Employees are at the heart of a successful business, but they need to be managed efficiently for them to reach their full potential. If you’re an entrepreneur struggling with leadership skills, it’s time to take a minute to upskill. Luckily, we’ve got you covered with the following five ways to improve your employee management skills.
Employee Organisation Using Technology
Part of employee management is creating a schedule, but this can be extremely time-consuming. Fortunately, there is plenty of fantastic scheduling and online time-tracking software out there, which will leave you with more time to focus on important employee interactions. One such tool is employee scheduling with Shiftbase.
Hire Top Talent
Managing employees will be much easier if you’ve already for the best talent. As well as having the correct qualifications, you should prioritise the following qualities:
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- Receptive. They have the ability to handle criticism.
- Humble. Awareness of strengths and weaknesses – they don’t get too big-headed.
- Reliability. They must work hard without making excuses.
- Enthusiasm. Willing to learn and progress outside of their comfort zone.
- Emotionally intelligent. Have the ability to empathize with others and manage their feelings.
When you hire talent based on their qualities, upskilling becomes a much easier task.
Set Clear Goals
You need to set clear business goals and ensure your team is made aware. With the goal in place, you’re in a better position to break it up into smaller tasks. When setting tasks, you must be clear, set a deadline, and have means of measuring achievements. When your employees understand what they’re working towards, their productivity levels increase exponentially.
Regular Performance Measurement
The majority of employees enjoy working without constant monitoring, but it’s important to check performance regularly. However, you can do this tactfully by avoiding the following:
- Streams of negative feedback. While negative feedback has a valuable position, you need to keep things positive to help with motivation.
- Micromanagement. You don’t need to manage every small detail of a task. Set the larger tasks and leave them to it – agree on suitable times to check progress.
- Showing a lack of confidence. When you constantly monitor employees, they begin to feel resentment towards management. You need to instil trust by avoiding constant monitoring.
Nurture Open Communication
Your employees need to feel welcomed when they approach you. Have an open-door or open-email policy and freely share ideas with your team. When your team is comfortable communicating freely, you may benefit from alternative viewpoints and ideas. Knowing your staff on a more personal level will help to resolve conflicts and boost productivity.
Managing employees doesn’t have to be an upwards battle – you just need to approach it with the correct methods and attitudes. Implementing effective management doesn’t need to be expensive – it can be achieved with interpersonal and communication skills. Use the tips outlined above to help get started, and once you’ve cracked it, you’ll feel the benefit of putting the time in.