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4 Ways to Effectively Manage Your Business and Team

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Effectively manage your business|4 Ways to Effectively Manage Your Business and TeamBeing able to help a team and business grow is demanding as you need to balance the best of both worlds. A team leader’s role in the modern business environment sounds gratifying, but it is equally challenging. You need a constant source of motivation that helps keep all the business activities in alignment.

Effective business and team management help you prepare your business for the worst-case scenarios in a fast-paced environment. You may not get enough time to check in with employees and make sure they’re feeling positive, creative, and on track. On the other hand, if you are too invested in people management, you lose out on the aspects of business management.

Many of your business plans would rely on the people and how they can accept them. This means, having an effective business strategy alone cannot overcome challenges. Instead, you need to consider your business and team together. They go hand in hand to ensure optimal resource utilization and achieve maximum output.

In this post, we will discuss four effective team management strategies that can help your business perform better.

1. Encourage and facilitate collaboration

Employees who get along well are more productive and enjoy their work environments. There will likely be a whole bunch of diverse skills that your team possesses. Ensure these different skill sets are utilized synergistically by encouraging members to collaborate on projects.

Enabling quick collaboration with tools like Slack and Zoom allows everyone in the team to drive the desired result as everyone chips in their share of talent. You can also build a knowledge base and encourage employees from different departments to chip in their expertise by adding content to the base.

2. Communicate with your team

Most businesses would recruit new staff and then fail to communicate with them for five weeks. Getting yourself some time to spend with other employees is crucial to forming a sense of camaraderie and connection. You need to know employees’ interests and personality quirks to learn about their strengths and weaknesses.

Successful business management lies in identifying the right individuals for the right task and seeing them achieve results. Try getting acquainted with and understanding each individual you hire to learn about their areas of competence that help you tailor tasks to their expertise.

3. Promote transparency

Transparency helps build trust and mutual respect among team members, and this is why it gets crucial to promote transparency throughout the organization.

The first step towards greater transparency is to let everyone know about their responsibility. When assigning tasks for any project, ensure that their duties are clearly defined to help team members understand their contribution to the bigger picture.

And once you assign responsibility, the next step is to ensure that everyone in the team knows about other members’ responsibilities. For this, promote using tools like Slack, Trello, or similar project management platforms that keep democratizing task lists for everyone to see.

4. Balance authority and responsibility

A larger part of your business success relies on how well you assign authority and responsibility to team members. Authoritarianism and personal accountability go hand in hand, so finding a middle ground is essential to manage your business and team.

For instance, you should give authority to a person while assigning task responsibility as they go hand in hand. This allows them to make the required choices rather than circling the office seeking approval. Furthermore, it offers them the freedom and self-confidence to make their own choices, which helps them become better workers and accomplish tasks faster.
In doing so, you open ways for everyone in the team to provide suggestions and expert guidance whenever needed.

The bottom line

Great leaders devote much time and energy to training their employees to help manage the business effectively. Ensuring that everyone has the right tools and resources to succeed should be your primary concern. You need to devote time and attention to each person in the team to teach them how to accomplish business goals.

If you fail to take care of your employees, they won’t do the best they can for your business. Empowering them to fulfill their professional objectives will ultimately help your business in a better way. When it comes to effectively managing your business and team, following the tips mentioned above can help you take a proactive approach and unlock greater growth.

How To Build A Successful Team

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Build a successful team|How To Build A Successful TeamFor most small businesses, there will come a time when it needs to expand. It could be that bigger premises are required, or that new products should be introduced to the line. Or it could be that more staff are needed. It is at this point that, if the business owner is not very careful indeed, things can start to go wrong. Putting a team together is one thing; putting the right team together is quite another. Without the right team, a small business can vanish overnight. The right team can boost it to the next level – and, in fact, as far as it needs to go. Read on to find out more.

It’s Not What You Know

When it comes to employing your core business team, it’s definitely more like ‘it’s who you know’. If you can possibly do it, you should always hire people you already know. Not family and friends (not necessarily anyway – if they have the requisite skills, then it isn’t a problem), but those you have worked for in the past and found to be professional and good at what they do. This way, you can be sure that the foundations of your team are strong and that they know what they are doing. Training new team members is the last thing you want to do when you are also running a business, unless it is absolutely necessary.

