People management is extremely important for business success. These skills may be improved and studied. It may be an advantage to have a natural affinity for dealing with people, nevertheless you can do numerous things to make this process simple.

Build relationships: Addressing employees by name can be a start. Engage in conversation; make eye contact during a conversation. Show respect, and be sure to be attentive to the other person’s thoughts, irrespective of whether you agree or not. Paying attention to what staff have to offer is one of the most crucial people management skills you can develop. Welcome any input from team members. Exhibit integrity: Keeping your word is fundamental. If you can’t keep your word, the fragile bond of trust is violated, and nobody will give you their best without trusting you. Each time you make a commitment or give your word on something, ensure you can deliver or don’t bother giving your word at all. The truth is, if your people can’t depend on you, you can be sure they will behave in a similar manner.

Feedback is important: Feedback must be a interactive process. Keeping an open mind with regard to other’s opinions is an important skill in effective human resource management. If you are able to establish that you are approachable and receptive, you show that other’s opinions are important to you, your opinions will be respected in return. Encouraging discourse in addition opens doors to creative problem solving, ways of accomplishing the mission of the team, and develops the company in general. By giving the employees an input, each member of staff takes ownership of the project’s outcome.

Promote all sorts of communication: Managing your team comes down to the same concept - communication. Maintaining an open door policy, listen attentively to other people’s views, remember to welcome employees to share ideas, and allow all your staff a chance to speak. The team should be encouraged to communicate with each other not only with you. The sharing of thoughts is imperative in the creative process, and through communicating with one another, it becomes much simpler to find any issues before they become problems, permitting corrective measures to be taken to prevent any further problems. This may require some work, but the rewards far outbalance the work. Through establishing the bonds of a good team and by listening to what your staff have to offer, you can achieve the best in business success.

It’s belief in many businesses that, since each and every employee has decent health & safety training, they are well equipped for any situation. In reality though, staff should have much more than simply basic training in health & safety legislation. You need to provide your employees with appropriate supervision, the appropriate equipment, and regular practice.

A team supervisor has a much larger function to play than simply general management. Your choice of supervisor must see their health & safety training as crucial and be able to encourage other staff to share their excitement. In addition to observing rules and regulations, a supervisory role also almost always includes checking up on employee performance. This is a difficult role. Excellent product knowledge is a necessity for a supervisory job in addition to a very high standard of familiarity with safety laws, risk assessment, and CPR. It just isn’t adequate to offer your staff health & safety instruction. To successfully discover a safety risk they need experience. Staff additionally need to develop insights into the required precautions that they will need to put in place and how to cope if disaster strikes. Only when these procedures become second nature are workers properly prepared.

Safety equipment is just as important to the well being of your employees as training. If they do not possess the proper supplies or should workers see that equipment is broken only after something has occurred, even the most advanced instruction won’t help them. You must check all your equipment regularly to make sure that all the essential gear is where it should be and that everything is being properly cared for. If you find something is in less than perfect condition, have it fixed or call out a maintenance professional as soon as possible.

Your employees have to get proper health and safety instruction, but they also need to have good quality gear, regular practises, and a knowledgeable supervisor who gets everyone charged up about being safe at work. Only then will following the various safety regulations before long be ingrained in the culture of your business rather than an inconvenience for the workforce to remember.

The way you reward people forms an essential foundation for effective people management. Money is by no means the only motivator of people, but too little money demotivates powerfully. Studies have shown that material reward is far more powerful than monetary.

1. How To Determine Levels Of Reward

To determine how much reward is appropriate, consider the question what level of employee reward will attract, retain, and motivate people of the calibre that you require. If an employee does something that results in a one-time boost for the company, a one-time incentive is most appropriate.

2. Why Give Employees Added Rewards In Addition To Wages?

Keep in mind that the main reason why you are giving an employee reward is because you want exceptional results, not comparable performance. Exceptional productivity will more than cover extra pay.

