Ways to Ensure Your Managers to Get the Best Out of Your Employees
For many people who have never been a manager, they may see management as the modern-day equivalent of being a king. Sit in a corner off in a comfortable leather chair and issue proclamations and give orders to your knights. While there might be a corner office and leather chair involved, one thing is clear: proclamations alone won’t get the results needed from employees.
So, how does one get results from their employees? We talked with a representative from Texas DWI Law Firm about this. “Good managers have to remember that their employees are people and set a good example.” He offered the following suggestions.
Hire People Who Are Better Than You
Forget about hiring that perfect person for the position. Perfection doesn’t exist. What you will need is a person that asks questions, is comfortable pointing out mistakes, and who can work without continually being hovered over. When interviewing the candidate, be upfront about both the benefits and the drawbacks of the job. This will lead to a better fit than if you gloss over the positives and leave out the negatives.
Utilize the Best Technology
Take a look at the tasks that your employees are doing. You might want to especially look at the monotonous tasks that could be accomplished cheaper and faster with the application of technology. After all, if your employees are spending hours each week doing something that technology can speed up, you’re not going to get the most out of them.
Provide Feedback
Managers should give meaningful feedback throughout the year, not just in performance reviews. Positive feedback will strengthen engagement, but critical feedback is also essential. Negative feedback should be fair, expressed with care, and focused on specifics. Never give vague complaints as feedback. Allow the employee to tell their side of the story. You should also be willing to have managers accept feedback from employees.
Set the Tone at the Top
Employees are likely to perform better and meet expectations for a manager that they respect. Making sure that your managers are setting a good example with their behavior is key to ensuring a workplace where people want to meet and exceed expectations. Having managers who have a “do as I say not as I do” attitude will likely only foster discontent and resentment.
Don’t Micromanage
Micromanagement may lead to precise results, but not necessarily stellar performance. If an employee says that they need some type of training to solve a problem, try and arrange for that. If another employee comes up with a way to revamp a system to make it more efficient and consistent, don’t hold them back by saying, “We’ve always done it this way!”
In the end, getting great results from your employees doesn’t take that much more time or effort. Having your managers listen, allow the employees to do their jobs, and set the tone themselves can lead to fantastic results.
