Your team – how well do you know them?

Managing a team can be very rewarding when you feel confident around them. Even if you don’t see yourself as a ‘people person’, learning to care about your team will help you improve your team’s performance.

At Balance at Work, we often get involved in helping our clients hire the best people for their teams.

We also care a lot about how they retain them!

Read on to benefit from our experience working with teams in all sorts of organisations over many years.

To keep key people, you need to know them and their needs.

As an exercise, imagine I’ve asked you to tell me the following about each of your top performers:

1. Why do they work for you?
2. What are their highest values?
3. Could they earn more elsewhere?
4. What frustrates them about their job?
5. What do they want to do in their career?
6. How would they most like to be rewarded?
7. Do they like the culture of your workplace?
8. What worries them the most in their life right now?
9. What are they most excited about in their life right now?
10. How easy would it be for them to get another job if they wanted to?

How would you go?  Would you know all the answers about your team?

If you found some gaps, it might be time to do some research – by which I mean having some conversations.

Your interest in the answers to these questions demonstrates your interests in your team as people, not just as resources.

It’s important to engage your employees, even when it feels hard for you. Having conversations about the history, purpose and future of your organisation can be a great place to start.

Don’t you think team members will feel like sticking around longer when they believe you care?

If engaging with them doesn’t come naturally, you may be surprised what a difference some coaching will make to your confidence. Showing you are willing to try something new can inspire the people around you, too!