Building a Strong Working Relationship: 6 Tips for Managing Your Employees

It’s a commonly held work belief that your employees are only as strong as their manager lets them be. As the manager, supervisor, boss, or owner, then, it’s your job to ensure you are utilizing your staff effectively and to their optimum capability.

This isn’t always as easy as it sounds since everyone is performing different jobs and managers, as a rule, wear multiple different hats. However, if you take the time early in each person’s training to build a strong working relationship, thoroughly ensure they know both hard and soft skills, and then you consistently follow these 6 tips every day, you will have a seamless, effective work environment that practically runs itself.

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6 Tips to Successfully and Effectively Manage Your Employees

1. Open lines of communication. As a manager, you want your employees to know they can turn to you if there are any issues or even if they have suggestions for improvements on how to make their job work smoother. They see a different perspective of the position than you do, and having an open line of communication ensures that you have staff who feel comfortable coming to you if they need help with their job or need to tell you sensitive information.

2. Team building is important. Team building has gotten a name for something that means a lot of ‘round the campfire singing and out-of-your-comfort-zone games. While these are great ways to improve employee morale for some people, team building can be as simple as keeping a positive work environment, treating your employees to lunch or snacks once in a while, and making an effort to get to know them personally as well as professionally.

3. Use your authority, but don’t abuse it. A good leader has to assert their authority with decisiveness, often making swift and important choices for the good of the business. You need to be able to do this, but you also should not abuse this position and make your employees afraid, to be honest with you or make any mistakes.

4. Keep procedures clear and consistent. When your procedures are clarified early and remain clear and consistent, your employees have no questions about what is expected of them. Everything in your workforce management should be delineated in your procedure handbook along with the train of communication to go to if there are questions or concerns.

5. Dole out praise often and effectively. A simple metaphorical pat on the back goes a long way to boosting a strong working relationship. But that feedback has to be specific so it doesn’t appear to be patronizing. A “You’re doing a good job” is vague and generalized to anyone, but an, “I like the way you spent so much time in the details on that Smith contract, Sam,” is individualized, specific, and tells your employee you appreciate them and what they are doing well so they continue to do it.

6. Don’t forget to delegate. As a manager, you already have a lot of responsibility. If you don’t have other delegated to assist, you will have everyone coming to you for every problem. Once you get to know an employee’s strengths, you may find that you can delegate certain responsibilities to them and, if they agree with the added responsibility, they will appreciate your trust, perform better, and be happy that their skills have been acknowledged and put to use.

A Strong Working Relationship Makes a Successful Workplace

When you have all of your procedures streamlined and clear, you have trained your employees thoroughly, and they know what they can expect from you, you will have a positive working environment that runs smoothly and efficiently.

Author: Laura Brown