7 Employee Management Tips for Small Business Success in 2018

In any business, employees are your most important asset. These individuals, the skills they possess, and their tenacity all propel the success of your organization. Considering its importance, managing your staff appropriately becomes an incredibly important issue.

Practicing good employee management means matching skills to openings and ensuring employees are able to complete their tasks as best as they can. This translates into your organization running smoother and more efficiently.

Thus, the success of your company hinges on how well you manage the talent at your disposal. Yet, for small businesses, employee management presents a different set of issues. Mismanaged staff can create a workplace that is chaotic and unorganized.

On the other hand, the close relationships that exist in small companies make completing this task a far more delicate issue. Here are a few ways you can traverse these issues and use employee management to propel your business into 2018.

Hiring Wisely –

Of course, the first step towards managing your employees well is to hire wisely in the first place. When the payroll is small, it becomes increasingly important to get each hire right.

Matching the correct people with the roles that fit them makes adjusting staffing easier later on. Needless to say, employee management begins with proper recruitment, allowing employers to evaluate the best candidates.

Employers need to recruit suitably-qualified candidates who possess at least the minimum requirements. These candidates must also fit in with the culture and display an ability to grow and flourish in their positions. While there is no hard-and-fast rule to hiring star employees, employers should always focus on filling their skills gaps.

Manage Workflow –

Now that you have the best employees you can find, the next step in successful employee management is coordinating tasks. Managing workflow means completing tasks methodically, so they can contribute to a larger framework.

Thus, managing workflow lays a foundation to allow your company to achieve better results more efficiently. It allows you to view, operate, analyze and improve your business in a number of ways. Achieving objectives means streamlining the efforts of both teams and individuals and managing how employees spend their time.

With a smaller workforce, comes the fear that managers are too close and too involved. For this reason, a little tact is an important trait. Employers must figure out how to manage workflow and track employees time without insulting them. However, doing this will allow you to understand the importance of each task as it relates to the big-picture goals of your company.

Treating Employees With Respect –

There is an old adage that goes, “You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.” In the workplace, when an employee’s efforts fall short, remembering these words can go a long way.

Unfortunately, in many employer/employee relationships, it’s easy to undervalue employees or diminish the importance of their opinions. When they make mistakes it becomes too easy to condemn them.

It comes as no surprise that treating employees with disdain does little to improve their output and the health of your company. In a smaller company where employees can become very tight-knit, this can pose different problems.

Disagreements and misunderstandings can metastasize in close quarters, creating sharp divisions between employees and management. Instead, employers and managers must actively listen to employees, seeking out their opinions and their ideas.

Communication and mutual respect can help demonstrate humility and appreciation. Only when employees are treated with respect and understanding can they flourish.

Mentoring –

A common trait among companies that are failing is that employees are starved for direction. Employers and managers occupy important and highly-visible positions within the company and employees look to them for leadership. Mentoring employees allow you to share your vision with them while demonstrating tasks and guiding their problem-solving.

Mentoring also helps to build communication channels by encouraging communication and helping employees to feel less isolated. The result? Not only does mentorship limit mistakes and boost employee job satisfaction, but it also decreases turnover and ushers in greater productivity.

Smaller companies lend themselves much more easily to this type of hands-on mentorship and mentored employees will be more willing to share what they learned with their coworkers.

Leading with a Vision –

In order for your employees to get behind you, they need to have an appreciation for your vision. If they are at all unclear about your vision for the company, this can lead to confusion, gaps in productivity and lackluster effort. Employers must exhibit why their companies are different and why they are worth the effort.

When your employees are aware of your vision, it’s easier for them to double down on their efforts and also come up with suggestions for achieving those goals. Knowing this vision for the company helps employees realize their work is valuable, as it helps to contribute to the company’s goals.

Luckily, vision can become infectious in small and large companies alike and embracing this vision can help to reenergize the workforce.

Eliminate Distractions –

Of course, with every rule comes a caveat. It’s not a surprise to discover that distractions kill productivity and avoiding them is a good idea. However, it is also clear that distractions also help employees de-stress and refocus.

Eliminating distractions is the reason why so many companies can’t decide between sealed-off workspaces and wide-open floor plans. It’s why some companies block social media on their servers and why giant tech companies such as Google and Facebook seem to encourage employees to take on a little distraction from time to time.

While too much distraction can hamper goal-achievement, a little can be beneficial. In a tight-knit group where familiarity is high, there may be more fraternizing than normal. Let your employees know that you appreciate them acting like family, but that they must always keep their eyes on the company’s goals.

Managing employees isn’t always an easy task. Small businesses present a different set of dynamics since employers and managers often work closely with their employees and get to know them much better than employer-employee relationships in comparatively larger companies.

Understandably, this is a different animal. However, the upsides are very similar. Managing employees properly, even in a small business can lead to happier, more satisfied employees and better achievement of company goals.

You might also be interested in Top Motivational Speaker for more tips on running a small businesses.