First day back at work after the holiday season and I realize I’ve been slacking in terms of fresh content for DGM. This looming sense of slacker-dom has inspired me though. By neglecting my blog I was reminded about the golden rule of not neglecting your employees. It’s one of the worst things you can do. We all get pulled in a number of directions on a daily basis, but we have to remember that without our team, many of us couldn’t do the jobs we do.
Like most things, it’s all pretty logical:
Keep Them In The Loop – You don’t need to tell them every gruesome detail of every single situation, but one of the best things you can do is making it a habit to keep your team in the loop around timely events. Not only does it give people a sense of inclusion, but it’s an easy way to open the door to questions, clarification, and gives the eager ones in the group a chance to step up and be noticed if it’s a topic they’re passionate about.
Get Good At HR – There’s nothing worse than managers who are bad at following through on HR related issues. HR issues are the kind of thing that can cause mass amounts of stress, turmoil and paranoia for many employees. You don’t need to be an HR guru to be good at this stuff. As simple as it sounds, just going over and making friends with your HR counterparts makes this all a lot easier.
Communicate - Whatever you do, do your best to not be a black hole when it comes to communicating with your team members. You should make it a habit to try and manage by “walking the shop floor” and interacting with as many people as you can on any given day. Consider this your daily recon mission to gather new information and add some context to the daily activities. You’d be surprised how much useful information you can garner just by being friendly and taking a second to chat.
Follow Through – If you commit to trying to “make something happen” you better be ready to put your money where your mouth is. Nothing makes an employee feel more neglected than a manager who promises to do something and never finds the time to actually do it. On the flip side, if you do actually try and follow through, but hit a roadblock, make sure you refer back the first points above and keep your employees in the loop regarding the roadblock. An active and attentive management style tends to go a long way for many people.
At the end of the day your job as a Damn Good Manager is to facilitate awesomeness from your team and you’ll never do a truly good job of that if you have a habit of neglecting people.
7 comments ↓
Oy, can I agree with you more on this?
Having been a manager for a few years now, I can’t say enough about not forgetting about your staff. Doesn’t matter if they report to you directly or indirectly — everyone still deserves your attention to some extent. If all it does is make them feel wanted and appreciated, that’s enough.
Ideally, as noted above — you have more than a minor interaction with your staff.
Geoff makes a good point about direct reports AND indirect reports. Sometimes those indirect reports can benefit from an engaged and passionate management-type other than their direct boss.
Yes! Make friends with us. We don’t bite. Hard.
wow.
i know some people who could GREATLY benefit from reading this entry in particular. you’ve basically just described exactly what ‘certain’ managers are lacking. ‘keeping people in the loop’ is a joke in some offices!
btw, LOVE the default font colour/size in this box i’m typing in, as well as the comment bubbles. nice work!!
You, my dear, need a radio show.
Great post and so appropriate.
However much time you are spending with your staff today, double it!
I am currently working on a new product where I am interviewing top successful business individuals and one of the common themes which is discussed is communicating with staff. One such person was the Chairman of The Royal Mail and he said that on his way to work if he sees a postman, he stops the car to have a chat!
Andrew
(Hope you don’t mind me mentioning my new product – all profits are going to Breast Cancer Charity).
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