Managing a team – whether composed of 10 or 100 members – can be one of the most challenging tasks you’ll face as a business owner. The fact is, your company’s success relies heavily on how productive your staff is. If they’re not very efficient in carrying out tasks and producing high-quality output, chances are, you won’t be able to see much progress in your company. However, if you’re actively empowering and motivating them, they’re more likely to thrive and succeed.
As a business owner and manager, you have to continually ensure that each employee or department is working as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, there are a lot of different strategies to help you with this. Here are the seven best ways to manage your employees and make sure that your company is working like a well-oiled machine:
1. Communicate Effectively
Communication is key to an efficient team and, therefore, a successful company. Without proper communication, misunderstandings and mistakes can happen, which could directly affect your team’s productivity. Other than that, an ineffective communication pattern could also lead to role confusion within the group. As a manager, it’s one of your duties to ensure that there are no communication gaps within your team.
Part of communicating with your staff effectively is to do it more often. Keeping a continued interaction with your employees will help ensure that they are on the same page as you. It also prevents them from feeling disengaged, unmotivated, and lonely – feelings that are common among remote workers.
Whether you’re managing remote or in-house employees, effective communication is vital. There are a lot of communication tools and apps available at your disposal. Email, chats, and videoconferencing apps like Zoom and Slack are great for managing remote employees. You can also create an online workspace where your employees can log on and check information pertaining to their roles and the company as a whole.
2. Allow Your Team Members to Take Ownership of Their Work
One of the things that business owners and managers must understand is the power of letting their team members take ownership of their work. You can encourage your team to take ownership by letting them make work decisions on their own. Of course, this doesn’t mean that they shouldn’t consult you when doing this. This simply implies giving them the power to decide and develop ideas and solutions on their own. By doing this, you’ll be encouraging them to be responsible for their activities and choices. They will take more calculated steps because they know that whatever their decision will be, it will affect the company.
One of the best ways to enforce ownership among your employees is assigning challenging tasks to them, such as leading a project or giving a task that would require them to use their creativity. Knowing that you trust them enough to handle critical tasks will boost their self-esteem. It would also push them to work harder to contribute to the company’s bottom line.
3. Check-in Often
Leading your team also means checking up on them regularly. Although this may seem unnecessary, holding regular check-ins – whether it’s one on one or a team check-in allows you to check and get regular updates about your employees’ progress. With regular correspondence with your employees, you’ll also get a chance to look at their workload. Checking in with your employees also allows you to find out if there are any issues or problems they may be facing. By being fully aware of these, you will gain better insights into how you can adjust your management strategies and find solutions to solve any work-related problems that your staff might be facing.
Check-ins with your employees are also helpful in building closer relationships with them. The more they become comfortable talking to you, the less hesitant they will be in approaching you whenever they’re experiencing any work-related issues. The faster the problems are resolved, the more work they can do, and the better their productivity levels will be.
4. Conduct Non-Work-Related Activities
There’s no denying that work can become extremely stressful at times. Sometimes, employees need a break from their regular work routine to take a little breather. As a manager, aside from checking in on them, you should consider conducting activities to help your staff relax when things get stressful. Some of the activities you can include are:
- Socials night in your office (if you’re managing an in-house team)
- Coffee breaks where the team comes together and talk about anything that’s not related to work
- Virtual team activities like virtual mobile competitions or talent shows.
Even if it’s just an hour or two worth of non-work-related activity, it can create a huge difference in alleviating your employees’ stress levels. You don’t necessarily have to spend a lot on these activities. Even a simple activity like allowing your employees to socialize with each other helps them relax. Give your staff a moment to breathe helps them recharge to do their best at their jobs.
5. Organize a Team Building Activity
Teamwork makes the dream work – simple as that. You have to make sure that all your employees are working in harmony together to maximize team efficiency. Conducting team building activities is a great way to instill camaraderie between your employees. The more that they get along with each other, the more efficient the team will be.
Business owners sometimes cannot avoid conflicts between team members. However, if handled with a bit of tact, you can bring those team members together. Team building exercises help bring your team members together. If those activities involve them working with a pair or as a group of three, it will help improve their collaboration skills and bring them closer together.
6. Use Your Employees’ Strengths when Assigning Tasks
People are unique. In the workplace, you can’t expect everybody to have the same level of mastery when it comes to a specific skill. It’s also highly possible that each member of your team enjoys different types of tasks. As a manager, one thing you have to realize is that each of your team member has a different set of strengths and weaknesses.
Knowing what your team members excel at is vital as you plan on delegating tasks. Giving a writing task to a member who you know enjoys writing will also assure that you’ll get high-quality results. Plus, they’re more likely to finish the tasks faster, given their skill and mastery. Not only that, when you give employees a task that they personally like working on, they will feel more empowered and motivated to do their best work.
7. Always Encourage Feedback and Acknowledge a Job Well-Done
When managing a team, don’t forget to give feedback to your employees. Positive feedback will help empower your employees and motivate them to do better. You can also use feedback to encourage employees to work harder to produce quality outputs and contribute more to the company’s success.
In the same way, you should also ask your employees for feedback about your management style. This will help you know what areas you can improve in and determine whether some of your strategies have been effective or not. From your employees’ feedback, you’ll also know what element of your managing style is lacking and incorporate it so you can do better in the future.
Of course, don’t forget to acknowledge a job well-done at the end of the day. If you’ve accomplished your goals right on schedule, give praise to the people behind the success. Similarly, if one of your team members played a critical role in reaching your goal, commend them for a job well done. Acknowledge their hard work in front of the team. It may seem simple, but this gesture can give a huge morale boost, which will motivate them to work even harder in the future.
Final Thoughts
Although managing employees can be challenging, you can learn how to make it less complicated by learning a few strategies. Adopting the right mindset and techniques can make it easier for you to improve your team’s (and company’s) productivity. You don’t have to spend a lot. Starting with the ones mentioned above can make a difference in your company.
Although improving your team’s performance and efficiency is vital to your company’s success, it’s also essential to look at the individual person’s well-being. The right management strategy involves improving the company’s bottom line while also showing their employees that they care about them. If you’re looking for management tips for your employees, the ones listed above can certainly come in handy.
