Being a business manager is not an easy job. You are in charge of a team of employees and projects designed to challenge them as well as please your customers. There are a couple of ways that you can make your job easier, such as having the right technology on hand and learning from your mistakes, most of these will take time and patience to put into consistent practice.
Use the Right Technology
The right technology can be anything from the work order management software you use to coordinate projects to the construction time clock app that allows your employees to lock in at the job site instead of at a home base. You can find hardware and software designed to take over some of the more repetitive and time-consuming tasks that you find yourself stuck in. For instance, messaging software for team projects can let members brainstorm solutions and update each other on changes in real-time instead of waiting until the next team meeting to get stuff done.
Motivate Your Team
Motivating your team means more than just keeping on top of them and keeping them working. You will need to determine what the hold ups are and how to fix them as well as offer incentives for finished work. This works much better if you are motivated yourself because it gives the rest of the team a way to buy-in to the hard work. If you do not want to be there, working on the project, then neither will your team. Figuring out what will motivate your team can be a difficult process but starting with why you are motivated can go a long way.
Practice Communication
Effective communication is not something you are born with; it is something you work at. You will need to be able to actively listen to your employees and make them feel heard for both the good things and the bad. This means looking the speaker in the eye, taking notes of key points in the conversation and repeating them back with your solutions or insights. The more you practice communication, the more your employees will be able to come to you with both successes and failures.
Monitor Time and Money
In business time is often money, and you will need to learn how to manage both in order to make your job easier. This means keeping track of whatever budget your team has and trying to make more money for your company than you spend. Streamlining many of your tasks can help save on both, so can making sure that the workload is not too much to handle. This includes making routine tasks like clocking in or scheduling shifts easier for you, your employees and your accounting department.
Learn From Your Mistakes
Everyone makes mistakes, the key is to learn from them instead of wallow in them. If your last project had snags because of the way you organized the team, then organize it a different way for the next one. Taking time to reflect on your own job performance and finding ways to improve yourself can help you improve the effectiveness of your team. For example, if you have been delegating out the budgeting because it is not your strong suit, then working on your personal budgeting skills can help you take that task back and free up time for one of your team members for other tasks.
Managing business teams can take a lot of time and patience to get right, but it can be very rewarding when you can. Many of the steps to make your job easier as a manager will end up making the jobs of your employees easier as well. For example, having the ability to clock in on a mobile device from the worksite can save travel time from the office after clocking in or save time for the manager in the office manually clocking everyone in and out for their shifts, breaks and lunches.
