Tips for Effective People Management

Yesterday I took part in a webinar offered by the CIPR on ‘Effective People Management’, tailored for our current working situation it provided food for thought – not only for me but for the clients we are currently supporting.

There is a huge onus on organisations right now to cover all angles of communication: top to bottom, across, upwards and on top of that introduce informal/fun elements to ensure people are not missing out on the social opportunities an office provides. Don’t underestimate the value of passing chats in the kitchen, or the 2 mins in a meeting room before a conference call.

Listen

Book in regular check-ins with your team members on a 121 basis to allow for a private conversation. Remembering that most of what we say doesn’t come from words (7% spoken word, 38% tone of voice, 55% body language) you should try and have these by video if possible so you can gauge each other better. Ask open questions to encourage conversation and be brave when picking up on signs of anxiety or poor mental health. You can ask them where they are on a scale of 1-10. We don’t always need to be at 10 so where do they need to be? How can you help to get them where they need to be? What do they need from you?

Communicate

Sounds obvious but you are going through the same cycle as everyone else and it's easy to forget that your team is looking to you to lead by example. You can set the tone. In all your meetings what message do you want to convey? Provide business updates, share stories from the previous day, state priorities, leave time for questions. Tell them what you know and be honest when you don’t. You also need to be explicitly clear when asking them to stay in touch with you. Regular 2-way comms minimises the chances of managers feeling out of control and slipping into micromanagement mode. It should give greater autonomy and build a culture of trust. The volume of communications also needs to be managed and now we are all working from home new boundaries need to be put in place to ensure we can close the laptop and switch off for the evening. If you work better later and send emails out of office hours make sure they know they’re not expected to respond until the following morning. Consider your channels and pick appropriately, we’ve got things pinging all over the place at the moment.

Motivate

Picture Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - at the bottom we have Physiological and Safety needs and in a time of crisis it's perhaps here that the majority are moving between. You can do as much as you can to answer questions and provide reassurance to address their concerns but you can also provide a sense of connection – which is in the 3rd level up of ‘Love and Belonging’. We’ve seen some clients organising quizzes, pet photo competitions, Friday night wine club and even plank-off competitions – give people options to dip in and out of. As a manager, it’s your responsibility to pull your team together, even if that’s just two of you (your manager should be doing the same for you to ensure your needs are being met). Before launching a bunch of activities make sure you know what motivates your people - ask them and use that as what worked before may no longer be effective. Last but not least it’s really important to celebrate successes now, even the small ones, and do that together!

Our current way of working provides many challenges but it's also brought some unexpectedly nice silver linings and I'm hopeful that we don't forget those in our haste to get back into the office.