If managing your staff requires most of your time and energy, you have a problem.
It means they are relying on you for instruction and guidance rather than working independently. If left unchecked, this behaviour will jeopardise the productivity of both you and your team.
So how do you fix the situation?
There are 2 approaches depending on whether you are recruiting new staff members or trying to change the behaviour of existing employees.
Follow these tips for each group or ask End2End Business Solutions to help you.
Recruiting new staff
There are 5 traits usually associated with highly dependent staff members. Looking for these traits can help you avoid problems before they begin. The 5 traits to look for are:
- Critical – they complain a lot and enjoy telling other staff about their problems
- Negative – everything is a problem and they can never see a potential solution
- Always blaming others – in their eyes, it is never their fault
- Cover their tracks – they will do anything to avoid accountability
- Not a team player – their focus is on their own problems or issues so they don’t have time to support other team members
These traits can be difficult to identify during the interview and pre-appointment phase. Try asking questions about how the interviewee handled a particular problem or challenge in the past. The key here is to look for problem solving vs dependent behaviour in their response.
Managing existing staff
If your current staff are too demanding of your time, you need to begin changing their behaviours and expectations. It’s a gradual process but it is possible to modify long-held actions.
To start, make sure every employee has clear performance criteria. They should be able to track their own performance and understand it is being monitored by you. This provides clear-cut information on whether performance criteria are being met and identifies areas that need further improvement and training.
Look at your own behaviour
As a manager, are you allowing your team to find their own solutions – even if it means you risk becoming accountable for their errors?
Providing training to educate staff on how to perform their work along with opportunities to learn from their mistakes could be the key to removing your staff’s dependency on you.
Less dependency = more time to do your work
If you have dependent staff vaporising your work day or you want to avoid problems with a new recruit, talk to End2End Business Solutions. They can help you with everything from candidate selection to managing the performance of existing staff.
To learn how End2End may be able to help your business, call 02 8977 4002.