Make Sure They Have Experience

If you don’t know anyone suitable, or if no one is available, you will need to broaden your search. This can be worrisome, but remember that you are looking for experience. That’s the key point. Don’t hire someone just out of university who, despite their excellent degree, hasn’t done anything like what you’ll be asking them to do before. That will just take more of your time, and it will slow the progress of the business down too. If you get things right at the beginning, the time will come when you can afford to hire those who are just starting out to give them a chance. That time is not when you are building your first team.

Sales And Marketing

If there is any part of the team you should be looking at first, it’s the sales and marketing part. Without them, nothing else matters. You could have the best company in the world, but if no one knows about you, what’s the point? Sales and marketing need to get acquainted with the business and how it all works as early on as possible. They should definitely be part of your core team.

Find The Passionate Ones

As well as people who know what they’re talking about, whether they’re experts in trailer reflective tape or which social media platform to use for marketing, or what kind of coffee is best in the waiting room, you want people who are passionate about your business and want to see it succeed. This is partly down to you as the business owner, as the person who can show them your vision and ask them to get behind it. It’s about the rest of the business too. If these people can also have experience, then you will have the best of both worlds.
Therefore, it is down to you to instill that passion in the people you want around you. They’ll stay for longer, and they’ll do a better job for you.

5 Ways to Effectively Motivate Your Team as a Manager

StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | 5 Ways to Effectively Motivate Your Team as a ManagerHiring capable candidates that are a good fit for your organization is just the first step of building a happy and motivated workforce. If you fail to take steps to ensure that your employees are content in your organization, you risk having demoralized and inefficient staff. In addition, when team members are unhappy with management, they are far more likely to leave a company. In this case, you will lose stellar employees and increase expenditure.

Many businesses attempt to motivate their employees through money and other benefits. While these are undoubtedly effective, studies suggest that these are not always the most critical factors. Peer motivation and recognition are often more important aspects of a workplace when it comes to motivating staff. With this in mind, here are some management tactics you can implement to keep your team loyal and motivated.

Make the Workplace Somewhere People Enjoy Being

Unsurprisingly, not many people relish the thought of being stuck in dingy and dull office spaces while they work. Consequently, as a manager, you should take steps to make your workspace a visually enticing and aesthetically pleasing area.

One of the easiest ways to make an office a more pleasant place is to focus on the lighting. You should take the time to ensure that the spaces are well-lit. A poorly illuminated environment can quickly become mentally taxing for employees, reducing productivity and contributing to dissatisfaction in the workplace.

You don’t need to spend a fortune when revitalizing your office. Consider finding interesting art and furniture on local sales pages or in thrift stores. Regardless of what you decide to purchase, bringing a degree of character into workspaces will help to ensure that your employees are stimulated and happy when they are at work.

Support Your Team

This may seem obvious, but you’d be surprised at how often managers forget this fundamental aspect of their jobs. Bad management is one of the primary factors contributing to staff turnover, so if your staff do not feel respected, listened to or supported, expect them to not stick around for long.

There are some fundamental aspects of managing a team that you should not overlook. For example, promoting honesty, support and communication in your organization is essential. However, if you are newer to management, you might be wondering where to begin when it comes to motivating your team. Consider reading up on the subject. Like any other skill, effective management takes time and knowledge to master, so reading material related to management could help you hone your management style.

Embrace Agile Principles

The agile manifesto helps to improve focus and motivation within your organization by focusing on continual improvement based on feedback. Additionally, it stresses the importance of technology as a tool to enable cross-team collaboration to create a workplace where teamwork and interaction between individuals are priorities.

Therefore, it is relatively clear how agile business management principles can help make your workplace where employees want to be. These principles are particularly suited to software development companies, but they can be applied across various industries. In fact, the majority of Fortune 500 companies utilize agile principles in their day-to-day operations. Therefore, if you want to create a happy and motivating environment, it is an excellent idea to promote engagement and collaboration using these. For more information about these agile principles and how they can help your company, check out Easy Agile.

