5 Tips to Manage Employees

Managing employees takes practice and patience.  Being an effective manager is a skill that can be learned if you’re willing.  According to the ground breaking book, First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently, people don’t leave companies, they leave managers.  This is absolutely true as a great manager can turn even mediocre employees into fine tuned productivity machines.  Below are my top five tips to start you on the road to becoming a great manager.

1-      Learn to manage yourself first.  The key to managing yourself is to become what’s called “self aware”.  This is realizing what you are doing, while you are doing it.  Being able to catch yourself “in the moment” is the fundamental starting point to helping you manage employees better and to make yourself a better all around person.  You may not immediately be able to stop yourself from being the office know it all but at least you can be aware of it.  The easiest way to get started is to review your interactions with others.  Objectively think about each conversation you have and analyze what was said, how it was said and how the other person may have taken the information.  You may realize you have been acting like a jerk to your employees….ouch!

2-      Trust your employees.  They are going to make mistakes, and yes, they probably won’t be able to do it as well as you (at least in your mind), but they still need to get their job done.  Like children, employees need to be able to make mistakes and not fear your wrath when they make them.  Give your employees guidelines and training and let them work through the minor mistakes without you micromanaging every detail.  Think of yourself as a coach who is there to provide support and guidance but still needs his team in order to actually play and win the game.

3-      Don’t micromanage.  One of the things employees like least about a manager is one that is always looking over their shoulder.  This is a trap many small business owners cannot get out of.  They are so used to doing everything themselves that they find it hard to let their employees do their job.  Provide training, coaching and expectations of outcomes and let them figure out the path to get there.  Respect the fact that everyone does the same thing slightly different.

4-      Praise your employees.  Just like parenting, we are always pointing out the things our child does wrong and rarely for what they are doing right.  Look for opportunities to show genuine appreciation for you employees and always be on the lookout to catch them doing something right.  Daniel Pink’s book “Drive” is a great read for how to really motivate your employees.

5-      Communicate with your employees.  Instead of waiting for annual performance reviews to have a real conversation with your employees about their goals, expectations and concerns, ask them on a regular basis.  A casual “how is everything going?” or a “Is there anything I can do to make your job easier here?” in the halls can be much more effective than waiting until the end of the year to learn your star employee has been disgruntled for the past six months and is about to leave.

So here are my five tips for managing employees.  There are many other tips that aren’t listed here, these are just my top five.  I would love to hear yours, so leave a comment below!

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Gary

CEO at 3Bug Media
Gary Shouldis is the founder of 3Bug Media, a web marketing company that helps businesses create 360 Marketing Strategies to dominate their market. His blog is read by over 20 thousand small business owners a month and has been featured in the N.Y. Times Small Business, Business Insider and Yahoo Small Business.
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