Everybody is going nuts for the Manager’s Cheat Sheet right now, and it’s not hard to see why. 101 common sense tips, right there for the printing and tacking to your wall for reference! What could be better?
Since everyone seems to be picking a couple and blogging them, I decided I’d pick a couple that reflect what I feel can be the difference between a manager who encourages high turnover and a manager able to retain their employees.
89. Get the facts first. Before you pass judgment on a situation, make sure you have the whole story. Listen to employees and refrain from questioning anyone’s integrity without first ensuring that you’ve gathered all the data.
Because my workplace is what it is, I’ve seen what happens when this one is actually applied. The manager arms themself with the facts, and then can best address the issue, be it a gap in a program, a complaint, whatever. And if the manager is going based on what they see, then it’s imperative to talk to the employees who are actually involved to get all of the information. There may have been something going on the manager couldn’t see from a distance.
I’ve also seen what happens when the manager doesn’t bother to research all of the facts. Nothing destroys your credibility as a manager faster than to tell someone you’re yelling at that you couldn’t be bothered to actually look into what happened. Especially when the situation is one that could be neatly mediated between all concerned parties just by taking a quick look at the facts.
40. Know your subordinates’ jobs. You don’t want to be caught with inferior job knowledge.
Along the same lines, nothing loses an employee’s respect faster that hearing, “I have no clue what you do, but I’m going to tell you how to do your job. You know, the one you normally do just fine.” Learn what people do. Learn how they do it. This puts you in a better position to help the employee out if something comes out, and allows you to be sensitive to their issues.
Amazingly, by knowing what your employees do, it also allows you to match up the right task to the person with the best experience/job scope.
I know I did them out of order, but I just wanted to address them in this order. Just doing these two things can go far in retaining employees, making the manager’s life simpler because training and “ramping up” takes a lot of time and resources.
An aware and alert manager is a good thing.
Tags: management