Recognize Achievements

Often, all your staff expect from their employer is to be recognized and celebrated when they do their job well. As a result, you should not hesitate to offer honest praise to your team members when you notice them going above and beyond. For example, when employees put a lot of time and effort into completing a project, or you see them helping their co-workers, let them know that you appreciate it.

While this might seem like a minor thing, it can make a world of difference to your staff. The principle of recognizing efforts makes people feel more appreciated in the workplace and will compel them to continue to deliver maximum effort while performing their jobs. This is well documented, as employees whose hard work is regularly praised report that they enjoy their jobs more than those who are not.

Ultimately, this is one of the most effective ways of motivating staff. It helps individuals feel more connected with and loyal to a company, which will boost their performance while at work. Keeping your team happy and invested in the company is essential to avoid losing valuable team members. Losing employees can damage morale, reduce efficiency and lead to significant expenditure, so you should avoid it at all costs. Thankfully, simply recognizing their efforts is one of the most effective ways of developing a happy workforce.

Be Flexible in Your Scheduling

The ways of working have changed a lot over recent years thanks to technology. This was never as clear as during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many office workers were forced to work from home to prevent viral transmission. Restrictions on working from shared spaces provided many valuable lessons for both employers and employees. One of the most significant takeaways was that working doesn’t need to fit into a regimented nine to five schedule.

With modern communication and remote working solutions, it is possible to pick up and finish work when convenient. For many, this has been a massive boon for their work/life balance, as it allows them to fit their working hours into their busy schedules. Therefore, flexible working arrangements can be an excellent way to motivate employees and entice them to stay at your organization. So, whether you offer opportunities to work from home or schedule the working week on a flexi-time basis, a flexible approach is often the best one.

The Takeaway

Motivated and happy employees are a cornerstone of any successful business. Therefore, your management style should incorporate tactics to ensure that your team members enjoy coming to work and feel like they are a valued part of the business. This can be facilitated by following the tips outlined above. Additionally, take care to regularly hone your management skills to ensure that you are constantly improving your methods of motivating your team.

Taking On Your First Team Members: Everything That You Need To Know

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |Team Members|Taking On Your First Team Members: Everything That You Need To KnowYou’ve done what seemed impossible – you’ve managed to grow your business to a point where you need to take on additional team members – and you couldn’t be more excited. Your business has started to grow and you know that if you get your approach right, you can ensure that your business has the very best chance of continuing to grow and thrive.

The only issue is that you’re feeling a little overwhelmed by the process of taking on your first team members; it’s a lot to take in, after all. The good news is that just because the concept of taking on your first team members seems like a somewhat daunting one, that doesn’t have to be the case – there are plenty of steps that you can take to make taking on your first team members a less stressful and more enjoyable experience.

Wondering what those steps are? Below is a guide to everything that you need to know about taking on your first team members!

Bolster your knowledge

Before you can even think about hiring your first team members, it’s important that you take the time to boost your knowledge and understanding of how the hiring process works, as well as what it takes to be a good employer. You might find that by choosing to undertake a couple of management courses that you might find learning to be a boss – because it is something that’s learned – becomes easier to manage. If you’re serious about being the best employer that you can be, then it’s definitely something that it’s worth taking the time to master.

Don’t go it alone

Not sure how to cope with taking on your first team members and all of the admin that goes with it? Don’t panic – take the time to think about hiring a specialist to help and support you with the hiring process. You will find that if you have some HR support on hand, either full-time or on an adhoc or freelance basis, you can make the process of hiring team members a far more enjoyable and less stressful one.

Take safety seriously

One of the most important things when it comes to taking on team members is to understand the importance of adequate health and safety at work. When you run a business, you can be held accountable should a team member hurt themselves while they are at work, which is why getting health and safety right is so important. You might find that guides like Carlos Ramirez Safety guide could be useful to help make understanding the ins and outs of workplace safety a little easier.

There you have it, a simple guide to the ins and outs of taking on your first team members. There’s a lot to think about but the process doesn’t have to be as stressful as you might think.

HR Management Can Help Develop Your Team

StrategyDriven Talent Management Article |HR Management|HR Management Can Help Develop Your TeamHuman resource management requires a wide range of qualities such as: leadership, proper time management, ability to motivate employees and assertiveness. In this section you will find a variety of tools that will help you upgrade your recruitment system, human resource management, management team development, tips and skills.

