Tips To Help Make Your Role As A Manager Easier

Working as a manager is something that isn’t possible for everyone to do. Not everyone is suitable for a managerial role because it takes certain skills but also a certain personality. If you’ve stepped into a manager role or want to improve on your current position and the strength of your team, then there’s always opportunities for learning. This learning can help grow your success as a team but can also be highly rewarding in the role itself. Here are some tips to make your role as a manager easier.

Set Goals For Your Team

Goals are always good for anyone, whether that’s for yourself or other team members. The reason for this is that it provides motivation for the individual. For some goals, it can lead to successes for the team overall and for others, it can be a way to not only impress clients and peers but also to hopefully lead to promotions and other perks like pay-rises and additional responsibilities to a role.

Giving out goals should be something that’s regularly done but it also needs to be something that you discuss with the person or persons you’re managing. What is it that they would like to achieve in their role, as well as what’s expected from them, from the company?

There are plenty of benefits to goal setting and so it’s something that you should be actively doing.

Create A Great Relationship With Your Employees

A great manager usually has a good relationship with all the employees they manage. Whether that’s one, five or a dozen members of staff, for the most part they should all be singing your praises. Yes, it’s typical to not always get on with everyone personally but it’s important to at least do so on a professional level. At the end of the day, you’ve all come here to do a job and so it’s important that a working relationship doesn’t affect that.

But that’s easier said than done. It’s always good to try and find some mutual and common ground with the staff member. Again, that might be difficult for some but we’re all human so there will certainly be something that you can identify with when it comes to the staff member.

Put in the time and effort to get to know your employees inside and out. That effort is going to most likely be reciprocated and as a manager, it’s important for you to behave respectfully first and foremost.

Outsource What You Need

Outsourcing is necessary because even with a big team, there’s always something extra that needs doing. The last thing you want is to be pushing your team too hard that they have multiple burnouts and they end up hating the job because of the strain on their workloads. 

So with that being said, outsourcing can be great to alleviate some of the stresses that your workforce might be experiencing and to meet the demands that your superiors have set for you.

When managing a budget, there’s a lot of money that can be saved using outsourcing rather than hiring full-time. From digital marketing agencies to freelancers that you bring in for a short period of time, utilize this where possible.

Acknowledge The Importance Of Break Times

Break times are important because no one can really go eight or nine hours at full capacity, non-stop. If that were the case, then many more of us would have successful companies and careers as a result.

The reality though is that we all need a break and with that being said, it’s good to acknowledge this as a manager. It’s also important to set an example and take breaks yourself.

Break times can help your staff to re-energize those productivity levels and to feel mentally ready to do more work for the rest of the working day. A lunch break of an hour is useful, as well as a five or ten minute break every hour or so.

Do More To Equip Your Staff

When it comes to your staff, it’s important to equip your team with all the tools and resources needed to successfully do their job. It’s an inherent trait and ingredient for all successful teams.

So with that in mind, think about what’s missing from the toolkits that your staff use on a daily basis.

There are lots of technology based platforms that are useful to use whether that’s design programs to task management software. Find what is needed for your staff members and also ask your team what they might benefit from having.

Always Give Feedback

Feedback is more longed for and valued than you might think as a manager. It’s important that you give feedback because it helps identify problems within the work processes and the actions of individual members of staff.

Feedback can be in the form of annual reviews, but these can also be done in one-on-one meetings done every month or so and check-ins at the start of the week or end of it. Having this constant connection with each member of the team is essential and providing that feedback is certainly useful to their growth and progress. After all, you want your team to do the very best they can do with what they are able to do. Sometimes a bit of encouragement and a pat on the back can be useful.

Learn How To Delegate

Delegate is part and parcel of a manager’s role. It’s something that some individuals can find difficult to do because it’s that release of control. Some are able to do it easily, whereas others are more hesitant to let go. However, delegating tasks and responsibilities is important to do not only to provide relief to you but also to level out the workloads.

It’s not fair to have one person do double that everyone else is doing just because you trust them more or they’ve been there longer, for example. Make sure you give everyone an equal opportunity when it comes to work.

As a manager, there is always room for improvement so use these tips to benefit your leadership.