How to Be the Best at People Management?

75% of employees quit their bosses, not their jobs, according to a widely cited statistic from HBR.

This highlights a big problem in today's workplaces: People Management.

People Management is often overlooked, but it’s critical to employee retention and satisfaction. People management is something that a lot of managers find challenging to master. They find it hard to connect with their teams, handle conflicts, and keep employee morale high, all of which hurts productivity and success in the long run.

Being the best at people management is not just about delegating tasks. Focus, clear communication, and regular feedback can change how your team works together, leading to better results and higher performance. In today’s blog, let us discuss how to become the best in people management. 

People management and HR are related but different. Human Resources, or HR, is the division tasked with administrative employee-related tasks. This covers recruiting, hiring, payroll, benefits, labor law compliance, and corporate policy maintenance. HR, with its focus on legal compliance, ensures that the company operates within the boundaries of the law, providing a sense of security and protection for all involved.

Conversely, people management ensures more day-to-day interaction with employees. Leading teams, motivating others, handling issues, and helping employees grow within their roles all play a part here. Understanding personal requirements, creating a good workplace, and ensuring staff members feel appreciated and supported is basically what people management is all about. It is about strengthening bonds and guiding staff members toward excellence.

While Human Resources creates the structure and policies, people management is about applying those to meet the team's needs. Good people management goes beyond the HR-defined frameworks but mostly depends on the HR-defined models. Although they function on distinct levels (HR is the structure and people management is the practice), both are vital for a well-run company.

A people manager plays a vital role in shaping the workplace environment and ensuring team members thrive. Let's discuss in detail some of the day-to-day tasks that 'you' as a people manager can carry out.

1. Define the Playbook

One of your most crucial responsibilities as a people manager is ensuring that every team member understands their expectations. This entails assigning responsibility for each employee, establishing objectives, and ensuring everyone understands what success means for the company.

Should you fail to express your expectations clearly, your employees can become lost or uncertain of their main priorities. The manager makes sure the team's objectives align with and complement the business's general objectives. This facilitates the team to become more productive and efficient. If any major change occurs in the plan, the manager ensures the team is immediately informed so everyone remains on the same page.

2. Provide Ongoing Feedback

Feedback is crucial for development. Hence a people manager's responsibility is to provide it all the time (but make sure not to overdo it).

This includes everyday catch-ups that managers have with employees as well as the formal yearly performance evaluation meetings.

A competent manager tells their staff what they are doing correctly and what they could improve on. They understand that providing feedback at the appropriate time helps correct mistakes before issues escalate. These leaders also help ensure that feedback is welcomed and perceived as an opportunity for development rather than a cause for resentment. They also encourage self-evaluation, therefore enabling team members to introspect and work on their performance.

3. Support Employee Development

Another crucial responsibility of a people manager is guiding the professional development of their staff members. A good manager has a clear idea of the awareness of the shortcomings of their employees. They support their teammates in working on their shortcomings and developing their abilities. This could imply providing on-the-job training, seminars, or even workshops.

By emphasizing development, a people manager makes their employees happier at work and makes them more likely to remain with the firm, which helps them improve at what they do. They ensure employees feel appreciated, seen, and valued.

4. Create a Positive Work Environment

The people manager's goal is to make the workplace lively and welcoming. Encouragement of honest communication, ensuring that every team member feels heard, and managing conflicts as they arise are some ways to do this. Good people managers also encourage cooperation and teamwork, therefore transforming the workplace into one in which colleagues support one another.

They understand that a good work environment increases employee morale, keeps people engaged, and increases pong others. This could involve organizing events to build teamwork or even establishing a setting whereby everyone feels valued and accepted. The manager also has to be alert for indicators of low employee morale or discontent and act fast upon them.

One way to do this is by using an employee survey tool like ThriveSparrow that helps you measure engagement levels and visualize them.

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5. Handle Conflict and Challenges

Every workplace comes with its own set of challenges and conflicts. A good people manager knows how to address them effectively. This involves identifying the root causes of disagreements and helping individuals find common ground that works for everyone. Strong managers approach difficult conversations with empathy and a focus on solutions, rather than avoiding the issues.

They aim to resolve conflicts early, preventing them from escalating and ensuring team members maintain positive relationships. This may involve mediating disputes, making tough decisions, or involving HR when necessary. By managing conflicts thoughtfully, people managers ensure the team’s progress and success remain uninterrupted.

6. Recognize and Reward Success and Efforts

A significant responsibility of a people manager is to acknowledge and celebrate achievements. This can be anything as basic as a thank-you message or as elegant as an award for their monthly efforts.

An intelligent manager understands that recognition and compliments boost morale and inspire employees to perform well.

For those who understand it, they mean something since they ensure that credit is equitable and based on merit. The reward does not always have to be money; sometimes, opportunities to grow or meet fresh challenges are just as important. The crucial point is to let employees know you appreciate their diligence.

‍7. Manage Performance

At last, performance is under the responsibility of the people manager. This implies observing and supporting those who are not performing as best as they could. A good manager regularly goes over well-defined team performance goals with employees. They provide resources and support to those struggling so they can bring out their best performance.

This could imply additional training, a strategy to raise performance, or more frequent checking in (like in performance improvement plans). Managing performance also involves making difficult decisions, such as when to terminate someone for not reaching criteria. The entire squad is supposed to perform as best as possible.

Having excellent people management abilities is essential for building a productive team and a happy workplace. Here are 5 key skills to pursue and try mastering.

1. Seek Feedback

Always ask your team and co-workers what they think about the way you handle them. Knowing how other people see what you do can help you figure out what you can do better. Take this feedback to heart to become a better leader.

2. Invest in Training

Take management classes or workshops that teach you how to communicate and lead others. These classes give you useful tools and methods for dealing with different types of team dynamics. To get better at business, you need to keep learning.

3. Practice Active Listening

Active listening means that you should try to listen more and talk less. You can make better choices and build stronger relationships with your team if you really understand their worries and thoughts. This also helps make the setting more supportive.

4. Learn from Experience

Think about the times you were in charge, both when things went well and when they did not. Every experience teaches you something useful that you can use to guide your future actions. These situations will make you a better and more confident manager over time.

5. Build Emotional Intelligence

Gain the capacity to comprehend and control your own emotions as well as those of the others in your team. Emotional intelligence helps in handling conflicts, motivating employees, and fostering a positive team atmosphere.

Just Do the Best You Can

Becoming the best at managing people is a lifelong process that requires you to know yourself, keep learning, and genuinely care about the growth of your team.

You can improve your leadership skills by asking for feedback, practicing active listening, learning from your mistakes, and increasing your emotional intelligence. Remember that managing people well means making a place where everyone can do well, and that starts with you.

You will not only help your team do better, but you will also make the workplace healthy and more productive as you get better at these skills.