You Don’t Manage People, You Lead Them.

People management also has a lifecycle in your business. At some point, business owners identify that they need a person and that is where the lifecycle begins.

They need to find the resource that’s going to fit their needs. They have to bring that person on board and manage that person. At some point, that person is going to leave the business. It might be 20 years down the road but for any employee that employers bring into the business, the business owners should assume they will leave the organization at some point in the future.

So, when it comes to lifecycles and people, that’s what the lifecycle looks like. Having an understanding of lifecycles is going to help the business owners think through start to finish what the business requires to manage people.

Here are the four steps to people management: –

• Hire – Hire refers to when the owners realize there is a requirement of staff in the business and they employ someone for the role. The steps involved in the process is identifying the right resource they want to hire and noting down the job description. The employers must ensure to screen potential candidates, make a decision, and make an offer.
• Rewire: Rewire means the management must put in efforts to make the new employee learn about the company culture as well as the business operations and unlearn the previous process. The new employees are not aware of their new company culture, working process and the people in the business hierarchy. It is mandatory for them to learn and understand about the industry. A new employee is going to need to know a lot of material, and the owners need to be able to teach them everything. Therefore, all of the steps involved in assisting a new employee in getting started and being productive fall under the category of rewire.
• Inspire: The management must ensure to inspire the employees or in case of larger organizations the managers to create job satisfaction and friendly environment. In reference to small organization, the employer must first motivate the staff members who work for them. Business owners must ensure that they are driven and they perform tasks for which they day to day accountable for. The second section discusses big businesses. If the businesses have managers working within the business or business owners working with the managers, the employers must put in the extra effort to inspire them. The employers need to provide them with the required resources to motivate the employees they are in charge of.
• Retire: The last part of the employee lifecycle is retirement. This is a wide category that covers all potential reasons for someone to leave your company, not just actual retirement. It will include employees who leave voluntarily when they change employment, projects and contracts that come to an end. It also covers circumstances where the business owner must get rid of a subpar resource that is incapable of making improvements.

Starting a new business is an exciting and challenging endeavor. However, it is also a learning process that involves making mistakes and learning from them.

Here are 5 Management Mistakes Almost Every New Entrepreneur Makes

Creating an imbalanced culture.

When business owners start out, they might be tempted to create the ultimate stress-free work culture. They might create an office with no set hours or unlimited vacation days, or might go out of their way to make sure every person they hire becomes friends with everyone else. These down-to-earth, modern approaches to work culture are effective in improving job satisfaction and motivation, but only if they’re balanced with structured rules and professional expectations. Remember, the work culture needs to be balanced.

Hiring too quickly.

A large multinational business with 100,000 employees can afford to make a handful of bad hiring decisions, but a startup with an initial team of five can’t afford that same luxury. A new entrepreneur is understandably and appropriately excited to get things moving as fast as possible, but they can’t rush the initial hiring decisions.

Their first-round team members will be the ones carrying them through the early stages of the business’s development, and their skills, motivations, and personalities will ultimately determine whether the entrepreneur’s course of action succeeds or fails.

Taking the timing, screening the candidates carefully and then making the decision is a fair option for new entrepreneurs.

Failing to give feedback

Many entrepreneurs fail to give feedback to their workers, but the reasons seem to vary. Some are uncomfortable with the idea of giving criticism. Some don’t know how to give feedback effectively. Others just want their employees to handle everything independently. None of these reasons are good. Feedback is what keeps your employees going, and what helps keep them pointed in the right direction.

Feedback helps them reinforce positive work habits, gradually eliminate bad work habits and keep the employees motivated all at the same time. Without that feedback, the problems will escalate, workers could go off-course and morale will inevitably drop.

Neglecting the individual.

Entrepreneurs usually consider the employees as ‘’their staff’’ or as ‘’their team’’. They feel as they have hired each of them, they expect them to work together under the identity of their brand. But each of those people they hired is an individual, and is wholly unique from the other individuals. Each one has unique strengths, weaknesses and a style of work that demands an individualized management approach. Give the employees individual attention, and transform the strategies to serve them.

Not letting people do what they do best.

Entrepreneurs hire the team members for a reason. They carry out the work they know how to do best, whether that’s making financial projections or writing code. Entrepreneurs aiming for success should need to learn to let the employees do their own work in their own way, and not distract them from the tasks. They shouldn’t step in or interfere (even if the intentions are good), shouldn’t bog them down with work unrelated to their area of expertise and shouldn’t micromanage them when they already have a plan of action. Entrepreneurs job is to set direction and assign tasks and allow the employees to handle the responsibilities. Rather than doubting their skills, they should focus on the larger picture.

These mistakes are painfully common, but that doesn’t mean they’re unavoidable.

It’s impossible to predict how every person will act in every situation, but business owners must prepare themselves and their business for the inevitable human resource challenges that will arise. Business owners must learn from the mistakes of others, and must not underestimate their responsibilities.