Management is a serious business. You’re responsible for the work and the well-being of several employees, which is something you’ll not take lightly. But it’s also the case that the methods you use to manage them – and the way in which you approach management elements like motivation and encouragement, can be hugely important for your team’s productivity. As such, this article offers four tips to help you make the most of your position in management, shaking up your team or department to make it more effective, efficient, and enjoyable for your staff to work in.
Team Outings
One of the ways in which you can bring your team together, ensuring everyone’s pulling in the same direction, is to organize frequent team outings. Make these accessible to all: it’s no good simply going for drinks every week if you have non-drinkers in your team. Instead, try to add variety to your social calendar. It might even be a smart idea to put the organization of team events into the hands of your workers, granting them some extra autonomy. Bonding and laughing, these outings are all about building team morale for those difficult days in the office.
Personal Development
As a manager, you’re up close and personal with each member of your team. You know how they work, what their aspirations are, and how well you’re currently doing in their career development. You know when to offer the carrot and when to use the stick. But how can you actually sit down with each member of your team to plan their personal development? One way is to do it using technology, making a form for your workers to fill in about the skills they’d like to develop over time. Collating these into a spreadsheet, you should be able to see where you can make interventions to make your workers happier and more motivated in their roles.
Support
While we’re on the topic of technology, nothing has been more helpful for those in management roles than the HR software that has emerged in recent years. It’s full-spectrum, centralized support software, designed to help your HR team understand more about your workers and help your workers interact with HR more effectively. But you also have access to their platform, where you can check in on your team – their holidays, their illnesses, or their complaints and issues – so that you’re always abreast of how exactly you can help them out.
Autonomy
In several studies, it’s become clear that employee autonomy is valued higher than salary increases or flexible working. In that sense, if you want to manage your workers better, making them happier and more productive in their roles, granting them a little more say in how and where they work might be a good idea. This should be done in consultation, opening up to the floor about different issues and ways in which your workers might choose to solve them. Your team is talented and imaginative: letting them manage their own days can work from time to time.
Management in the modern business era is about motivation rather than constant monitoring, as the examples given above show.
–
Leave a Reply