Stone Press

Efficient people management is very important in reaching the best in your business success. With a little effort you can learn and improve these techniques. It may be a plus to have a natural affinity for dealing with people, but there are some things you can learn that will help the process.

Relationship Building: Addressing employees by name is a start. Encourage conversation; make eye contact during a conversation. Do be respectful, and be attentive to the other person’s opinion, even if you disagree or have a different point of view. Acquiring the ability to listen is one of the best things you can do to improve your human resources management skills. Show interest in what people can offer the team.

Exhibit integrity: Don’t give promises you can’t fulfill. If you can’t keep your promises, the fragile bond of trust is broken, and without trust people certainly won’t give you their best. Each time you say something or give a promise, you are wasting your time if you don’t follow through. The truth is, if you can’t be counted on, you can be certain they will behave in the same manner. Encourage any feedback: Feedback should be a two-way process. Human Resource management skills mean having an open mind to all feedback. If you can prove accessibility and receptiveness, you establish that you value other people’s views, your ideas will be appreciated in return. Promoting open conversation in addition encourages growth of innovative ways of thinking, ways of fulfilling the goals of the business, and improves the company dynamic. By allowing the employees a voice, every member of staff invests in the outcome of the project.

Communicating is important: Dealing with individuals comes down to one thing — communication. Be approachable, listen closely to your co-workers, be open-minded, and give each of your employees a chance to speak. Staff should be inspired to communicate with one another not only with you. The exchange of ideas is imperative in the creative process, if the staff communicate well, it is much simpler to discover issues before they present as a problem, and corrections can be put in place before things get out of hand.

A little time will be essential, but the dividends achieved far outbalance the effort. Through inspiring a good team dynamic and developing effective listening techniques, a successful business will be achieved.

There’s more to making money than just the income - you need to be bringing in money as effectively as possible given your outgoings. A simple and often neglected asset when doing so is business performance management software. Once you know what the abilities of your members of staff are, you can tailor your routines to maximize their effectiveness, and consequently make the most of the company as a whole. While this knowledge is useful, it isn’t really effortless to get hold of.

Determining and keeping track of development through employee appraisal alone can be a significant amount of work. You first put employee appraisal techniques together in order to appraise the work done by each member of staff. If this was done with conventional approaches, you’ll have to assess all of that information by eye just to set objectives, goals, and keep track of further advancement.

Utilizing performance appraisal software you’ll find that this appraisal is taken care of and you only need to study the various metrics and factors to know what the right set of goals for this employee would be. It also makes keeping track of the employee’s development much easier. This takes away the need to spend time on analysis and may even be far more useful. It is of course also possible just to use the system to keep track of raw information like performance reviews and to analyze these items yourself. Performance appraisal software can do more than help staff. Both clients and suppliers can be studied using the appropriate software, granting access to more performance management tools. Identifying the suppliers that offer the higher grade or best priced products can reduce costs greatly. Clients have their own metrics to be scrutinized, and once again it’s possible to streamline your business practices and help your bottom line. This information is useful in minimizing expenses and boosting profits. With this data you can determine a priority demographic. With this in mind advertising becomes more effective and easier to plan.

Performance management software allows you to study your suppliers to save money and watch the market to tailor your plans and develop your profits. It renders employee performance management straightforward and far more effective in addition to helping you encourage employees by setting precise targets greatly. All things considered, the potential of this system is endless and depends exclusively on your creativity and ability to use the information put at your disposal!

Nowadays many human resource managers think that, by offering each employee some instruction in occupational health and safety, they are sufficiently prepared for any situation. Realistically however, employees need more than just the basics in health and safety legislation. You need to provide your employees with competent supervision, the right equipment, and regular practice. Every team needs an excellent supervisor to oversee the shop floor, but this person must also perform another function on the floor. Whomever you select as the supervisor needs to see the necessity of health and safety training and have the ability to encourage others to share their excitement.

In addition to observing any relevant legislation, the supervisor furthermore needs to make certain that each employee performs to the best of their abilty. This is a difficult role. The supervisor needs to possess in depth understanding of both the business and manufacturing processes in addition to an in depth comprehension of the safety laws, risk assessment, and first aid. It simply is not enough to supply your employees with health and safety instruction. To positively discover a risk they require to put their new-found skills to the test. They need to know how to eliminate hazards as well as how to manage if the unexpected happens. Only when these processes have developed into automatic are staff properly educated. Instruction is in fact ineffective if you don’t have safety equipment. If they do not have the correct gear or if workers find out that equipment is not working correctly when they actually need them, the safety training they have undergone will have been basically useless.

