It’s hard being a leader. You must put together a great team and encourage them daily to do their best. They are adults, and you don’t want to be smothering.
It’s hard to strike the right balance between assembling and maintaining the perfect team. In this article, we look at a few suggestions to help you thrive as a manager.
Upskill Routinely
Upskilling refers to the process of teaching existing team members new things. It could involve cross-training — teaching people skills outside their current discipline, or it might just involve furthering their existing knowledge of their chosen profession. There are a lot of good reasons to do this.
Your Team Becomes More Agile
Let’s say you teach the basics of CX (customer success) to everyone on your team. You have a department for that, and your jobs are secure. You aren’t looking to shrink personnel by teaching it. You think it’s an essential tool to have in the belt.
What happens as a result? Well, now your sales team knows how to check in with existing customers to see how they are doing. You could help troubleshoot a problem or even recommend a new product. And your accounts receivable department no longer has to defer all customer questions to CX.
Now, they can handle the occasional billing issue, giving your customer success department more time to work on big-picture stuff. Everyone does their job a little better, and your organization runs smoother.
Promote from within
Internal promotions work out best for everyone. On your end, you can save a bundle on recruitment and onboarding. There will be training that has to get done, sure. And onboarding, a learning curve, and all these things will aggregate into business expenses. Still, it’s nothing like recruiting and training someone from the ground up — a process that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.
It’s good for staff morale as well. People want to feel like if they work hard, they will be able to advance through the company and eventually get better compensation. Outside hires cut against that idea.
Refreshed Skills
Finally, upskilling also refresh your team’s tool belt. The majority of team members may be ten years out of college. That’s not so bad. Heck, you’ve had longer blinks. However, a lot can change in that time regarding best practices and business technology.
Regularly having your staff refresh ensures that they will be at the cutting edge of what is going on in your industry.
Do it Right
Of course, if you take this route, you must do it correctly. There may be a better way to go than compulsory upskilling. People are busy. They work hard. They don’t necessarily want to be told that they aren’t doing well enough.
That’s not what we were saying at all!
We know that, but think about how it sounds, especially coming at the end of a long work week. You’ve been hustling. You’re tired. But you feel good about the work you’ve done. You busted your butt and —, and you just sent an email saying that there are twelve hours of professional development next week?
It’s enough to rub a person the wrong way. Instead, strongly incentivize upskilling with well-thought-out rewards.
During upskilling events, try to keep it short and sweet. Make the sessions highly productive, but be mindful of people’s time. A few well-planned, strategically timed events a year will keep people at their peak without irritating them.
Diverse Hiring Practices
Studies overwhelmingly show that diversity in leadership is financially beneficial to businesses. For one thing, you get a wider range of perspectives. This is a valuable thing when it comes to relating to team members and also just the general public.
People like to see themselves reflected in leadership positions. For team members, it makes them feel a little more comfortable that they are being seen and recognized for who they are. It demonstrates a lateral trajectory for them at work if they do well enough.
The general public isn’t trying to score a promotion; they also take well to diversity, even if they don’t know it.
You don’t have to know that the marketing director is African American to feel like an ad, right are you speaking to yourself?
To truly diversify your workplace, look at operations from the top down. Are your language and attitudes inclusive for everyone? Most people will want to say yes reflexively, but if you don’t have much diversity in your workplace, chances are there’s a reason for it.
Ask yourself tough questions. Be open to getting uncomfortable answers, and work hard to make your business a safe and welcoming place for everyone.
Provide Clear Career Trajectories
People don’t want to work dead-end jobs. If they feel like they are stagnating in their career, they will start to burn out, and before long, they’ll be walking past many empty desks. High turnover rates are deadly both to morale and revenue.
You don’t want that.
Illustrating clear career trajectories is an excellent way to get people to stick around. Regularly check in with your employees. Talk about their goals. Tell them about your expectations.
Of course, you can’t make promises. Don’t string a person along with a hypothetical promotion that may never come, but make sure that your team members understand you want them around for the long haul and are willing to do what it takes to make that happen.
