After I started up my own company, I began carefully considering the different ways that I wanted things to grow. I really wanted to use our marketing efforts to spread the word about our company, so I worked with a team of professionals to make my business stand out. Although it was intimidating at first, we quickly discovered that our changes were really helping. We found ourselves succeeding where our competitors had failed, and it was exhilarating to watch the business grow. On this website, I wanted to share great information about resolving business problems and taking care of things proactively.
Management Skills You Didn't Know You Needed
Businesses like to claim they're just like a family, but that simile rings truer than most managers realize. Much of management does concentrate on projects and running the company. However, a lot of management involves working with conflicts within the office. Even with a fantastic human resources department, managers in an office are usually the first people employees come to with a problem. A good manager has the skills to handle these situations without constantly turning everything over to HR.
Putting a Halt to Bullying
Office bullying happens, and it needs to stop immediately. The old playground advice to just ignore bullies doesn't make them go away; it makes them try harder because they need the sense of power that comes from provoking reactions without consequences. Unchecked bullying can lead to resentment and low morale, not to mention physical effects from the stress and resulting high turnover.
A complicating factor, however, is that sometimes the employees who are the cause of the trouble hold lawsuits over the heads of managers who try to fire them using the at-will policy (most employment is at-will, meaning the management can lay off someone without reason as long as there are no illegal aspects, such as firing due to race or gender). As a manager, you need to know when to discipline and when to fire, and how to work with HR to ensure there's no legal bullying in the aftermath.
Even more, you need to know how to foster an environment that does not support bullying. When someone wants to take a shot at another worker but realizes that they'd never get away with it, that can shut down bullying very quickly.
Setting Office Odor Policy
Fish in the microwave, perfume in the cubicles, cleaning solutions in the HVAC ducts—offices are rife with odors, and those can create problems for people who can't smell those without feeling ill. That can lead to confusion and resentment as some odors get banned and others don't, for example, allowing strong perfume all day but not broccoli at lunch. You need to figure out the best way to set and enforce odor policies and to find compromises. For example, food odors might no longer be a problem if you can move the microwave from the central part of the office floor to an unused room.
Finding Balance Between Teams and Lone Wolves
Office work and relationships are about more than just introverts and extroverts. Regardless of how someone likes to deal with society, they may work well in groups or alone. As a manager, you need to find the balance between those who need to work in teams and those who need time by themselves to finish a project. If you're continually putting those lone wolves in groups, for example, that drops morale very quickly. If you have team-oriented workers off on their own, that leads to feelings of isolation.
Professional management development and training can help you learn how to deal with situations like these. While some managers have a knack for setting policy and keeping everything calm, others never learned how and may feel like they aren't cut out for management. That's not true; they could be wonderful managers with the right education.