Getting to know your employees makes you a more effective manager. After all, you’ll know how to lead your team when you know what motivates them to succeed. Your employees will also want to work harder for someone who cares about what they think. As a manager, you can use one or all of these strategies to improve your relationship with your employees.
Take Time to Observe Everyone’s Work Habits
If you’re stepping into an established manager role, then it’s important to consider how people are already used to working. Taking a week or two to step back and observe can reveal major insights into each employee’s work habits and personality. Once you’ve learned who likes to step up to a challenge and which employee everyone looks to for advice, you’ll know how to work with each person’s best traits to lead the whole group.
Plan a Team Building Experience
Starting a franchise is a fast way to enter a management role, but you’ll also want to understand that any new business typically requires building a team from scratch. Planning team-building experiences is a great way to get to know your employees while also improving the relationships between every member of the team. Whether you take your crew to an escape room, volunteer at a local organization, or go hiking, you’ll also learn many new things about each person in your group.
Ask Each Employee the Same Question
As the manager of a growing franchise, you might have questions arise now and then about how people feel about changes in the company. Or, you may prefer to ask everyone the same question on their first day at work to learn more about their general personality. Asking everyone the same question gives you an interesting assortment of answers that can reveal more about your employees’ personal and professional lives.
Hold Town Hall Meetings
Town hall meetings can take place online or in person, and they typically involve a back-and-forth exchange between the members invited to the meeting. A town hall meeting is a great time to introduce new concepts within your company while also getting instant feedback from your employees regarding their current experiences. Just make sure to host a town hall with the expectation that you want everyone to feel safe sharing their opinions. Creating defined guidelines for allowing everyone to speak helps you learn more from the session.
Remember to Demonstrate Good Listening Skills
Employees often just want to know that their voices are heard. After all, it’s frustrating to open up to someone who seems closed off or unwilling to fully hear what you are saying. As part of your manager training, work on refining your listening skills. Staying quiet so that your employees can talk and rewording what they just said helps to demonstrate that you are actively listening. Many managers also create follow-up notes in their calendars to remind them to check back in with an employee who has a concern.
Strong managers know each employee on their team. While you might not delve too deep into your employees’ personal lives, it helps to know what drives their success. As you work on developing stronger relationships with your team members remember that getting to know people takes time. Continuing to build on what you learn helps you to fully connect with your team and build relationships that drive your company’s success.