The perception of the role of the manager today is completely different from what existed 30 years ago. The variety of capabilities and multi-tasking that the manager is required to perform, leaves them very little free time to actually manage their employees. In the form of management today, is the manager first and foremost a leader? New employee recruitment processes and new job training processes are due to the Achilles heel of many organizations and small businesses. How to train employees? The answers in the article in front of you. It all begins with good training. Work training is vital to ensure that everyone is working to their potential.

The issue of productivity and the work of interfaces often arises in work in medium and large organizations. We lose valuable work time and build ineffective processes. Through proper work and a method of building processes it is possible to significantly upgrade the efficiency in any organization and save time and money.

Assimilation of procedures and processes in a focused management

Processes, efficiency, proper time management and tasks are among the four most common things most organizations today talk about. Often, we talk a lot about these issues, but do not carry out a deep and rooted process for deepening method and language in the organization.

An excellent recruitment strategy requires the use of your entire team as well as some aspects that you may not always anticipate. To help build the process, we have some tips to help you attract the best talent. After all, who does not want a large amount of inquiries on their site, constant phone calls from customers, new project management, new tasks and other profit channels for the business.

Many articles have been written about the status of management as a profession. Academic discussions, workshops and professional philosophical discourse on the subject have existed for decades. Despite this, as of today (and probably for years to come), there is no compulsory course or professional training in order to become a manager or improve management skills. So are you a manager looking to employ new staff? Like an electrician, an accountant, an engineer and a lawyer, a manager is also a profession and like any other profession, in order to perform it optimally it is important to learn and also to experience the work they are in; which is how training can maximize their skill. However, employing the worker is the first step.

Getting a new team together

Sometimes the simplest strategies are the best: recruit the most amazing people you know, make sure to keep them regularly happy, encourage them to bring in their most talented friends, make sure to provide great experience to each candidate and repeat this process regularly until your employees become recruiters. When you get to a point where you can not repeat this process, you have probably started developing a dedicated in-house recruitment team. If their experience with your organization is particularly positive, even non-accepted candidates still serve as recommenders for your organization. Poor candidate experience will usually leave a sour taste, not only for the candidate who came for the interview, but also for the employee who made the referral. It does not matter how much the organization pays, or how big projects the organization has, if you fail to treat candidates with the same appreciation you would provide to a veteran employee, you are doing a poor service to the organization. I’ve added a quick list of topics to make sure your candidate’s experience is on track. It is advisable to make a neat list for the recruitment process. Let’s not forget that you want to attract the very best people to your company. You can’t do this if you appear incompetent, incapable and inefficient.

How to interview potential employees: Freestyle interviewers versus template interviewers

We have all encountered one or two freestyle interviewers in our lives. Those who do not work with a page or a set of ready-made questions. They are usually big refusers of the pattern and their ability to feel and feel the candidate will determine whether they will be accepted or not. The questions do not repeat themselves and sometimes it is also not clear what they are asking.

How is an interview from intuition and gut feeling a rational and process interview? Very simple, because what those people call a gut feeling or intuition is an analytical process. How is this possible? The same gut feeling or intuition works in such a way that when we see a certain behaviour. We go back in time and identify patterns of identical behaviour, connect the same patterns in people and situations we have encountered in the past and draw a completely statistical conclusion which predicts the future behaviour of the candidate. If those interviewers who rely on feeling actually perform a thought and analysis process then where is the problem? Why are they not interviewing well enough? For several reasons and the main one is that they conclude how someone will behave in complex situations at work based on their behaviour in an unnatural situation which is a job interview. I will expand on the problems with the ability to draw conclusions in this way later.

In stark contrast to freestyle interviewers, the template people leave nothing to chance. The questions are ready in advance. Each answer indicates a character trait or behaviour of the candidate and there is almost nothing left that is prone to interpretation. Everything is clear and it is possible to know everything about the candidate before getting him a job, the people in the template say (and are wrong). Those who come to the interview with all the questions prepared in advance often find the best outcomes, for the business and its future.