28 Sep Strategies For Managing People

I’ve been working in the field of HR for more than 25 years and 5 of those are in my own business. Working in my own business and providing HR services to many clients has given me the opportunity to observe the success and failures of various strategies.

Managing people well is not easy. Some business owners and managers become frustrated and, jokingly, suggest everything would be so much easier if people weren’t involved, if we could replace all our employees with robots and machines. But in the labour intensive auto industry, that’s not going to happen. And with the investment of your time in a few key areas, you can get more out of the people who work for you–more productivity, higher levels of morale, and ultimately, higher profitability in your business.

I know from experience that putting effort into managing the people who work for you and applying a few key strategies can make a world of difference. I’d like to share a few of those strategies with you.

1. Make leadership roles clear

I have found a lot of small business owners are reluctant to clarify the leadership roles in their business. It’s fine not to have additional leadership roles while your business remains small (i.e. if it is just the business owner and 2 or 3 employees). But as your business grows, the business owner can’t do it all themselves.

Why is it important to appoint leadership roles (such as a Workshop Manager, Team Leader, or Store Manager role)? The work environment is simply less productive without an appointed leader (e.g. in a workshop team). For example, if you have a team of people working together, without a clearly defined leader, you can have the problem of power struggles. An employee with more years of service to the business might try to give a less experienced employee directions. The less experienced employee might think, “Who are you to tell me what to do? Who made you the boss?”, and the more experienced employee will be left unsure of whether they should be giving directions to other employees.

You solve this problem by appointing a leader. You tell the leader, formalise it, and that may inlcude a small pay increase. It’s an important conversation to have – you are basically promoting the employee and you need to make it clear what that means, what it involves, what their new responsibilities will be. The leader is likely to have a sense of pride from being appointed to the position, and importantly, a sense of responsibility. Then, you also communicate that decision to all the employees who will report to the new leader. You make it clear that if the leader gives a direction, the employees need to follow those directions. This is critical. It stops the power plays and helps improve productivity.

The leader you appoint may need some assistance with developing their leadership skills. You may need to monitor this and there may be benefits to your business to investing in some training.

2. The importance of communication

Managing people well is all about commumication. After all, what else is there? What other tools do we have to compel people to try harder, to work with higher levels of quality, to strive for excellence?

What we say, when we say it, and how we say it are critical aspects of good people management.

I’ve had a lot of involvement with staff surveys, over many years, and from that I have learnt that the majority of people in the majority of businesses are not happy with the communication they receive from their leaders. Satisfaction with communication runs at about 30% in a typical business. It’s a sad situation. This means about 70% of employees would like the communication they receive from their manager to be improved.

Common complaints from employees are:

a. Lack of direction – I don’t get enough information about what’s expected of me in my job.

b. Lack of feedback – I don’t know if I’m doing a good job. I tend to hear when I’ve made a mistake, but I don’t get told that I’ve done a good job.

Good communication drives productivity and profitability. If employees become clearer about what is expected of them and they are given regular feedback about how they are performing, their productivity will increase. It’s inevitable. I have seen it happen many times.

Providing direction and feedback can be relatively informal, incorporating it into the day-to-day conversations you have with employees. It can also be more formal, such as in the form of performance reviews.

3. Performance reviews

Finally, I am a big advocate of performance reviews, conducted at least once a year. They don’t need to be anything complex. I use a 1 page system and I have had great success with this system. Performance reviews give you the opportunity to sit down one-on-one with each employee to give them feedback on how they have been performing and to set expectations with them for the coming year. They don’t need to take long and can be completed in as little as 15 minutes.

Doing performance reviews are about having good, honest conversations with employees. Hopefully, giving them lots of positive feedback, where warranted, but also addressing any performance concerns you have with them, with tact.

A good time to do performance reviews is at the end of the financial year, prior to giving pay increases (e.g. to coincide with increases to Award rates, which generally occur in July). Alternatively, you may do them at the end of the year.

Invest some time in your people, using these strategies, and your business will reap the benefits.

This item was first published in Tyre Business AUSTRALIA (September/October 2021 edition)

John Girardi is a human resources consultant who runs Girardi Human Resources. He works with a number of employers in the automotive industry to provide outsourced human resource support, including providing Fair Work advice, drafting employment contracts, performance management, management training, and recruitment.

Contact Girardi Human Resources now if you need professional assistance.