7 Ways to Get the Most Out of Your Employees

Your employees are your most valuable asset, and managing them well is one of your most critical business challenges. While effective employee management is an essential part of the work environment that all managers strive to achieve but few actually reach.

Many managers have unrealistic expectations about how they can get results from the employees they will manage. Sometimes people who haven't ever been managers imagine that being a manager is somewhat like sitting in a big leather chair and issuing proclamations.

The reality is there might be a leather chair involved, but proclamations are few and far between. Managers need to learn quickly how to get results from their employees—proclamations won't cut it.

Here are seven tips for getting the best work and results from your employees.

Foster Good Communication

Open and honest communication is at the heart of a happy and productive workplace. Start by explaining to your employees your company’s vision, goals and plans for achieving them. Focus especially on clear communication in times of change or uncertainty.

Be clear about your expectations of them. Wherever possible, keep people informed about the whole business. They'll want to know about both the good and bad—and particularly about anything that impacts their jobs. Walk the talk. If you expect honesty and openness from them, model that in the way you communicate with them first.

Listen

For the love of Pete, please listen to your employees. Listen to their ideas. Remember that you worked hard to hire the best people you could hire. There's no point in hiring good people if you are going to treat them like robots. They aren't robots. Listen to their ideas. Talk to them. Get their feedback.

Recognize and Reward Excellence

As much as you strive to sets high expectations of productivity, you also need to let individuals know when they have done a great job. Take time at monthly meetings or annual events to spotlight and reward staff members who have demonstrated excellence, going beyond individual awards to recognized entire groups when they have met and exceeded goals. Never underestimate the power of positive reinforcement, where a simple pat on the back or thank you for all the hard work can go a long way toward building relationships and developing loyal, dedicated employees.

Train and Develop Your Team

Training and developing your employees makes them more productive and engaged. It also helps attract and retain skilled workers—a growing issue as the population ages.

Offer opportunities at work for your people to grow. There are many ways you can tap their potential: coaching, skills workshops, courses, shadowing, mentoring, increasing responsibility. Beyond just professional growth, offer them opportunities to learn new hobbies, pick up exciting skills, and give them time to focus on their passion projects. Encourage them to step up in their personal and professional lives.

Provide Feedback

Give your employees feedback and they'll know how to improve and what works best. Positive feedback strengthens employee engagement. You should give meaningful feedback through the year, not just at year-end performance reviews.

Negative feedback should be fair, carefully expressed and focused on specific behaviors (not vague complaints). Also ask the employee to tell their side of the story.

And remember that feedback should be a two-way street. Encourage input from your employees, including ideas for improving operations.

Trust Employees and Give Them the Ability to Do Their Jobs

When you micromanage, you may get exact results, but you won't get great performances. Learn to empower your employees by entrusting them with important responsibilities, and then stand back and let them do their job. your employees will appreciate being able to contribute to the company’s success.

Encourage Employees to Think Outside the Box

When faced with a problem, the typical thing to do is to pick the first answer that pops up. In many cases, the first answer is not always the best.

To encouraging your team to think outside the box, you need to make them understand that there are always multiple answers to any problem and train them how to find these multiple answers.

When you are trying something new and untested, there is always the possibility of failure. The problem is that people who are afraid of failing will avoid experimentation and risk taking as much as they can and instead opt for tried and tested methods that are sure to work every single time.

If you want your team to embrace experimentation and risk taking, you need to show them that failing is normal when attempting something new.

At the end of the day, if your team members love their job and look forward to coming into work, they're going to be intrinsically motivated to become more productive employees for your business.