- Employee rewards should be set for noteworthy achievements

- Rewards must be related to a particular completion of a given task

- Employees should be encouraged to express their recent achievements

- Ensure the employee knows they deserve it, it will have a great impresion on their personality

3. Employee reward should never be an alternative for a reasonable remuneration scheme

This type of award should not be set as an enduring option to stable income amendments when, in fact, these changes should be carried out for constant and regular completion of tasks, excellent execution, and notable modifications in conscientiousness, or enhanced assessment of a status. Remember that employee reward is a one-time incentive program; therefore, it should be set out clearly and must be understood well by the employees so that they will know where to stand.

6. Employee rewards should not reflect the impression that these are changes to one’s basic pay

It must be set out clear to the employees so that they will not expect anything more than what they have to receive. Make it apparent that the extra pay is for special achievement only and nothing else. Generally, employee rewards may be in the form of cash incentives or non-cash fringe benefits. It could even be something of no real financial worth such as a personal letter of commendation.

7. Reward By Volume

If you have to use a monetary type of employee reward, give reward based on results. This means that the employee gets a fixed amount for a specific amount of results. In theory, this gives the employee the best incentive to maximize output. In fact, employees tend to put a ceiling on their earnings and thus on their effort. Nevertheless, the key concept here is that the management should only give an employee reward that is tied to an individual achievement. The reward must be reasonably large to have value - no one likes getting an overly small reward as it could have the opposite effect and make the employee view the company as cheap or undervaluing them. Never reward an employee for what has been accepted as a sensible objective. It should be given for extraordinary achievements only.

For more great employee reward related articles and resources check out http://www.productiveemployee.com

One of the most powerful driving forces in human nature is competition. The desire to overcome something or some company, the need to win, the cause, can in many cases be more important than the day-to-day work of the company.

If your company and your people are to ever reach some level of greatness, you must identify and focus on beating something, on creating and communicating a reason for being.

If your reason for being is that you got fired, so you decided to go into business for yourself, then maybe all you will ever create is a job.

Now, understand that when I say enemy or competition, I’m not necessarily suggesting something negative. While the folks at Apple Computer will tell you that their reason for being is often rooted in beating Microsoft, many organizations also draw motivation from saving things, ridding the world of things, creating peace, making life more enjoyable, teaching, sharing, spreading and a host of other very positive things.

And that’s the point. Small business owners often have no readily identifiable group of competitors or Goliath to aim at but they may find motivation in a great cause or reason for being and connecting that that great cause can become the drive to play the game at the highest level.

Your cause can be grand or it can be humble, but find it and you will be much more prepared to market your business, run your business with passion, hire people who support the cause and create a vision for your business. Great causes possess the power of attraction.

Think what you do isn’t grand enough to call a cause?

I will rid the world of bad advertising, one ad at a time. We will prove that tax preparation can be fun. We will empower anyone to buy a home. I will make my customers so overwhelmingly thrilled they will refer their friends and neighbors willingly. I will ensure that no one will ever be afraid to go to the dentist again.

Are you starting to see how this kind of thinking and the notion of focusing on competition could help drive your actions?

What if you could actually connect your beliefs and values to your reason for being? Would that provide motivation to do more? Would that start to feel like more than a job?

So, what is your organization’s cause for being? Aim high and let your cause guide you, your people and your clients to greatness.

Copyright 2004 John Jantsch

About The Author

John Jantsch is a marketing coach and the creator of Duct Tape Marketing. Find out more and recieve you free small business marketing guide at http://www.DuctTapeMarketing.com.

There is a lot of talk these days about the “shoot the moon”
costs associated with college and university expenses. Average
annual raises of 7 to 10 percent are common. In four years the
fees will be 1/3 more than they are right now. Big deal! What
does that have to do with the workers, employees or associates
of any company or corporation? Four years at a state institution
will run from fifty to sixty thousand. Private schools are in
the hundred to hundred and fifty thousand bracket and more.

