Every business owner wants to achieve success and growth. While there are many ways to reach the top, there are a few core aspects of a successful business that you simply cannot go without. These core aspects include labor relations and staff management.
Much research has gone into helping managers work more effectively with their employees. Here are some of the roots of that work, and what it has to teach us about working with modern staff.
Roots
The concept of ensuring a good relationship with your staff finds its roots in Industrial Psychology. This concept is most closely related to Human Resources Management. It was during the Industrial Revolution that the need for skilled labor was recognized.
However, laborers were initially viewed as commodities rather than resources; this often meant that they were subjected to conditions that, by today’s standards, would be considered outrageous.
Thanks to Robert Owens and Charles Babbage, the way that the workforce was treated was given due importance. The principle that a happy worker is a productive worker rose from this change in outlook. Hence, Human Resource Management was born.
Importance
Now that we’ve established the mindset of treating the workforce as a resource rather than an expendable commodity, the necessity of implementing good practices scales proportionately with the size of your business. A small business (obviously) is easier to manage because of the relatively small workforce.
The workforces of large corporations can take a herculean effort to manage properly, often with specific strategies and entire departments dedicated to it.
When you’re managing dozens or more, or even during the process of business growth, you need a capable HR department. In some cases, if you’re unable to put one together in-house, a capable HR support company should fit the bill quite nicely. This is because it simply is not humanly possible to effectively manage a workforce on such a scale alone.
I’m going to break the importance of staff management into two aspects: Communication and Motivation:
A company that actively engages in parlance with its workers is going to have a chance at creating an environment of trust and understanding. As a business owner, it’s your responsibility to know what how your workforce feels about the job they’re performing. However, you don’t necessarily have to do so personally. Your staff are there to do the hands-on work for you, thus allowing you to focus on more pressing concerns.
It’s imperative to be aware of the criticisms that will arise as you conduct business. Worker woes are not to be ignored, because they are often an indication that there’s something about your process that could be done better.
An ability to motivate your workers is another important skill that members of your staff management team should have. The truth is, workers want their skills to be used to the fullest potential. This gives them an avenue in which to show others what they’re fully capable of.
And well, truth be told, nobody wants to exert effort for nothing. A worker that works hard may not be asking for recognition, but that worker definitely deserves it. It isn’t always about the money. A fair day’s pay for a fair day’s labor isn’t the entire story. It’s up to the staff management team to find out what rewards best motivate the workforce to excel at their tasks.