So, how do you ensure everything goes smoothly without hassle? How do you maintain productivity? What should you do and not do to streamline procedures and operations in the work environment without causing conflicts with your colleagues and subordinates? There are a few dos and don’ts for managers to optimize their workplace tasks and future-proof their careers.
Here is a quick overview of the do’s and don’ts for managers:
Do’s and Don’ts for Managers – A Quick Overview
Do’s:
- Communicate effectively with everyone
- Appreciate your employees’ hard work.
- Lead by example
Don’ts:
- Don’t micromanage your team
- Don’t rely on intrusive monitoring
- Don’t neglect work-life balance
Let’s discuss these do’s and don’ts in detail so you can benefit from them and improve your managerial skills.
Do – Communicate Effectively with Everyone
You must communicate effectively to improve relationships with your team members or subordinates. Make sure you have a clear and open communication style. Update your team about the project’s goals and their progress towards them.
For example, let’s say you sent your team an email saying, “We are changing and improving our marketing strategy for the client – so please adjust your work priorities accordingly.” This would be a bad form of communication.
So, what should you do as a manager?
- First, you must schedule a meeting with your team and convey the change in a very smooth manner. For example, you can say something like: “Our client has shifted their business goal, and we must refine used marketing strategy to achieve that objective.”
- Now, you can ask your employees to give you feedback and come up with useful insights that could benefit the new plans. This is an example of effective, two-way communication style. Make sure you don’t consider yourself to know it all, and treat your team members with respect.
Don’t Micromanage Your Team
Micromanagement can negatively affect your team’s morale and productivity. For example, you are an SEO manager in a digital marketing agency. Yet, you don’t encourage your team to be creative so they can come up with innovative ideas about keywords.
So, this attitude can cause mistrust and reduce your team’s morale and productivity because basically you aren’t letting them do their job, and you’re hyper-fixated on everything. This type of behavior would frustrate them. Remember, good managers usually avoid micromanagement.
Do Appreciate Your Employees’ Hard Work
If you want to become a good manager, you must recognize and appreciate your team members’ hard work to boost their morale, motivation, and job performance. Not only will you foster a positive work environment, but you can also create a sense of belonging in the workplace.
Let’s say you gave a task to one of your team members to find low-competition keywords with decent search volume. You gave the employee a week, and they completed the task within 5 days.
You have checked the keywords, and you think everything looks good. So, this is where you have an obligation to recognize and appreciate your employee’s efforts. You can say something along the line of: “I appreciate your effort in finding these low-competition keywords. Keep up the great work.”
Don’t Rely on Intrusive Monitoring
Harsh monitoring can cause a lack of trust and growing dissatisfaction among your team members. Most managers make the mistake of using intrusive monitoring software and applications that track every activity of the employee’s computer at the office or even at home.
If you think you can use such tools to increase productivity by keeping an eye on your employees… then think again. These look good only on paper. In reality, these tactics are a surefire way to cause stress among team members. Consequently, they experience lower job satisfaction and may leave the company.
So, this can put an extra burden on the HR team when hiring and training new employees. Therefore, don’t kill the motivation of your team members through excessive surveillance. The employee monitoring app market is flooded with tools offering invasive and complex features that could negatively impact the mental health and morale of your team members.
However, you can safely use credible tools like Memtime app to ensure your employees’ privacy. The software works discreetly and allows team members to choose what data they share. It’s designed in a way to be more of a help to your employees to encourage them to work effectively, but not discourage them by being invasive.
Do Lead By Example
A manager must lead by example to improve communication, collaboration, and teamwork within the organization. Not only does this improve employee satisfaction, but it also boosts their morale, leading to excellent performance and positive attitudes.
So, stay up to date and share knowledge with your team. Likewise, make sure to actively listen to your team members and acknowledge their ideas if they make sense. The purpose is to promote open communication within the workplace.
However, leading by example does not mean too much informal communication with your employees. You must ensure they respect the order established within the team.
Sometimes, you can accompany and help your employees in their obligations. For example, one of your employees will visit a shipping company to gather data about their logistic operations. In that case, you may accompany your team member and boost their morale by participating in the actual work. It also provides additional experience, so they can be more effective in similar scenarios later on.
Don’t Neglect Work-Life Balance
Even though it may sound counterintuitive, effective managers care about their work-life balance. They also encourage and promote the same for their team members. So, if you want to future proof your career as a manager, you must focus on boosting productivity, reducing turnover, attracting new employees, and improving morale. And you can achieve these objectives by ensuring work-life balance within your department in the company.
For instance, you can offer flexible and remote working opportunities to your team members so they can better manage their responsibilities. Instead of relying on work hours, it’s better to focus more on your and your team’s productivity & actual output.
Moreover, you must encourage breaks and review workloads. The first will reduce burnout, and the second will ensure you can evenly distribute and manage workloads. Last but not least, always lead by example!
Final Words
There are so many dos and don’ts managers must focus on to achieve their goals. These depend on your job type, your responsibilities, and day-to-day tasks. But in general, you should encourage professional development instead of ignoring the feedback your team gives you.
Similarly, don’t play favorites and promote a positive work environment. Set clear expectations for yourself, your team members and ensure you don’t have unclear communication criteria for your employees. And what’s important – don’t resist change, and be open to ideas!
Guest writer.
