The areas that will help your business grow
There are so many ways that managers can work on their businesses.
Whether it’s using new tools or enhancing communication, there’s always something that could be improved or implemented.
Managers often look for ways to make themselves more efficient, forgetting that they can do the same with their workforce.
By investing in your employees, you can build up your entire team, reaping the rewards along the way.
Teamwork
Working as a cohesive unit is a key part of most jobs. By ensuring that your employees can work well together, you can count on them to complete tasks and achieve more than they would be able to on their own.
Plenty has been written about team building activities here and elsewhere, so we won’t rehash those points, but it is worth putting effort into finding out which employees work well together and which don’t.
That shouldn’t then mean those are the only combinations of people you put together! Instead, use the more effective team setups for when you really need things to run smoothly, and use quieter times as a chance to try to improve connections between those that don’t naturally work together.
It is worth having open discussions about why certain people work better with others, and this dialogue can pave the way for more constructive working relationships.
Goal-setting
There are several reasons why goal-setting is important to your business. The first is that it provides clear direction to employees, helping them make decisions within the context of their overall aims for their role.
Setting goals also helps with motivation, both towards the achievements and objectives themselves, and by giving employees a sense of progress in their career.
Tying together company goals and individual development can ensure that your employees are ‘pulling in the same direction’ and working towards the bigger picture.
With these points in mind, goal-setting becomes a critical skill for employees. While they may well set their larger goals in tandem with you as their manager, they can also get into the practice of regularly setting themselves smaller achievable goals to maintain focus and motivation on a daily basis.
Making goal-setting a regular part of your employees’ routines is a great way to have them practice this skill. This can be part of a wider employees development plan that you work with them on to define their future within your business.
Leadership
It may not always be obvious as a manager, but there are plenty of times when you’ll want, and need, your employees to step up and lead.
From crisis situations when you’re not there to making sure small teams pulled together for tasks get the desired results, having strong and confident leaders below you can make your life far easier.
Leadership skills can be honed by giving employees opportunities to manage each other, take ownership of smaller projects, or deliver training and guidance to their colleagues.
There are also various soft skills that contribute to being a good leader which you can get them to work on without directly leading. Offering encouragement and advice to each other is a great starting point, as is setting a good example through their own work.
Time management
Things run more smoothly when everyone is where they need to be at the right time. As such, having good time management across your team can make a huge difference to your business’s operation.
From making sure that you open and close on time to meeting client deadlines, time restraints are everywhere. Giving your employees chance to practice not only delivering on time, but prioritising tasks based on their urgency, is a great way to train this skill.
Of course, there are some areas where you don’t really want to take any risks. Your business needs to operate for the entirety of its stated hours, and that means you need your employees in and ready to do their job for the start of their shift.
Using a smart employee scheduling tool like Findmyshift is a perfect way to take some of the mental workload around rotas away from you and your employees, leaving you free to focus on prioritisation and time management with other activities.
Forget pen and paper rotas that have endless changes scribbled across them. With Findmyshift, everyone has instant access to the same up to date copy of the schedule and can find their time commitments instantly.
With one fewer thing to worry about, you can use the time you’ll save to keep pushing your employees to improve, for your sake and theirs.