Have you built or are you building a successful business? It’s stressful isn’t it? Especially when you have to deal with tricky day to day employee matters. I’ve managed my own teams for over twenty years, and HR teams can be some of the hardest people to manage – I can’t imagine why! So I thought I would share my 7 tips on how to effectively manage your employees.
What you should know about managing employees …
So, you decided to start your own business because you’re creative, or you’re a genius at what you do, and thought, why should I do this for someone else, when I could do this for myself? Plus, I think I would be pretty good at it too? So, you start your own business and things have gone well for you, in fact, things are going brilliantly, and you now have 10 people working for you. All is good right? But hang on, if you are really honest, there are a few cracks starting to appear. Some of your employees are taking a few too many days off for your liking, and some appear to be demotivated or don’t have any interest in what they are doing or how the company is doing any more, and you just don’t understand why this is happening. Sound familiar?
I subscribe to a number of newsletters and articles that are relevant to my role in HR, and the Tiny Pulse Employee Engagement and Organisational Culture Report had some really interesting and very relevant findings recently.
The biggest issue and concern from 78% of the 400,000 leaders who participated was employee engagement and retention. So how can you improve employee engagement and retention levels?
- Never underestimate culture – your culture drives happiness, and some of the strongest factors that correlated to employee happiness include work environment and organisational culture.
- Peers and Colleagues rule – this is the number 1 thing that employees love about their work place – their peers and colleagues, so make sure you recruit well!
- Keep an eye on market rates of pay and benefits – believe it or not nearly one in four employees would leave their employer if they were offered a 10% or more raise, so whilst this isn’t the be all and end all, you need to know what your competitors are paying in terms of basic salary and benefits and ensure that you pay what you can afford.
- Professional Growth – only 25% of the employees surveyed felt they were being given opportunities to develop and grow. Millennials crave these opportunities so if you employ millennials, and don’t invest in learning and development opportunities, you could see a rise in people leaving you!
- Make sure people feel valued and appreciated – not even 1 in 3 people felt that they were thanked or appreciated, with most employees feeling their managers were constantly pointing out faults!
- Ensure employees are meeting their full potential – over 70% of the people surveyed felt they were not meeting their full potential and were constantly fire-fighting and dealing with issues rather than focussing on their priorities and objectives which would allow them to reach their full potential.
- Ensure colleagues are pulling their weight – 35% of people surveyed said that there was someone in the team not pulling their weight which was demotivating and killed their level of productivity and engagement with the business. So, make sure you deal with the poor performers!
If any of these statements resonate with you, then why not have a look at our High Performing Business Program? (HPBP) Click here for the brochure This is our proven methodology of HR working in partnership with you. We work with you to design and implement a people strategy that’s right for your business, which will help you create an engaging, great place to work, with highly motivated teams, that just so happen to help you deliver great business results!
If you’d like to talk about this program or any other people related matters, book one of my informal 15-minute chats about how we can help you achieve the best people results. Book a call with Emma Browning