You must check every item on a regular basis to verify that you possess all of the essential gear as well as checking that it’s all being properly looked after. If piece of equipment doesn’t come up to the applicable legislation, make certain that it’s repaired ASAP and return it to the appropriate place. Health and safety education is important for the safety of your staff, but in addition they must have decent apparatus, regular practise drills, and a knowledgeable supervisor who gets everyone charged up about working safely. And then adopting all the safety regulations be established in the culture of your business and no longer something challenging for everyone to remember constantly.

It’s belief in a significant number of businesses that, by giving each employee some instruction in health & safety, they now have all the skills needed to cope with a catastrophe. The reality is that, irrespective your industry, basic instruction in health & safety legislation and risk asessment simply isn’t sufficient. Equipping your employees, providing the right supervisior and facillitating regular drills are essential to the safety of employees. Each team must have an approachable supervisor to watch staff performance, yet this individual must also fulfill another function in the business. Whomever you employ as the supervisor is required to realise the necessity of health & safety training and have the ability to get everybody excited. In addition to ensuring conformity with health & safety regulations, the individual supervising as well must check that employees perform all work efficiently. This is not a easy job. An accomplished supervisor is expected to possess an in-depth knowledge of the industry best practice and manufacturing processes not to mention an extensive knowledge of the safety laws, the identification of problem areas, and emergency assistance techniques. Just having basic training in health & safety isn’t sufficient for your employees. Your employees must practise risk assessment and the identification of hazards. Staff have to understand how to eradicate safety hazards as well as how to act when something unexpected happens. Your staff are only completely prepared when their training and procedures have become a habit.

Instruction is by all accounts useless if you don’t keep safety gear. When they don’t have apparatus that is necessary, or learn that they’re not working properly when they are required, the education your employees have undergone will have been essentially useless.

It is crucial to check all your equipment often to make sure that you are in posession of all the required gear as well as checking that it’s all in good repair. If an item doesn’t come up to the applicable standards, have it fixed or serviced as a matter of urgency. Your workforce have to get the right health & safety instruction, but in addition they also require good quality equipment, the chance to practise, and an experienced supervisor who gets the workforce charged up about being safe at work. When you take this advice you will see that all the safety regulations become a part of your employee’s working habits not something for employees to think about all the time.

Your people are invaluable to you. They are the lifeblood of your business or organisation. And yet, in many situations, managers take little time to truly find out what makes each of their people special. Makes them unique.

But why would this be important to know?

When people bring their special blend of skills to your workplace, it’s important to know about it. And not just because you might be able to get more out of them. When you know what turns your people on, they work happier and contribute more; sometimes, much more than you might expect from them. When they are working in their ‘flow’, they are on top form, in overdrive. And then remarkable results flow.

So, how do you find out what your people are best at, and also where they struggle?

Many organisations now use a variety of techniques to get to the bottom of who their employees truly are. These take the form of assessments - often simple questionnaires - that their employees complete. Then both employee and line-manager work together with the data, to understand the focused results that such information provides.

More commonly now, external coaches are brought in to work with special types of assessments, to provide an outsider’s support, well away from line management or performance assessments. This enables openness and honesty - not always possible if your boss is your coach.

In the assessment systems that are available, some tend to place people in boxes, which can almost lead to the employee ‘acting out’ what they expect to be like from the results. This can be very discouraging, especially when told that it’s ‘just the way you are’ (and this with little hope of changing ever!).

There are now more modern approaches, which are enabling employees to understand better their behaviours. These can be adapted and developed, with the encouragement and challenge of a coach, to deliver far greater performance than previously possible.

Often these ‘behavioural’ approaches accelerate development, to such an extent that prolonged coaching contracts are unnecessary, although after a time, such is the success, that (especially senior employees) come back for a further burst of activity, to raise the bar on their own performance even further.

Ultimately, it the employee’s prerogative to decide in which areas of developing their performance they might wish to focus. With a modern, self-assessment style questionnaire identifying where they are in the moment, it is be well worth the time and investment to give themselves a head start. Celebrating the unique skills and talents they already have is a good place to start.

Those at the head of a business or organisation can set an example. This enables them to model change as a ‘good thing’ and encourage others to take full part, in the knowledge that this is not going to be a painful experience, yes, maybe challenging, but ultimately good, for the employee as well as everyone else, both inside and outside the workplace.

© Martin Haworth 2005. At Coaching Businesses to Success, we work with clients from all sorts of business backgrounds worldwide, often entirely by phone, using Intercept® ID, a proven, soft-skills gap analysis tool.

For more information, checkout the Coaching Businesses to Success website for more details.

