Getting the most out of your employees can be difficult, especially if you’re new to business management. The skills and tools needed to manage people aren’t taught in schools and colleges, so it’s up to you to figure them out as you go along.
As you grow and improve your business, those who work with you will grow and improve as well, so it’s important to create an effective employee management plan that allows you to effectively grow and develop your workers alongside your business. These seven steps will help you with this task.
Step 1: Define the Roles
First and foremost, determine how you want your employee roles to look. This process can be as involved or simple as you’d like it to be, but getting it done at all is a huge win.
To start, ask yourself these questions:
How many employees do I have?
Do they report directly or indirectly?
What departments will they oversee?
After you’ve answered those questions, identify one person who’ll lead your HR efforts (assuming there is one). If not, then find someone with enough experience in people management that he or she can hold down that responsibility on his own. This person will serve as a guide for all future decisions pertaining to your plan.
Step 2: Create a Clear Communication Plan
You might think you’re being a benevolent boss by leaving your employees alone, but that’s not what employees want. Communication is key for any manager who wants their employees to be productive, and it can be formalized as part of your employee management plan.
Develop a communication plan that outlines exactly how often you plan on communicating with each employee – weekly, bi-weekly or monthly are all viable options.
Create a schedule of times and dates when each one of these meetings will take place, and make sure they reflect when everyone has enough time available to discuss important topics. The more organized your communication plan is, the more effective it will be.
Step 3: Know Your Workforce
If you want your people management plan to be effective, it’s crucial that you know your employees. You have a finite amount of time and resources—employees included—so there’s no room for ambiguity when it comes to measuring your workforce’s engagement levels.
In order to truly understand what motivates them, what they expect from their career path, and how they perceive their work/life balance, perform annual surveys on each member of your team. Don’t focus too much on asking Yes/No? questions or giving them choices (A or B).
Open-ended questions are more helpful in getting unbiased answers that paint a picture of how engaged and involved employees feel about working at your company.
Step 4: Manage Your Employees’ Time
A successful employee management plan requires good time management. If your employees aren’t managing their time well, they could be less productive, unproductive or off-task (or any combination of these three).
To make sure your employees are on track, develop a time-management system for them—one that works for you and not against you.
For example, figure out how much work can be done in a specific amount of time and what happens if more is completed than expected. By giving each employee a set amount of work to do during specific times of day will keep everyone on task throughout your business day.
Step 5: Recruit Qualified Candidates
Once you have done your research, be sure to identify qualified candidates for each position. Look at not only their credentials, but also their personality and how well they will fit into your company culture.
There is more value in a person who is a good fit culturally than one who has all of the right credentials. In addition, it is important that you understand how employees react with each other on a day-to-day basis, especially if they work together on projects and need to collaborate.
Step 6: Give Feedback Regularly (And Constructively)
A lot of people are put off by giving feedback, mainly because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. Let your employees know that you believe in them and give them constructive feedback about how they can improve their work.
By doing so, you’ll be teaching them how they can get better at what they do—and saving yourself from having to fire them later on. Don’t forget: A little praise goes a long way.
Your employees will love working for you more if you let them know when their efforts aren’t going unnoticed. Keep up with employee management by identifying and addressing poor performance early on in order to prevent it from happening again in the future. It could save your company down the road!
Step 7: Be Flexible and Adaptable
Most people have a pretty set idea of how things should be done. When things don’t go according to that plan, they can get frustrated and fall into a cycle of I told you so. To avoid being stuck in that cycle, remain flexible and adaptable and recognize there is always room for improvement.
If you want your management style to work over time, adjust your strategies as needed instead of blindly implementing them each time. Keep trying new approaches until you find one that works best for your team members and your organization.
For example, if offering small rewards leads to some positive reactions, try adjusting when those rewards are given or switching up what type of reward is given out instead.