Image courtesy of Hamed Saber’s photostream
Being a good boss is never easy. Every employee is unique and will have different work ethics. To succeed at your job, you have to make sure that your team is running smoothly and everyone is happy. To be a better boss, you have to work on making your employees feel valued and give them motivation to come into work each and every day.
Here are five ways to become a better boss.
Communication – There are a lot of managers that communicate far too little. It’s sometimes difficult for business owners and executives to keep their employees up-to-date on the latest news within the company. Nevertheless, you must make every effort to get employees the information they need to do their jobs quickly and efficiently. Set up weekly meetings with your team to get an update on projects and to update them on appropriate matters. During meetings, engage with the team; ask them lots of questions and ask for plenty of feedback. What’s more important is your employees won’t see you as someone who likes to hear their own voice, but as a person who really cares about what they have to say.
Make time – When an employee needs to speak with you for whatever reason, make sure that you set aside the time to do so. Put your work away for a moment, put down your phone, look away from your computer and focus on the person standing in front of you. Their time is just as precious as yours. Even if you can only give them five minutes, that’s a lot better than giving them 15 minutes of you focusing on other matters. If you schedule a meeting, make sure you are there. If you can’t attend for some reason, let the employee know so they aren’t standing around in a conference room waiting or walking all over the building trying to find you.
Lead by example – Try getting to work 15 minutes early. You may think you getting to work early will not impact your employees but in fact it does. If your employee sees you sneaking in 10 minutes late they will think they can because their boss did. You want to set a good impression, if your employee needs information from you for a report or project you have assigned them don’t give them poor notes or crumpled up paper with gibberish on it. Present them with logical information. Setting this example will make sure that they give you quality work in return.
Give rewards – If one or more of your employees has gone above and beyond, make sure to acknowledge the hard work they have done. You can send around an email to the team, make an announcement, give them a gift card, or even take the person out to lunch. If your employee has worked extra hard, rewarding their actions will have a big impact on their happiness in the workplace and their idea of you as a boss. Also, this will help encourage others to go above and beyond.
Don’t play favorites – Of course, everyone has favorites, like cheese over pepperoni pizza, but you shouldn’t play favorites in the work place. Remember that everyone on your team is contributing something and that if you clearly favor some employees over others, then your less-favored employees will resent the people you favor and will not try hard at their job. You may not “get along” with some employees personalities but you should try to be equally kind to everyone and offer the same rewards to all your employees.