It isn’t always easy operating as part of a team and there are days when tiptoeing around fragile colleagues just seems too much like hard work. Yet maintaining harmony in the office is closely intertwined with the overall effectiveness of the organization – and this is even truer in a small business. There are certain issues that can hamper effectiveness and it is for the astute manager to recognize them, as well as to put strategies in place for overcoming them.
Managers
Many people have had first-hand experience of an ineffective manager and the damage they can do to teams. Managers who have the greatest success are those who have knowledge; they understand the individuals in their team, their drivers and their needs. They furnish their workforce with the knowledge it needs to enable the individuals to do their jobs, utilizing the intranet to inform their staff. They build teams that have an ethos of trust where the co-workers recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses and help each other to overcome those flaws, rather than blaming or attacking them.
Indeed, the successful manager sets success criteria and recognizes and rewards employees who achieve, thus reinforcing the desired behavior. The manager plays a vital role in ensuring that the entire workforce maintains a cordial, professional relationship with each other by demonstrating that level of professionalism, at all times – particularly in regards to office gossip. Furthermore, such managers believe firmly in keeping a finger on the pulse as far as their staff are concerned. In fact, not only are they able to identify and support those team members who are struggling, but they use regular review meetings and team building as a means of ensuring that team members work together productively.
Health and Well-being
Managers need to be trained to offer support to staff who are coping with health issues such as stress, depression, and drug or alcohol dependency. These health issues, along with the impact they can have on team morale and company efficiency, can create chinks in the armor of any organization, but may bring a small company to its knees. It is not surprising then that so many businesses see the need to put in place company-wide alcohol and drug awareness training. To manage a team effectively, it is therefore incumbent on its leadership to know which team members may negatively impact the efficiency and overall success of the organization. If leaders are not informed, they will find it difficult to give the employees the support they need. Looking at it this way, it is easy to understand why so many companies are lining up for drug testing from Matrix Diagnostics.
The aim of this is not to use knowledge as a stick with which to beat employees, but rather to have a clear understanding of where support is needed within the organization. Moreover, findings show that those companies that concentrate their attention on the health and wellbeing of their staff tend to become the most desirable places to work – and that has got to be good for business.
