Team

How to Manage Your Team

How to Manage Your Team – Properly!

Getting the most out of a team is the life blood and primary purpose of managers and leaders across all businesses. It’s about giving individuals the tools to do a good job while providing an environment that encourages and promotes innovation and productivity.

Get it right and you have a team to be proud of. Get it wrong and you could be facing a constant uphill struggle to meet targets as you struggle to get the most out of the people around you. According to The Entrepreneur:

“Being an effective manager is about more than just driving your employees to work harder — or more efficiently. Forcing employees to work a certain way can breed resentment, even disloyalty, while being too soft can lead to bad habits, laziness or boredom.”

Great teams have common characteristics. Bringing these into your management practice can make a huge difference to performance and productivity.

  1. Make It Social

Most businesses will agree that when staff get on well together their productivity is improved. Adding a social dimension to the work environment can deliver a host of benefits, helping individuals to get to know each other better, allowing everyone to speak confidently and plainly about the issues at hand and promoting an environment where collaboration is the norm rather than the exception.

It includes managers socialising with members of their team rather than standing aloof so that they are visible and, perhaps more importantly, approachable.

  1. Recruitment and Training

It’s often said that diverse workforces can operate more productively than those that only bring in certain demographics or have strict recruitment procedures. Teams made up from a rich array of talent have a lot more to draw from and can cope with serious challenges.

Giving existing employees the right opportunities to progress within the group or team also makes a big difference. This can mean ensuring people have the right training opportunities to develop their careers as well as giving individuals the confidence to apply for new positions.

  1. Introducing Gamification

Many businesses are starting to introduce a game style mentality to help improve productivity. Creating a little competition as a way to achieve status or rewards can certainly energise staff if managed properly. Gamification can also be a useful tool if you are trying to train employees or provide them with online courses or modules.

  1. Managing Workloads

It can often seem that everyone is overworked or having difficulty keeping up with the pace of things, especially in a busy, under pressure team. Helping staff to organise their workloads better can reduce the amount of stress they feel and ensure they keep a healthy work-life balance. Agreeing goals and how these are to be reached needs to consider individual abilities and is not a one size fits all exercise.

  1. Introduce Innovation

Teams generally thrive on new things and bringing innovation into the workplace not only makes people feel excited but ensures your team is always looking for ways to do things better. Involving your staff in new practice has a number of benefits. Firstly, it makes them feel worthwhile. Secondly, it takes pressure of management to continually come up with changes and developments that can improve productivity and performance.

If you’re a manager, these are not the only options open to you when trying to get the best out of your teams. Greater empowerment and a willingness to think outside the box are key in creating an atmosphere where individuals can thrive and develop their careers. The good managers are always on the lookout for positive changes that make a difference to performance.

Share:

Facebook
LinkedIn
read on

Related Posts

ideas for life

Ideas for life – no more resolutions

Why most of us fail? If you are in the incredible 20% of people who hit their resolutions every year, congratulations! You are a rare breed 🙌🥳👏 For the rest of us, it is mostly a journey downwards into a spiral of failure, guilt, and frustration which circles back to thinking less of ourselves and hardly ever making us feel good or achieve anything meaningful. Most of us fail for three main reasons: Lack of clarity, Unreasonable expectations, and Lack of inspiration or passion.

employee wellbeing

Employee Wellbeing

The link between employee wellbeing and productivity is well established but, as we move into the post-pandemic phase, it will be harder than ever for managers to keep the two in harmony.

Stress management strategies using EI

Stress management strategies using EI

Have authentic, emotionally intelligent relationships with people. Associate with those whose company you enjoy and who support you. Authenticity requires self-awareness and emotional expression so that when in conversation with an individual you are able to share your feelings openly, including any distractions impairing your ability to concentrate on them.

stress factors

Stress factors and coping techniques

How can we avoid distress?

We cannot. However, we can learn techniques to keep distress to a minimum by increasing our coping strategies. We can also use eustress appropriately in our occupations to improve our performance and inspire others.

SALE NOW ON 15% OFF ALL COURSES EXCL MONTHLY PLANS
Browse our courses
cmi logo
OTHM Qualifications Logo

High impact, virtual micro-learning for maximum output. All programmes are £100 and can be toped up to a full CMI Level 5 Qualification.

For all levels of managers, fully accredited qualifications to supercharge careers and earning power.

Aimed at leaders managing projects, although the qualification is also open to learners wishing to build on their general management skills.

For all types of consultants, either wishing to enter the field or already working and looking to develop into strategic roles.

For all types of leaders looking to develop their leadership and communications skills, and nurture and build effective and functional teams. 

Browse our courses

High impact, virtual micro-learning for maximum output. All programmes are £100 and can be toped up to a full CMI Level 5 Qualification.

For all levels of managers, fully accredited qualifications to supercharge careers and earning power.

Courses available with CMI & PRINCE2 Frameworks.

For all types of consultants, either wishing to enter the field or already working and looking to develop into strategic roles.

For all types of leaders looking to develop their leadership and communications skills, and nurture and build effective and functional teams.