Tips for New Managers: Developing Good Management Skills

By: Laura Evans

Congratulations. You've landed your first management position and now you're not only responsible for your own performance, but the performance of all staff who report into you. Good management skills got you this far, but what do you need to do stay there? Hint: you have to look down the ladder as well as up.
Maintain the Status Quo
While you may have been hired or promoted because of your creative vision, don't plan on implementing radical changes your first few weeks on the job, especially if you're new to the organization. Introducing too much change too soon, can send the message to your team as well as other managers that you think you understand the company's workings better than they do.
Establish yourself in your new role and gain the confidence of others by taking the time to get the lay of the land before you start sharing ideas that affect the organization's structure, processes and systems. Even if you do know better, you'll still need the support of people around you to make things happen.
Get to Know Your Team
Make an effort to reach out individually to all those who now report into you. Schedule one-on-one meetings to get an idea of what your team perceives to be the department's or company's strengths and weaknesses and solicit their ideas for solutions.
Encourage your team members to ask for what they need from you in your role as manager, where they'd like to improve their skills or receive more training, and what they consider to be their strongest achievements. Above all, be sincere. Employees have a good sense of when managers are just going through the motions. If they get that sense from you, it will take additional time and effort to build trust.
Learn How to Delegate
One the most basic management skills that's often least used by first-time managers is delegating. After all, when you complete a task yourself you have complete control over the outcome. However, by not delegating you're doing both yourself and your staff a disservice.
Part of being a manager is applying more strategic- and critical-thinking skills to the work your department is doing. Delegating helps minimize the amount of tactical work you're doing so you can focus on the bigger picture. The key is learning to identify which tasks are best left to the skills of your staff and which ones require more involvement from you.
Take care not to assign tasks at random-find the best member of your team to get it done, even if requires a bit of training. Deliver clear instructions for how the task should be completed along with your expectations for turnaround (try to make those expectations as reasonable as possible). Discuss any obstacles to achieving that goal with your employee and be willing to help them improve their performance, taking extra care not to micro-manage the project.
Be Courteous
Don't underestimate the effect of a simple "please", "thank you" or "good job" can have on your employees. Whether they've spent the last three days archiving files or churning out a top-notch client presentation, acknowledging their efforts goes a long way toward communicating the value they bring to your team.
If one of your employees or peers has outdone themselves on project you're ultimately responsible for, give credit where it's due and don't take it for yourself unless it's yours-you might look good to the big boss from a distance, but if it happens consistently you'll stop getting the support from these people that makes your job possible.
Avoid Burnout
A lot of new managers get caught up in the excitement and enthusiasm of their new positions and for all the right reasons: they want to learn as much as they can as quickly as possible and start getting things done in order to demonstrate their commitment to the company. As a result, first-time managers often wind up working excessive hours and when you're working that hard, for that long, not all of those hours can be productive.
Try to identify the tipping point in your day when your ability to do focused work drops and you're spinning your wheels more than you're getting anything accomplished. When you find that point, call it a day. Without an opportunity to rest and regroup, you'll only continue to work at less than your best and over time, you'll accomplish less than you could have if you were well rested.
Evaluate How Your Use Your Time
This tip goes for first-time managers as well anyone in the workforce: how can you work smarter instead of harder? One way to is to take a close look at your time management skills. In other words, how do you actually use your time throughout the course of the day? If you're losing time on reading and responding to e-mail, consider scheduling two to three half-hour blocks for this task and keep your e-mail program closed at all other times. Everyone's time drains will be different, but if you can identify what yours are and create systems to deal with them, you'll get more work done in a shorter period of time.
Look for a Mentor
If you're a new to the company you're working for, you might consider finding a mentor within the company who has the skills, experience and institutional knowledge to guide you in your new role. Some companies offer formal mentoring programs, but don't be afraid to strike up and informal mentor/mentee relationship on your own.
http://www.life123.com/career-money/career-development/management-skills/tips-for-new-managers-developing-good-management-s.shtml

