Here are some tips to keep up the great managerial skill.

Set goals, draw routes to achieve them

As a manager you should be aware of company’s mission, vision, values and goals. To achieve them set small job oriented goals, which are realistic, achievable, and measurable. Now develop a comprehensive plan, illustrating steps to be taken to achieve those goals. Allocate work to the concerned people, coordinate all. Keep track of the projects, progress status and problems faced. Prioritize projects too, marking them as per immediacy. Call for frequent staff meetings, keep the deadlines before them, provide them with the required information, make objectives clear, and clarify doubts. Be a constant support system to them.

Analyze employees, increase their productivity

Judge your employees. Analyze their skills, interests, goals, strengths, and weaknesses. Once you can analyze employees, assign relevant assignments to them; which match with their competence. Your concern towards them will keep them interested, involved and feel valued. Allocation of appropriate work will also maximize their productivity, enhance quality of performance, and make the entire work enjoyable. When employees find you care for them, they also work harder and are motivated to excel.

Provide necessary resources and support the employees

Provide your employees with all kind of support, in terms of information and tools required, resources required, environment for work, appraisal on completion with success, encouragement and moral support. You have to look after everything from stationary items to project submission. Improve work culture of the company. Make the work enjoyable, not burden.

Make the work place unbiased, adhering to equity and fairness

A good honest employee can never excel in a work place which is full of conflicts, biased towards few, doesn’t recognize talent and hard work, and encourages office politics. Treat all in equal way. Make sure all have equal access to information, tools, and resources. Interact with all in same manner, with due respect and care. Be consistent with your actions. Lend your ear to all.

Don’t forget to appreciate before all

Don’t forget to appreciate the ones who excel. A heartfelt appraisal will not only boost confidence, but also make the employees feel valued, recognized, and motivated. Cheer for him, praise him before all. It will also set an example for others to follow.

Location of the office

Location of your work place is one very important criteria of job selection. If one doesn’t have own conveyance and depends solely on public transports; one has to consider the distance from the workplace, means of communication and the cost it incurs. Public transport again helps in saving money spent on gas and time wasted in traffic. Location in a poor area may threaten the female employees.

Perks

Alluring perks always attract employees. Perks like gym within the office campus, day care centers for babies, swimming pool, company provided car naturally attract all. Perks also come with position and experience. Interact with the Human Resource team to know about the perks offered.

Growth and Increment

Even a fat salary package seems inadequate over a couple of years of time. At the age of 20 the salary package which seems irresistible, appear convincingly inadequate at the age of 30. That’s the irony of salary package. A job which doesn’t offer much scope of growth and annual increments isn’t attractive to its employees. It’s like a mundane job, which no one wishes to stick to for long. Not only in terms of money; but one needs to scrutinize the opportunity for growth, hierarchy within the organization and delegation of duties and responsibilities to its employees.

Work environment

One should also scrutinize the work environment. Is it a very loud place or quiet? Is the environment casual or formal and strict? Are people cooperative and friendly or very judgmental and formal? Is the work culture very nice or quite ordinary and cheap? Does the company consider about employees’ comfort and space required or is it very suffocating? Is it a safe place for women? Such factors definitely affect productivity and mental peace.

Job security

Job security is a big concern for the employees. Younger employees may not need to worry about it, but family men definitely need to check it. Is the job safe and what does its past track record says? Do your research. Check the company’s market share, reputations, strength, frequency of vacancies advertised etc. Employees should ask questions related to the job security during interview session.

Do what keeps you happy

Get into a job which delivers maximum job satisfaction and is close to your heart. Even if the job is not very money making, your love for it could keep you happy for life. If you are passionate artist you can’t be happy for life in a banking job. Do what keeps you happy and satisfied. That’s a key to success.

Plan and prioritize your projects so that you don’t feel overwhelmed by having too many things to do at the last minute.  Figure out what you need to complete now, so that you can push a few things off until later.  By creating a schedule ladder of importance, you can focus on the tasks and complete them with plenty of time.  Taking the stress off, allowing you to relax a bit, and keeping you happy as well as productive.

