Employee Engagement & Retention - Managerial Effectiveness - 5

Focus on converting C's into B's and B's into A's : As Managers it is imperative that we relentlessly focus on building people skills and capabilities. There is no greater satisfaction than seeing your sub-ordinate grow and make your learning's count.

Yield “power” to them … See them as colleagues more often than as subordinates… Show it by occasionally doing work that may seem “beneath you”: - When you yield occasionally to your employees, you empower them to think for themselves, to be more creative, more enthusiastic and probably more productive. In an empowered organization, it will be the manager’s job to coach and guide people in how to do a task and get the resources. Trust your employees to come up with answers. Even if you would have done it in another way, consider approaches they create and support them all the way. Collaborate with your empowered employees to learn from the mistake. Focus on what they could do differently next time around, rather than doing a postmortem. Empowered employees will have great ideas or take on tasks you may not have asked them to perform. They will put their own signatures on excellence. When empowered to create and make decisions, job satisfaction increases.

Be pro-active....Try different things and use failures as a stepping stone : Ask yourself, What is my ERPI (Employee Retention Probability Index) as a Manager? What should I do if you have a low ERPI? As you try something new; it may feel strange. Ask your trusted employees or peers to tell you what’s working and what’s not. Acknowledge your success. Give yourself the praise you deserve. If something is not working, change the course. Then choose another strategy to work on.

When you tune out, you miss out : Communication is critical to keeping your talent. If employees feel heard, understood, and valued they will work harder and produce more. Talented people want to have an ear for their ideas and proposed solutions.

Align employee values to work : - The risk of losing employees because of conflicts over values is far greater than the risk of losing them because of compensation. When values are left out of the work equation, the work may still get done, but without the energy and commitment. Employees lose heart when organizational values and their values don’t mesh. It is imperative that we know the individual values of our respective team and be willing to discuss them. Sometimes we as managers tend to impose our values onto our employees. The match between your employees’ values and the organization’s or team’s values is a more powerful factor than money.

View work–life balance and stress–reduction initiatives as strategic business tools, not as employee perks: Wellness is a physical, mental and emotional fitness . Show interest in your employees well being. If your employee faces a physical problem, stress or an emotional challenge, your response as a manager cannot be the same. Ask how you can help and then collaborate on a plan. Optimal levels of stress produce peak performance; overdose can definitely lead to poor performance and even to illness. Watch for signs of excess stress…When you think you see it in your employees, ask them how they are doing. Your best employees will work hard, produce for you and stick around in an environment that promotes their health and fitness – emotional, mental and physical.

With this post, I conclude the Tips on Managerial effectiveness. I am sure if followed in right earnestness, they shall make a difference to not only your life, however, also make a difference to the life of an employee whose career progression / direction has been given in your hands.

In my next post, I shall touch upon some of the HR practices that you can adopt to drive engagement and effectiveness. Watch out the space!