How often is an organisation praised for its people management? Not nearly enough, but that’s beginning to change as companies start to see parallels between customer experience and employee experience.

Cause for complaint?

A Glassdoor study of 2000 UK workers revealed the most common issues with management were as follows:

   •    43% disrespectful behaviour
   •    34% negative attitude

What constitutes disrespectful behaviour? In some cases, the behaviour in question was said to be ‘ignoring employees’ while in others it was ‘taking credit for others work’. In the same vein, having a negative attitude can also cover a multitude of sins.

What’s clear is that there’s a gap that needs to be bridged between the mindset of the manager and the employees they’re managing.

Focus on your employees’ experience

First, both parties (manager and employee) should know their existing responsibilities and what’s expected on each side.

The next step to successful people management is to put yourself in the shoes of your employee. Consider the following questions. How can your staff do their jobs better? What training would help them in their roles? Could processes be changed so that tasks can be simplified or made less manual?

In the evaluation process, how do you assess performance? Is it done fairly, by taking into consideration all aspects of your employee’s daily working life? Rather than having a scheduled one-to-one with employees, many managers are now choosing to give staff real-time responses as they shadow them over a period of time.

This approach is more immediate and can be more effective than storing up feedback to be delivered at a later date. The traditional method of sitting either side of a desk working your way through a series of metrics does little to enhance the relationship between manager and staff.

Develop your existing talent

Many companies spend more time trying to recruit new talent and not enough time developing the talent they already have. Don’t let your skilled staff feel like they’re part of the furniture.

Cultivating existing talent may mean investing in training or new technology. This is especially relevant for millennials, who expect companies to have a BYOD strategy and want to be able to move seamlessly from work to home and vice versus on their mobile devices. They’re unlikely to stick around in a company that underinvests in IT.

Although you may not be able to instigate changes immediately, it helps if your employees know you’re forward-thinking when it comes to technology. Clinging rigidly to outdated systems and practices is a sure-fire way to lose skilled individuals.

It’s also important to talk about future goals and personal ambitions. What is your employee ultimately looking for from your organisation? Can you help them to develop their career? It’s not enough simply to accommodate them in their present job; talented workers will always want to learn more.

Essentially, as a manager, you should be looking for ways to make your employees working day a more rewarding and professionally fulfilling experience. In turn, contented staff will lead to increased client satisfaction.

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