Human Resource Management

Rights to protect employees have come a long way since the 1960s, and it's a good thing. There is now the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Age Discrimination Act of 1967, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, and the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, to name a few. As a human resource manager, you need to keep all of your Acts in place, not only because it's the right thing to do, but because it will keep you out of trouble, too.
Staying in compliance with Federal anti-discrimination laws is just one piece of the human resource puzzle, because the state is watching you, too! By the time you finish reading this book, you will see that there is a lot to learn about in this field.
In order to have a need for human resources, you need people in the workplace. You will learn where to find them and how to (hopefully) select the candidate most qualified for the essential functions of the job. Getting them to stay is another added challenge. Once they decide to stick around, you'll need to learn how to pay them because they are not keeping you company all day for free. No paycheck is complete without a benefits package to go with it, and some employers go a step beyond that and offer really great things like tuition reimbursement, personal concierge service, and retreats.
That's the fun stuff in this job. The not-so-fun stuff is disciplinary action and processing an employee's final paycheck due to an involuntary separation. And no matter what you may hear on television, it's not proper to say that you are going to “fire” an employee. Instead, you “release” or “separate” them from employment. You can even say that you are going to terminate employment, but don't get any more harsh than that.
Along with everything you need to know about getting people in the front door, you'll learn how to set-up personnel and confidential files, develop employees, and the importance of recognizing a job well done. This book recognizes the need to balance work and family life and discusses pregnancy in the workplace, the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), and alternative work schedules. Keep in mind that pregnancy applies to only some members of the female workforce, but FMLA and alternative work schedules can be a part of anyone's life at one point or another. There is much more to the FMLA than providing protected leave for a woman who has had a baby; it allows you to take care of yourself or a sick family member, too.
If you are a new business owner and need to build your human resource department, this book is for you, too. After all, you may actually be the only human resource (HR) department employee and you'll need some guidance to get organized. This book will arm you with the ammunition you need to get started. It's up to you to utilize the resources shared to take it all a step further.
You will find everything you need in The Everything® Human Resource Management Book. In addition to great information, you'll also find fun HR acronyms you can memorize and use to impress all of your friends (and other HR people), sign up for free electronic newsletters, and view samples of forms and templates that no human resource office should be without.

http://www.netplaces.com/human-resource-management/

Seven Tips for Management Success

An effective manager pays attention to many facets of management, leadership and learning within organizations. So, it's difficult to take the topic of "management success" and say that the following ten items are the most important for management success. I will, however, suggest seven management success skills without which I don't believe you can be a successful manager.
The most important issue in management success is being a person that others want to follow. Every action you take during your career in an organization helps determine whether people will one day want to follow you.
A successful manager, one whom others want to follow:

• Builds effective and responsive interpersonal relationships. Reporting staff members, colleagues and executives respect his or her ability to demonstrate caring, collaboration, respect, trust and attentiveness.
• Communicates effectively in person, print and email. Listening and two-way feedback characterize his or her interaction with others.
• Builds the team and enables other staff to collaborate more effectively with each other. People feel they have become more - more effective, more creative, more productive - in the presence of a team builder.
• Understands the financial aspects of the business and sets goals and measures and documents staff progress and success.
• Knows how to create an environment in which people experience positive morale and recognition and employees are motivated to work hard for the success of the business.
• Leads by example and provides recognition when others do the same.
• Helps people grow and develop their skills and capabilities through education and on-the-job learning.

Know a few more characteristics of management success? I'll bet you do. Join other readers in the Forum to discuss management success and people issues.
By Susan M. Heathfield

Leadership and Management Success Tips,Train Employees to Train Coworkers

Definite advantages exist for your organization when you have developed the training capabilities of your employees. Teach employees to train and you will increase the effectiveness of your internal training. Employees are familiar with the workings – both good and bad – of your internal organization. They should be familiar with the goals, the culture or environment, the company strengths, the company weaknesses, and the actual employees. This gives employees an advantage over a trainer who has to learn about the culture, the company strengths, the company weaknesses, and also get to know the people.
In a medium-sized manufacturing company, the security specialist and the team leader of the safety and environmental committee provide training in security, emergency evacuation procedures, and safety to all staff. They also train new employees during the new employee orientation. A long term sales representative trains all new sales employees about the sales Customer Relationship Management (CRM) computer programs, cold calling and prospecting, and how to take and process orders. In the same company, a shipping employee trains, tests, and licenses all Hi-Lo drivers. Originally trained by outside firms, internal employees now train other employees.
By Susan M. Heathfield