What is Employee Management & How to Manage Employees Effectively

Employee management is easier said than done. And we all know it. Managing employees is the most challenging part of a manager’s day-to-day responsibilities. However, seeing as employees are crucial to your company’s success, management is something you have to get right.

What are the fundamental aspects of employee management?

• Selection. You have to choose the right candidates during the hiring process.
• Measurement. You have to determine if an employee is meeting goals and has exceptional performance.
• Monitoring. You have to actually monitor the measurement.
• Interplay. You have to communicate, ask for feedback, and interact with employees, and vice-versa.
• Reward. You have to reward employees for exceptional performance.
• Discipline. You have to discipline employees when they exhibit poor performance, this may lead to termination.

These aspects are just the basics of staff management, but you may still be asking, just what is employee management?

Employee management is how you can help transform underperforming employees into exceptional ones, and you can also help prevent top employees from underperforming. Staff management is more than just employees doing their job, “it’s a variety of procedures and strategies that can help you measure, monitor, and interact with the workforce that plays a huge role in your company.”

How Does Employee Management Work?

In the Journal of Diversity Management, Robert Morris University Professor Dean R. Manna wrote, “employee management is based on ideas and procedures developed to increase worker motivation, productivity, and performance.”

The bottom line, staff management is a key role that is a key part of the employee’s lifecycle, and it starts during the hiring process. Managers must focus on building and maintaining healthy relationships with employees and following along to the tips below for managing employees effectively.

We dive into how to manage employees effectively by sharing the top tips that you can easily implement.

Top 8 Tips to Improve Employee Management

A survey of over 1,000 employees said found that 81% of employees would join a company that values “open communication” over other benefits and perks. This survey also concluded that just 15% of employees were satisfied with how their company communicates with them.

Communication isn’t just talking either. Set up a system where employees have a voice and you able to truly listen and hear their ideas, thoughts, and complaints. This includes:

• Visibility: Be around. Let employees see you around the office, and keep an open-door policy so that employees can approach you if they need to talk.
• Transparency: Share company updates, information, and announcements with employees. Don’t let them hear company news through the grapevine! By keeping them in the loop, they will feel more included.
• Open feedback: Be open to criticism! There needs to be a proper system in place so employees can make their opinions known. Use their feedback to identify potential problems which could cause a negative ripple effect.

We recommend sending out employee engagement surveys on a regular basis so you are always aware of how satisfied employees are and where issues lie.

Read up on what the internal communication trends are to ensure you’re staying ahead of the curve and are engaging employees.

Employee management software is specially designed to help you simplify and automate the process of managing employees and ensuring that they do their best work each and every single day. Not to mention, staff management software is a modern tool that many of your staff members are already used to using, especially if you deal with multigenerational teams. With a good one, you will be able to communicate with your staff, handle their workflow, and manage schedules.

Connecteam, for instance, is a highly recommended and surprisingly affordable, easy-to-use, all-in-one employee management software solution. It includes a wide variety of features with which you can easily manage all your employees–from daily operations to communications and HR matters– all within one solution. Managers can use Connecteam while on the go via the mobile app or through the desktop dashboard when sitting in the office! 

To just scratch the surface and give you a picture of how a staff management software like Connecteam can simplify managing employees:

• Communication: Keep everyone on the same page with a team or one-on-one chat, send real-time notifications such as company announcements, and more to streamline company-wide communication. 
• Training: Create an efficient onboarding and ongoing training process by offering your team direct access to training sessions, materials, and quizzes.
• Engagement: Weave employee engagement into your company by creating survey and live polls, launching a suggestion box, and sending recognition and rewards to top-performing employees.
• Scheduling: Simplify employee scheduling by assigning a schedule based on job requirements, adding key information such as tasks or special instructions, and allowing employees to accept or reject shifts.
• Time & Payroll: Have your employees clock in clock out from jobs using their mobile phones, track their location while on the job, approve or reject time-off requests, and manage payroll. 
• Tasks: Create, assign, and track progress on tasks. Manage reports, forms, and checklists while on the go as employees submit materials right from their mobile phones. 

Here’s the thing, you have to know what you want so that your employees can deliver. Whether it’s specific sales, work quality, office culture, hours worked, etc. Know what you want.

