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5 Employee Management Tips for Small Business Owners

You grew your small business to the point where you needed to hire employees. Congratulations! However, if you don’t know how to manage your staff, that celebration might be short lived. After all, leading a team of employees, or even just having one employee, can be a lot of work and cause you a lot of stress when it’s not done right.

There is good news, though. Having loyal employees that you can rely on is possible. To help you on your journey to small business management success, here are five employee management tips.

 

1. Not Everyone Will Be A Rock Star

When you have employees, know that not every employee will be a rock star. This means that not every employee will be motivated or have the skill to go above and beyond. However, that’s ok.

You hire employees to do a specific job and meet certain expectations. If your employee is doing that, they are doing things right.

You will also have employees who naturally go above and beyond. They want to learn it all and do it all, but this also means that they want to get promotions and raises as a result. These are also the employees who can become flight risks in small businesses because they might feel that they have hit the ceiling of advancement after a while.

Once again, it’s ok if your employee is simply meeting expectations; things are exactly as they need to be.

If you discover that the expectations are too low, work on formally changing the job requirements instead of expecting all employees to go above and beyond.

 

2. They Are Experts – Trust Them!

Giving up control and delegating is hard to do when you are managing your first set of employees. It’s normal to be hesitant about trusting an employee to take over a task you were once doing successfully. It’s also normal to doubt someone’s capability to complete a job when you do not have sufficient skills or knowledge in that area yourself.

However, you must remember one thing -> You hired each employee for a reason.

This was either because you needed to remove work from your plate or because you did not have the expertise to do the job yourself.

Trust that your employees to do the work they were hired to do. They know more than you believe they know.

They are capable, and you have other tasks that need your focus.

If by chance they do something wrong or do not meet your expectations, explicitly tell them what is needed so they do it right the next time. After all, it might not be that they don’t know how to do it right, but they don’t know how to do it your way.

3. Your Employees Are Not Yours 24/7

Your employees do not work for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Therefore, you cannot expect them to answer every call, text, and email when they are off the clock.

Now, having set response timelines for when an employee is in the office or on the clock is fine. However, when an employee is not working, they are not working.

Studies have shown that people need mental breaks from work to be at their top productivity levels. Therefore, you are doing your company a favor when you let them step away from work each night and weekend (or whenever they are not excepted to be working for different schedules.)

Not everything is urgent. When critical items do come up, call your employee. For everything else, let it wait until the next time they are on the clock or in the office.

 

4. They Don’t Really Care About Your Company

When you run a small business, that business is your baby. You have put your blood, sweat, tears, and probably A LOT of time and money to get it to where it is today. Its success means everything to you.

For your employees, not so much.

To some, it will be a little more than a paycheck. For others, it will become a job and company that means a lot to them, but it will never mean the same to them as it does to you.

Therefore, having an employee that puts in an effort level that 100% matches yours will probably never happen.

Accept that your employees don’t value your company the same way.

However, find out what they do value and what motivates them. Then, see how your company can support those areas because showing them that you care is the best way to increase how much they care about you and your company.

 

5. Consistently Meet with Your Employees Face-to-Face

If you want employees who are going to care about their job, stay with the company long-term, and produce productive work, you must show them that you have time for them. A way to do this is to meet with each employee face-to-face consistently.

Have recurring meetings on your calendar where you will meet with each member of your team one-on-one. Every other week is ideal in most environments, but they should be a minimum of monthly.

These meetings make an impact because they show your employees that you value them and therefore you are making time for them.

While some business owners will say “they know my door is always open,” that method doesn’t always build the needed connections and trust levels between employee and manager. This is because the employee must go to you and fear interrupting your work when they need to talk. It also creates an environment of “I’m only here for you when things are REALLY important, and you approach me.”

When you schedule time with each employee, you show them that you have time for anything they want to talk about or need. This can include workplace concerns and problems, but also their goals and achievement. It creates a more open relationship.

These meetings can also save you time. This is because it gives you the opportunity to learn about problems and concerns early on allowing you to be proactive instead of reactive.

If face-to-face is not possible due to locations, a video conference is the next best option.

 

Want More Employee Management Tips as You Navigate Your First Employees?

There a lot of employee management tips and tricks to learn when you hire your first set of employees. If the first employee you ever manage is for your own business, you are at a disadvantage. This is because you don’t have a team of in-house corporate leaders to guide you through the process and teach you along the way.

Would you like help and support as you navigate how to manage your team? Schedule a Hiring Jump-Start call and let’s see how I can help you.

 

5 Employee Management Tips For Small Business Owners