In a blog post by Zeke Camusio, of The Outsourcing Company, he writes that “managing people is the most difficult thing I’ve done in my life.” He then offers some of the lessons about managing employees that he learned during years of owning and operating small businesses.
Within the post he outlines a couple of main points that we couldn’t agree more with:
1) Hire the Best People You Can Find
2) Create a Strong Company Culture
3) Empower Your Employees
Let’s dive into these points a little deeper, shall we?
Hire the Best People You Can Find: As Zeke points out in the post:
“The biggest mistake I made in my first years as an entrepreneur was hiring the cheapest people I could find. I was so obsessed with keeping our overhead low that I didn’t bother to think about the value I was getting in return.”
His point drives home the fact that hiring cheap doesn’t always produce great results. Conversely, if you, as a manager, hire A-players, you may be able to get great business results in terms of revenue, customer satisfaction, and workplace culture.
Create a Strong Company Culture: Creating a workplace that is transparent in terms of business decisions, has open communication between leadership and employees, and promotes work-life balance can be key contributors to creating a great company culture that employees are proud of. With a great company culture, employees may find themselves more productive, energetic and satisfied with their jobs; and, as it turns out, these are some of the reasons why people stay with a company long-term.
Empower Your Employees: Micromanaging would be the opposite in this example. If employee and company values are aligned, there is no reason why managers shouldn’t empower employees to make decisions on their own, just as long as there is some direction regarding business goals. With this methodology, employees will have much more respect and trust in their managers.
Read the entire blog post from Zeke Cumusio.