change their opinions.  

Final Note
Workplace respect is the responsibility of both you and your employees.  Your role is to provide guidelines and standards for the work environment.  Even with the best intentions, individuals don’t get along and your role is to help them find solutions to their workplace issues.  Strong management skills include the ability to handle conflict within your teams.  Check out this book: 

How To Reduce Workplace Conflict And Stress: How Leaders And Their Employees Can Protect Their Sanity And Productivity From Tension And Turf Wars by Anna Maravelas.  Managing employees means also managing conflict that surface between different people.   This book provides many workplace conflict examples as well as helps you navigate the daily frustrations that employees present to you.

Next Topic
Help Your Employee Build Their “Confidence Muscles”

Pat

Other Topics:
Manage By Listening
Help Your Employees Build Their ‘Confidence Muscles’
Asking the Right Questions

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The Experts Guide To Managing Your Time
Solve All Your Time Management Woes. 27 Top Experts Spill Their Secrets, Covering Procrastination, Prioritizing, Scheduling, Organizing, Clutter, Work Life Balance, Efficiency, Productivity,To Do List, Tips, Techniques And Tricks.

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