Remember to take your breaks.  Even if you have a ton of work, and you want to skip a break to work through it, don’t!  Skipping your breaks will only make you feel more disheartened and overwhelmed.  Take that break so you can get some fresh air, maybe a cup of coffee, and relax for a few minutes.  You’ll feel better, and will work more effectively when you resume your duties.

Know when to ask for help.  Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s just finding a solution to a problem that you can’t solve yourself at the moment.  What’s worse that having to ask for help, is not getting your work done because you didn’t.  Failing on your own instead of succeeding with help should never sound like the better option.

Always stay polite and courteous no matter what.  Keeping in a positive mind with a positive attitude is the best way to work through the problematic times.  By staying positive you’ll feel better, as will the people around you.  You’ll all get more done, and you’ll be much less apt to get overwhelmed, or feel unhappy at your job.

-Try thinking positively about the job you hate.  Consider the positive parts, such as the fact that you are lucky enough to have a job during this turmoil.  The fact that you have reliable enough work that you’ve stayed employed, and have been able to live more comfortably than many other Americans.  Thinking about your good fortune is a great way to bring that smile out.

-Set time limits on your tasks, to see if you can accomplish your goals.  This is almost a tactic to make a game out of the monotony you may suffer if you hate your job.  Also this helps you get faster, and better at accomplishing your tasks.  The appearance of becoming a better, harder worker, could help you advance into a higher position that you won’t hate.

-Take an interest in your coworkers.  Make friends, and be positive and good natured with them.  Creating a better work environment around you can really help how you feel at work.  A great way to do that is improve your relations with those around you, creating a friendly environment that you can enjoy.

-Finally, just because you have a job, doesn’t mean you can’t look for a different one.  Try looking for other opportunities that may serve you better.  Something that you can really get into, and have a true passion for, unlike your current job.  Just make sure to keep that knowledge silent, as some employers take personal offence when their employees look for work elsewhere.  The last thing you want is to lose the job you have, because you were looking for a different one.

-Try to avoid smiling too much

Smiling is good, too much smiling is very, very bad.  When all you do is smile at an interview, you look nervous and intimidated.  Smiling always appears as your desperate attempt to avoid feeling inferior at the interview, when you most certainly do feel as such.  So smile when the moment calls for it, but don’t be afraid to be completely serious also.

-Avoid humor at all costs.

Humor is a great way to make the work environment a more friendly place to be, not to mention more enjoyable.  But until you know your coworkers well enough to crack the right jokes, you should probably avoid making them in the first place.  Bad jokes that don’t meet the humor standard of your potential employer are a good sign that you might not be the person for the job.  So do yourself a favor and avoid the jokes during the interview process.

-Don’t ask pointless questions.

Nothing comes off worse than stupid questions at an interview.  Think about what you want to know beforehand, so you’re well informed before the interview even begins.  There’s no thorn in your side quite like appearing uninformed, or unready to work at a position or company.

-Be careful how you dress.

You don’t want to be casual during an interview, you want to dress nicely, that means wearing a tie for the gents, and business appropriate apparel for the ladies.  Also don’t wear too much clothing, to the point that you could sweat during the interview.  Sweating looks very bad, as it makes you appear nervous and weak.  Both are things that you do not want to show in an interview.

-Be willing to go beyond your boundaries.

You may be asked about tasks that may seem uncomfortable to you, whether if they’re slightly outside your area of expertise, or not what you expected from the position.  Always seem willing to take on new tasks, even if you don’t have prior knowledge.  An employee that’s unwilling to learn to become a better contributor to the team isn’t very useful to a new employer.  That will show in an interview.

-Firstly, organize everything.  Don’t just make sure that your work environment is well organized and neat, but make sure that your day follows suit.  Set aside time for phone calls and checking your email so that you don’t get bogged down trying to keep up with both, as either could end up dominating your day and interfering with how much actual work you are able to get done for that day.

-Secondly, don’t fall into the work distraction pitfalls.  These include mostly bringing in aspects of your personal life to work.  Such as browsing the internet, making personal calls, having a non-work related conversation with coworkers.  All of these are huge time wasters and will significantly cut into how much work you are able to complete each day.