Once you know what you want, tell your employees – but tell them what you want, when you want it, and how you want it to get done. You have to communicate it all. Be clear and detailed, for instance, do you want something achieved in a broad sense? Like employee attitude or output? Or are you focused on when it should be done, like per shift or weekly?

When employees don’t know what you want, they will only become confused, afraid to do anything because they think they’ll fail, and they will be unproductive because they aren’t working to your level. All of this is because they don’t know what you expect of them.

Be crystal clear and don’t beat around the bush – that’s the most effective employee management rule you can deliver.

Monster polled that 72% of respondents felt like their manager doesn’t care about their career growth. Therefore, it is crucial to give employees a chance to grow in new roles. This will keep employees engaged and helps them build their skill set so they can contribute more to your company. Help your employees grow by:

• Offer in-house training (one-on-one or online programs)
• Send employees to conferences and seminars
• Allow employees to adapt based on strengths and interests

Don’t put your employees under the microscope! A study found that 46% of employees were satisfied with the level of trust managers had in them at their company. So how can you help avoid this?

• Don’t micromanage. If you tell your employees how to do every little thing, you are adding stress on them and on yourself. You’re the manager and they’re the employee so let them do their job.
• Avoid constant feedback. Yes, feedback is great but not if you’re dishing out feedback on everything the employee is doing. It’s like you’re doing micromanagement after the fact and this only leads to low confidence.
• Offer physical privacy. Don’t force employees to have their computer screens where you can see and let them work where your eyes aren’t always on them. Give them physical privacy.
• Social media engagement. Some managers might think that friending or following employees on social media channels is a good way to know whether an employee uses social media during work hours. However, this is a bit uncomfortable as it only reinforces the idea that you don’t trust your employee and are spying on their personal life.

By applying the above principles to your own management style, you help build trust on an individual basis. This trust only leads to better engagement and a positive company association.

In order for every single team member to effectively work together and to collaborate well, they should be working for something together. Individual goals are great but they can lead to isolation and limited collaborative space. Instead, you can reach company goals by having all your employees working together on one focused goal.

One great way to set goals as a team is through smart goals. Below is an outline on how you can do just that.

Your employees value genuine and specific recognition from managers, senior management, and coworkers. This recognition helps them feel confident in their job role and in turn, they become more productive and motivated employees.

In fact, statistics say that 37% of employees consider recognition most important.

The best managers understand that gratitude and recognition go a long way. And it doesn’t have to be complicated either, check out these easy ideas that won’t empty the bank:

• say thank you
• write a personal note
• give them a public shout-out either through an update on the employee management software or during a meeting
• let them go home early on Friday
• bring in some dogs to lighten the mood

At the end of the day, your employees just want to feel comfortable at work. They really value knowing that their contribution at work counts and is appreciated company-wide.

Your management skills cannot be effective if they are not consistent. Therefore, you must reward the same behaviors while discouraging harmful behavior. Treating everyone equally will bring unity and healthy company culture.

How to Resolve Conflict Between Manager and Employee?

Even if you nail all of these tips, conflicts may still arise when an employee has a negative or unprofessional attitude. While this may be one of your least favorite aspects of managing employees, it is important to speak with this staff member to help them adjust their attitude and keep a positive and productive work environment. 

When doing this, be sure to include the following steps: 

1. Give specific feedback: Highlight specific behavior and give examples. Describe how it has negatively impacted their colleagues.
2. Offer practical advice: Now explain how the employee should have behaved in these scenarios. This will clarify what behavior you expect from them moving forward.
3. Highlight the positives too: Besides discussing areas for improvement, give them recognition for what they are doing well. This will motivate them to put their best foot forward. 

Observe their behavior and performance: See if the employee is indeed making an effort to improve their attitude. You can also set up regular meetings with them to touch base and go over their progress.

The Bottom Line On Employee Management

Here’s the thing, being an effective manager isn’t above pushing everyone to work harder or even more efficiently. Instead, it’s about creating a healthy, vibrant, and understanding company culture. While there is no one way for managing employees, it is helpful to understand what doesn’t work and what does.

When you understand how to manage employees effectively, that makes all the difference. Start with effective internal communication, set clear expectations, help your employees grow and develop, build trust on an individual and team level, use staff management software for that modern touch, set goals as a team, share employee recognition regularly, and be consistent.

At the end of the day, your employees are your biggest asset and you must treat them as such. Carefully go through our tips on how to manage employees effectively and watch your team blossom.