According to a 2014 report from Gallup, companies make the wrong choice in picking managers nearly 82% of the time. This has significant consequences for organizational productivity, as poor employee engagement is attributed to poor managers nearly 70% of the time. While the blame partly lies with management for its failure to bet on the right candidates for managerial roles, a significant chunk of the responsibility also falls on Human Resources (HR) for its failure to groom employees to take up these roles.
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What constitutes a good manager? This question has different answers depending on who you ask. From an employee’s perspective, good managers are approachable and act as good mentors with respect to driving projects and employees’ personal career goals. More importantly, good managers are also those who are accountable and do not always blame failure on their team members.
From management’s perspective, good managers are those who meet their targets with the resources allocated to them. In addition, they are also highly driven and have qualities that will enable them to take up larger responsibilities over time.
While a lot of this is achieved over the long term through routine employee training, it is important for managers to possess skills and data that can help them steer their team from the start. A quick-start guide can assist your newly promoted managers in getting onboarded to the role efficiently.
Here are a few tips on what this quick-start guide must achieve.
Be the Face of the Company to Your Team
Managers are the face of the organization to the team they lead, which means their employees may expect them to offer guidance on various aspects of employment, in addition to the technical guidance they look for from management.
This is especially true when handling a team of freshmen who are in their first jobs. Managers should be able to offer basic guidance to these young recruits on what kinds of health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs) exist in the organization, what kinds of deductions are made in the monthly salary, the company’s leave policies, or its hierarchical structure. While managers can redirect their team members to HR for more extensive answers, their ability to answer the basics helps build rapport and credibility among their team members.
Following Etiquette
Managerial employees face larger scrutiny in the way they conduct themselves, especially in front of clients. Soft skills training is thus an inevitable component of any managerial training process. However, your quick-start guide could introduce these employees to basic etiquette when communicating with clients, which could include what you can and cannot say in an e-mail, how you end an e-mail in a formal context, how to appear persistent without appearing unprofessional, the tone and tenor of your phone call with customers, and so on.
Thanks to the proliferation of social media, every e-mail from an employee to a third party is a potential PR disaster waiting to happen, and the issue is only exacerbated when the employee happens to be in a managerial role. Guiding managers on etiquette is therefore critical.
Keeping Personal and Professional Lives Separate
It’s becoming harder to keep personal and professional lives separate, especially in the age of social media, when an employee’s posts on Facebook or Twitter could be interpreted as something that’s coming from the company he or she works for. No number of disclaimers stating the views are “strictly personal” can undo the harm that posts from overenthusiastic employees can bring to the company.
It is a good idea to train your employees on the pros and cons of social media in the workplace. For instance, employees should refrain from controversial political posts on social media, even on their personal accounts. Your manager’s handbook should not only emphasize this aspect but also request that this be constantly reiterated to your team members.
Depending on how large your organization is, you may also consider setting up a knowledge management system to consolidate lessons and experiences from different managers that can then be shared with newly promoted managers. Additionally, think of setting up intranet message boards for managers to discuss processes and protocols with other managers. These collaborative platforms allow managers to freely exchange information that will enhance their abilities and provide for more productive managers who contribute to their teams efficiently.
Anand Srinivasan is the founder of Hubbion, a suite of free business apps and resources.