Most parents, those paying the bills, will deplete their 401k’s,
sell real property, cash in life insurance policies, empty
savings accounts, borrow, borrow, borrow, and what may be worse
than any of that…start moonlighting without telling anyone.
When a person decides to work somewhere else, for someone else,
regardless of the circumstances, things start to happen. They
may be late for their primary job. At first, not much, but then
they’re late once or twice a week. A habit is setting in.
Working the extra hours means that their decision making
processes are not quite as sharp. Mistakes are made. Profits are
lost. What started out as hundreds and thousands of families are
in the same boat, turns out to be one person’s job in jeopardy.
This scenario occurs year after year. Those directly affected
say, “Yes, I know my work has slipped a little, but it will get
better.” Maybe it will, but more likely it won’t. The employee
is given an ultimatum and eventually let go. Another person is
hired and trained with a good chance of repeating the process.
And,still, few managers make the “college connection.”

But, for the sake of argument, let’s say the next person doesn’t
do any of those things to finance a child through college. She
just takes out loans and gripes about how little she gets paid
for doing a stellar job. This person becomes an attitude
problem-again affecting productivity. Not only hers, but those
around her.

Then, there is another person. He started early savings plans
for each of his three children. He will be in great financial
shape when his students are college bound. He feels “sorry” for
his co-workers who weren’t as diligent as he was, and he lets
everyone know it. Another attitude problem starts to manifest
itself.

Every state has a 529 plan in effect. Universities have
developed unique savings plans. But, the same force that kept
people from developing early savings plans keeps people from
participating in any savings plan. That force is
procrastination. There is always tomorrow because tomorrow never
comes… until the day of reckoning. What can be done?

A relentless program of educating employees must take place.
Find out what government and private savings programs are
available in each state and then hammer home the results of
failing to follow through with an adequate plan. What will be
the ramifications of lost opportunities for them? Encourage
heads of families to discuss college with their children.
Explain the benefits of working closely with their children’s
schools to achieve the desired ends of having well-rounded
students with better than average GPA’s. Businesses can keep
families from disintegrating at the mere mention of “the college
financial crunch.” Corporations can be the strength and energy
that keeps its workforce intact.

©2005 The Scholarship Doctor, Dale Clifton - All Rights Reserved
- Dale is an educational consultant and expert at helping
companies, corporations, and businesses aid their employees’
families in learning more about college scholarship planning and
the ability to win college scholarships, visit
http://www.ScholarshipDoctor.com

THE MARGINAL PERFORMER: Every manager must, from time to time, deal with a marginal performer an employee whose work, for the most part, is satisfactory, but who regularly fails in some specific area or areas to maintain a satisfactory level of performance. The work of the marginal performer can be classified as substandard in some cases but not so poor as to warrant immediate termination.

FIVE DEADLY SINS FOUND IN REPRIMANDING EMPLOYEES: 1. Lacking a complete understanding of the rules and/or not making them clear to others. 2. Ignoring the seriousness of an offense as well as any mitigating and aggravating circumstances. 3. Failing to get all relevant facts and acting on hearsay evidence. 4. Procrastinating in taking action against violations. 5. “Flying off the handle” or losing one’s temper.

FIVE MORE DEADLY SINS FOUND IN REPRIMANDING EMPLOYEES: 1. Being unclear in letting the other person know what the precise offense is for which he or she is being punished. 2. Not getting the other person’s point of view or their interpretation of the facts. 3. Letting the subordinate talk the manager out of the required punishment. 4. Failing to maintain some record of what has gone on, why the punishment was given, and what the next step will be if the matter is not corrected. 5. Nursing a grudge or “holding it against the employee” for having had to be disciplined.

Copyright AE Schwartz & Associates All rights reserved. For additional presentation materials and resources: ReadySetPresent and for a Free listing as a Trainer, Consultant, Speaker, Vendor/Organization: TrainingConsortium

CEO, A.E. Schwartz & Associates, Boston, MA., a comprehensive organization which offers over 40 skills based management training programs. Mr. Schwartz conducts over 150 programs annually for clients in industry, research, technology, government, Fortune 100/500 companies, and nonprofit organizations worldwide. He is often found at conferences as a key note presenter and/or facilitator. His style is fast-paced, participatory, practical, and humorous. He has authored over 65 books and products, and taught/lectured at over a dozen colleges and universities throughout the United States.