-Thirdly, try using one single planner for all of your daily goals and activities.  This way you’re never confused or having to check more than one place to keep yourself organized.

-Fourthly, figure out your work strengths and weaknesses, and be completely honest in your self assessment.  This way you can focus on your strengths in a clinch to get work done and done well, and also be aware of your weaknesses so that they do not dominate your performances.  By pointing out your weaknesses you can become a more complete and better worker.

-Finally, know when to take a break.  It’s unhealthy for your body to sit down for long periods of time, as it constricts blood flow to different parts of the body.  Every 60-90 minutes you should be taking a quick 5-10 minute break where you stand up and take a few steps, either to walk away from your desk for a moment or to just walk around your office.  Your mind and body will feel much better, and in the end you’ll get more work done because of that.

Rather, try to work with your boss, understand them, figure out what they’re going for at their job.  In a way understanding what makes them tick, so you can work through the problematic times and ensure that they are fewer and farther in between by playing to what your boss is looking for.  Part of the strategy is making yourself into a great employee, as your boss in most cases is less likely to give you unnecessary hassle if you are a star performer.

The key to becoming a star performer is the way that you carry out your work.  The most commonly found workers are just the workhorses, who do what is asked, no less no more.  The problem with these people is that the management needs to constantly be giving them new projects and goals because they don’t take the effort to think for themselves.  By ensuring you are not one of these people, and instead of just doing what is asked, anticipate your bosses needs.  Go the extra mile, instead of completing a report and waiting for your boss to show up or ask for it, deliver it personally so that they don’t have to take time out of their schedule to complete such a simple task.  Little things like that can make an unbelievable difference.

By anticipating your bosses needs, and delivering your work through those means, you can look forward to starting a better relationship with your boss.  With that renewed work relationship you’ll understand each other better, likely leading to less stress and fewer confrontations when the deadlines are against you.

If you pay peanuts, you will get monkeys; if you pay carrots, you will get rabbits. This adage has nothing new to offer but it still amuses, and in this laughter and gag, management misses the point. They keep on paying peanuts and they keep on getting their back itched. This is the reality of the corporate world. Companies have lost the trust of employees and thus the loyalty is waning out. What is the reason behind this depleting loyalty? Well, one of the answers could be, or more precisely the answer could be a lack of a proper recognition and reward system in companies.

It is not uncommon to find people who complain about not getting credit or rewarded for the role they played and the benefits they bring to the company. Hence, the employees’ morale weakens over the period of time, and they hop to another job as quickly as they can. The reason behind this job hopping is the absence of any intangible (read quality) benefit, in the absence of which employees look for the money and money alone. If money becomes the sole criteria for taking up any job then there will be nothing like loyalty and long-term commitment.

A proper reward system is one of the things that can stop quality employees from leaving. A reward should acknowledge the importance of the work the recipient has done for the company. The person should get due credit for the work he or she has done. This will infuse quality at the workplace, and the appreciation they get in return of the work they have done will motivate them not only to stay with your company but also to better their performance. If your company provides better work environment, and promptly return the employees’ dues then the importance of money gets belittled. Money only works wonder if everything else is indistinguishable.

A proper reward system should be responsive and customizable. No one-size-fits-all strategy should be used for rewarding the employees. If your company indulges in this then always expect the same mediocre result from the people on the other side. You pay peanuts and you get monkeys! There will not be even a single star performer if all a best performer of your company gets are peanuts and carrots.

Star performers do not just help satisfy more customers but they also help in securing good investments. We should understand here the triangular relationship between, employees, customers and investors. One better employee will fetch at least 10 loyal customers and 10 loyal customers will bring 100 more like them. This way the customer base of your company will grow and with it will grow sale of your products. The more you will sell the bigger your company will become and the better employees you will attract. These high quality employees will breed more sales that give investors more confidence in your company and the more confident the investor will have the more he or she will invest in your company.

For investors, the size of the customer base of your company is indeed important but the quality of the team that you have assembled to satisfy the needs and wants of your company’s customers are more important. Employees, customers and investors are three sides of a business triangle, weaken one of them and your business will tilt and tip over.

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