I want to tell you a little story that could make a wonderful difference in your life. You may already know about everything I’m going to tell you. If you do, you’re a remarkable person, and according to the latest statistics you belong to the top 5% of all the working people in the world. You’re to be congratulated. If you don’t know about the things I’m going to say, you’ve been holding yourself back, not only on the job but you’re also missing a big percentage of the greatest joy in life. I want to talk about your boss and your relationship with him. How you handle this relationship will determine your success or failure. It will determine how much money you make or do not make, and it will determine whether you’re a happy person or an unhappy person.

So let’s talk about you and your boss. Who is your boss? You have only one and every working person, from the president of the largest corporation to the shoeshine boy, has the same boss. He is simply the customer. There never has been, there is not now, and there never will be any boss but the customer. He is the one boss you must please. Everything you own he has paid for. He buys your home, your cars, your clothes. He pays for your vacations and puts your children through school. He pays your doctor bills and writes every paycheck you will ever receive. He will give you every promotion you will ever obtain during your lifetime, and he will discharge you if you displease him.

Sometimes, particularly these days of seemingly complex economics and big business, we lose sight of just what business is. It all started back during the most primitive times. A man, in order to fend for himself and his family, had to provide his own food and his own shelter. He had to do his own fighting and fashion his own rough clothes and crude weapons for hunting and materials for fishing. Later he had to manufacture his own farming implements. In short, each person had to personally take care of every department of his or her life.

Naturally it came about that men and women with certain talents appeared. One person was particularly adept at fashioning spears, another at fishing, another at hunting, another at making garments, and so on. It was only natural that soon these individuals found that they could best spend most of their time in the pursuit of that at which they were most talented and trade their production for the production of others.

As a result, the person who made spears found that others would give him a share of their food, clothing, and so on, if he’d provide them with spears. Thus, trade and commerce began. It’s far more complex today but still based on the same principle. A person’s money is the result of his production, and he trades it for things he needs and wants. And it’s here that logical discrimination comes into the picture.

Since his money is the result of his work, it’s left to his discretion as to where he spends it. It is here that he assumes the role of boss. He will spend his money only with those whom he feels have earned it. And this is as it should be. You and I are exactly the same way. If someone treats you badly in any way, you instinctively feel that he has not earned your business and you will withhold it from him.

Over a period of time this amounts to a really substantial penalty. Let’s say a family spends $100 a week for food, and because they’ve been mistreated or even get the feeling they’re not appreciated or liked, they stop doing business at one store and take their business to another one. That’s a penalty to one store of $5,200 a year and an increase of that amount at another store. In 10 years it amounts to $52,000. This amount of money can be lost by not realizing who the boss really is. The same thing applies to our clothes, drug items, hardware, cleaning, gasoline, automobiles, everything we purchase.

The average family earns more than $42,000 a year. This money pays your salary and mine if we earn it. And our prosperity as individuals hinges directly on our attitude toward what we do for a living. The man who works on an automotive assembly line might not think much about the car at the point of sale, nor about the family who will eventually buy and travel in that car. But that family pays his salary, and they will withhold the purchase of the car on which he works if it does not earn their respect and admiration.

If you doubt this even for a moment, think of the cars that once were popular and that can no longer be seen on the road. This applies to all products. Having earned a successful place in the economy should not be confused with keeping it. It must be earned every day, year in, year out. There’s not a single company that could not go out of business. Everything depends on how the boss is treated, the boss being the customer. And yet the customer is eminently fair, just as you are. He can be won back, and if he’s treated with the importance that he deserves, he can in a few years bring a lot of other people into your place of business.

Let me tell you something you may not have thought about. If you get in your car and start driving across the country, you will pass many thousands of businesses, from small restaurants, drug stores, grocery stores, gas stations, to great sprawling corporate complexes covering hundreds of acres and employing thousands of people. By simply looking at each one you can tell how they’re treating the boss.

Did you know that your rewards are in exact proportion to your service? That’s right. We’re paid exactly what we earn, but no more. And you can tell by looking at any business exactly what it has earned by seeing what it has. It’s the same with people. We get back exactly what we earn, but not a penny more. And this, again, is just the way it should be. A person might be underpaid for a while, but the scales of life must balance eventually and he will, in the end, receive just what he’s earned.

There are of course two ways in which we’re paid for what we do. One is tangible in the form of money, and the other is intangible, but just as important. To many it’s more important. This latter form of payment comes in the form of inner satisfaction, in the form of joy as a result of accomplishment. It also comes in the form of satisfaction in position and the standing it gives us.

