Introduction
Managing staff or employees is considered a challenging task in every organization. To manage employees or subordinates of an organization is termed staff management. This is a structure through which staff members or employees can achieve their full potential within the job duties assigned to them.
In other words, staff management is considered an effort to support employees in giving their best on daily basis to achieve their job goals and overall objectives of the organization.
Through good staff management, it is possible to synchronize the actions of employees at different levels with the strategic objectives of the organization. Staff management ensures that work-life balance, personal development of employees; challenge, and support are clubbed so that the optimal environment can be created in the organization to achieve job satisfaction and achievements.
Staff motivation is considered the main source for an organization’s success. Staff management takes care of the task related to staff motivation by recognizing, deploying, and promoting the working potential of employees aiming at effective contribution to achieving the organization’s objectives.
Both line managers and specialized departments such as Human Resource (HR) or Personnel department are generally aligned to managing employees.
Components of Staff Management
Staff management includes various tasks and duties that can be included in below six categories or components:
Recruitment & Selection
This includes selecting the right employees based on the skill set and requirement of the job during the hiring process.
Measurement
This includes measuring the performance to determine if they are meeting their goals effectively and what measures are required to achieve these goals.
Monitoring
This is related to monitoring the measurement. In other words, monitoring is concerned with overseeing the performance of employees on daily basis.
Interaction
This consists of the communication between staff managers and employees in an effective way and how well they work with each other. This also includes taking feedback from employees and interacting with them on the day to day issues.
Reward
Staff members should be rewarded for their exceptional performance.
Discipline
This includes maintaining discipline among employees for following rules & regulations of the organization, professional behavior. This also includes disciplinary measures in case of not abiding by disciplinary rules.
Importance of Staff Management
Staff management is considered a backbone of any organization and poor staff management may lead to low productivity and high employee turnover. Staff management is important as it ensures that staff should feel valued by allowing them to use their full potential and skills in their job roles. Effective staff management helps in maintain consistency in having the right staff at the right positions. It helps in managing and training employees in a better way so that they can do their jobs efficiently. This ultimately leads to happy customers and better profits.
Below are the main advantages of staff management:
Good Employees result in Good Service
Effective staff management starts with hiring the right employees for different positions in an organization. So, through staff management knowledgeable and efficient employees are hiring with proper screening process and interviews that help organizations in increasing productivity and profits. In absence of good staff management, employees with fewer skills or knowledge may be placed that results in loss of customers and business loss.
Shorter Lines Leads to Customer Benefit
Staff management supports hiring sufficient employees so that the business of an organization can be handled smoothly and this ultimately helps in delighted customers as timely and efficient services can be given to them. Best employees, who are overworked or are given jobs of other employees as well, can’t perform using their full potential, and this results in dissatisfaction and impatience among employees and customers. Smooth and customer-friendly service can be delivered by evaluating staffing needs and ensuring sufficient trained professionals in the organization through staff management.
Better Performance of Trained Employees
In good staff management, employees are trained on different aspects of their job and this leads to developing well-trained staff having a good working knowledge of their profiles and other colleagues. Well-trained and knowledgeable employees can handle the queries, problems of customers efficiently and thus, can deliver services of better quality.
Efficient Delivery of Products and Services
Using staff management, the right employees are selected to work together and lead to an effective team. This helps in delivering products and services more efficiently.
Effective Staff Management Techniques
Staff can be managed effectively by following ways or techniques:
Hiring Right Manpower
Hiring the right employees means employees who are fit to the job description and job specification of an organization. In addition, these employees should have other qualities as well such as honesty, team-player, emotional intelligence, humble, enthusiasm, reliability, self-motivated, and determination.
Hiring employees by considering just the right qualifications or experience level is not sufficient for effective staff management as the right attitude is also required. So, more effort and time are required in the hiring process so that any chances of wrong hiring can be eliminated.
Measuring and Monitoring Staff Performance Regularly
It is a difficult task to measure and monitor the performance of employees on a day-to-day basis as employees don’t feel having performance checks on them regularly. So, staff manager should avoid the following in managing staff:
Micromanagement
Managers should avoid consulting employees for how to perform their job and other related small things as it will create unnecessary stress and burden to employees and managers both.
Providing Constant Feedback (Negative/Positive)
Both constant positive and negative feedback should be avoided as employees will be over-confident in case of constant positive feedback or praise. Similarly, constant negative feedback may bring de-motivation among employees. So, there should be monthly meetings for performance review.
Encourage Open Communication
Open communication should be encouraged with employees for effective staff management. This helps in gaining the respect and trust of employees. A platform should be created to hear genuine ideas, complaints, and thoughts of employees. Also, employees should be encouraged to participate in different discussions as it will help in increasing their motivation.
Make Clear Goals and Objectives
Organizations should make SMART objectives i.e. Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Time-based.
In absence of clear goals, employees will be confused and de-motivated.
Rewards and Recognition
Employees should be rewarded and recognized in front of the whole team for their excellent and hard work through different reward and recognition systems such as bonuses, verbal recognition, an employee of the month, celebrations, etc.