Know your Employees

It is critical for your staff to feel you connect with them on  more than a professional level, and before I get you concerned about what’s appropriate, let me explain.  Every good manager knows employees want to feel valued.  Many management courses teach the importance of ‘knowing you staff’.  What’s important to your people?  What motivates them outside the workplace?  Is it a desire to their children get into a good college?  To finish a marathon? To win the apple pie contest the county fair?  What excites and motivates your people?

This is the perfect time of year to find this out.  To ask your staff about their goals for 2008 in their own lives.  What do they hope to achieve? To accomplish?  Take this knowledge and let it help you to be a better manager.  Let your staff you know you care about them not only as employees but as people.  Find a way to help them achieve these goals.  A book on training?  Your mom’s secret ingredient? A reference letter to your Alma matter?  What can you do to show your staff you care about the things that matter to them?

Filed under: Business, Feedback, Inspiration, Know Your People, Management Lesson, Management Training, Motivation, Resolutions, Setting Goals

Holding Employees Accountable

One of the biggest mistakes managers can make is to continuously frustrate their employees by not holding them accountable.  Believe it or not, it can frustrate your employees as much as it does you.  Accountability is the key to achieving results and helping identify the opportunities in your organization.  Holding employees accountable helps them to know the satisfaction of achieving a goal and performing to standard (or above!)

If you find yourself addressing the same issues in the same manner time and time again, you might have an issue with accountability.  The same is true if you don’t see your employees and your organization moving forward.  The first step is to identify in which areas you find yourself and your team stagnant.  Everyone will easily choose at least one area in which they would like to see improvement.  To master accountability, choose this one area and focus on it first.  Once you see the results, you’ll be inspired to approach all performance issues with a keen focus on accountability.

The Hallmarks of Accountability

• Understood Goals – the employee must understand what the team is trying to achieve
• Buy in – employees must believe in the goal and be a part of the success
• Benchmarks and a Quantifiable Result – employees need milestones and a result that can be measured
• Dual Feedback – feedback from the supervisor to the employee and from the employee to the supervisor
• Evaluation – once a goal is accomplished, celebrate the success

To be successful, the manager must also hold themselves accountable to following through with accountability.  One of the biggest failures is to start the process and not follow through with it.  This causes the employee to lose respect for the process and to question a supervisor’s commitment, which can undermine the entire organization.  Once accountability becomes a part of your management style and organization, you will see improved results and more satisfied employees.

Filed under: Business, Employee Accountability, Feedback, Follow-Up, Management Lesson, Management Training, News, Setting Goals