So each of us is paid in these two ways: money and satisfaction. And there’s a very simple way to increase both of these forms of income. You may wonder how I can say that I can tell you of a simple way to increase your income from the standpoint of money as well as inner satisfaction. Yet I can, and you’ll be able to see and spend the results.

First, I want you to understand and believe completely the great law that lies as the foundation of all life, business and personal. It is that our rewards in life will be in exact proportion to our service. The more you think about this and observe people and businesses in their true light, the more you’ll see the undeniable truth of it.

Try as best you can to estimate the proportion of your total ability you have been giving to your work. I don’t think anyone gives 100%. I don’t think it’s possible to give 100% day in and day out. But estimate what you consider to be the percentage of 100% you have been giving to your work. Would you say it’s been 30%? 50%?

Since your rewards will be in exact proportion to your service, you can increase your income both financially and from an inner satisfaction standpoint simply by narrowing the distance between what you have been giving to your work and the 100% of which it may be said you could give under ideal conditions. You don’t have to ask for a raise; the income will appear of its own accord and in the right time. You may want to question this, but try to take my word for it.

The second point I want to make is this: If you will begin to do your work better, better than you’ve ever done before, you will immediately begin to receive incalculably more inner satisfaction. You’ll also find that what may have been a boring or uninteresting job will take on new meaning and interest. No matter what it is that you do during the entire working day, try in every case to do a little more than you have to, more than you’re being paid for. Because unless you do more than you’re being paid for now, you can’t hope for or justify an increase in pay.

The third point is, each of us is interdependent. As I pointed out earlier, other people pay our salaries, buy our homes, clothe, feed, and educate our children. Therefore we depend on others for our very lives, just as they must depend on us. If we expect others to give us excellent service and fine products for the money we spend, doesn’t it make good sense that we should treat them the same way? Every hour spent at our work should be spent in the attempt to give the best of which we are capable, a baker’s dozen for the money our company’s customers spend for our products and services and with which our salaries are paid.

A person who tries to get the maximum return for the minimum of effort is only kidding himself. Sooner or later the scales will balance. They must, for that is the law whether we like it or not. This kind of individual actually shrinks as a person, as a human being. He has no real place in a dynamic and swiftly changing world.

The fourth point is to try each day to find some way in which the work you’re doing can be improved. Here again you’re guaranteeing an increase in your income in both categories. We all know the cynical type of individual who will laugh at this. I know them; you know them. But I don’t know one who could be said to be doing well, do you?

I know lots of men and women at the top of their fields who live their lives every day in the way I have suggested. Rather than go along with someone who’s never proved in his own life that he knows what he’s talking about, I’d prefer to believe the one who said, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.” I feel, as I’m sure you do, that he was more qualified to speak than the know-it-all who is behind in his installment payments.

Anyway, it’s worth a test. If you’ll follow my suggestions for the next year, you’ll be a different person, living a rich, rewarding, and meaningful life. Four things, all of them simple.

One, remember that our rewards in life will be in exact proportion to our service.

Two, by giving your work a larger percentage of your capabilities and talents, you will, you must, increase your income substantially.

Three, since our lives depend on others, treat others in every facet of your life exactly as you want others to treat you. If you expect others to give you excellent products and services for the money you and your family spend, then you should make certain that your job is handled as excellently as it is possible for you, since it is the money of others that pays your salary.

Four, try to find some way every day in which your work can be improved. And above all, know your boss. He’s the customer. Treat him with the respect, care, courtesy, and good humor he deserves. Remember, he pays all your bills every month. He will buy everything you will ever own. He may be coarse, crude, ignorant, selfish, conniving, and a thoroughgoing savage. He often will be. Here it is more important than ever that you treat him with all the care and attention you can muster. If you don’t and if you permit his attitude to affect yours, you’re admitting that he’s the stronger person. If you respond the same way he conducts himself, you’re admitting you’re no better than he is.

Most people, however, are nice people. They’re people like you and me who want to be liked and want to get along, who want to be friends. They have problems and sorrows of their own about which we’re not aware. They have bad days and disappointments. Make sure that the time they’re with you is a high spot in their day and that they’ll want to come back, not just because of your company, but because of you.

If you’ll do these things for a year, you’ll be surprised and delighted, and you’ll find you wouldn’t live any other way for the world. If you’re already living this way, you know what I mean.

Earl Nightingale co-founded Nightingale Conant an audio publishing company and world leader in personal development with over 2 million loyal customers. Other audio books available at Nightingale Conant include authors such as Napoleon Hill, Deepak Chopra, Wayne W. Dyer, and many, many more.