Manage the People
As software developers, most of our projects isn’t so simple that they can be done alone. We are often positioned in a developer team that consists of similarly-experienced people, each being just as impactful as the next person. Having been in this kind of situation, it became obvious that the performance of the team members doesn’t simply gets decided by their talent or knowledge. How the leader(s) manage them can greatly impact the team’s overall quality. This is where our topic for the day lays: people management.
What is people management?
People management is defined as a set of practices that encompass the end-to-end processes of talent acquisition, talent optimization, and talent retention while providing continued support for the business and guidance for the employee of an organization. — toolbox.com
To put simply, people management is the act of organizing people and building teams to optimize business performance. Successful people management involves empowering each person to reach maximum potential, effectively communicating accross all teams, and directing all team members toward a common goal.
Why should we care about people management?
There are several factors that majorly impacts the team’s performance and can be improved with proper people management.
- Team morale. Teams that have low morale and engagement often have high rates of burnout. Implementing optimal people management can give the members a strong sense of ownership over their work and improve their job satisfaction.
- Productivity and efficiency. People management involves organizing your team in a way that increases productivity and optimizes efficiency. When you have the right people in place and collaborate with them to reach their goals, you set your team up for success.
- Resource maximization. Understanding how to orchestrate teams can provide small businesses with an added competitive advantage in the marketplace. According to Bainbridge, since small businesses often lack the budget or market presence as their larger, corporate counterparts, maximizing a smaller pool of resources is crucial — this includes optimizing their human capital and prioritizing team orchestration.
Key Components of People Management
There are five key aspects, also known as the 5 Cs:
- Create. If we considered people management as a linear process system, it would begin with talent acquisition — the building of effective teams. Knowing the purpose for each and every member within it is key to success. When you’re building teams, it is important to choose the right tools to do so. The next step is training and helping them evolve in their skill sets to suit the changing needs of the business. Creating the right team structure also involves setting up processes, boundaries and a robust framework of functioning. This helps to create a roadmap to success and a functional plan to win.
- Comprehend. Effective people management involves understanding the people who make up the team— their personalities, motivations as well as their personal and career goals. Empathy, active listening, and a people-first approach lead to a deeper mutual understanding of individuals and collectives. It is important to understand that people are different and have different traits and skill predispositions. Spending actual time with people always leads to deeper insights.
- Communicate. How you communicate as a team affects how you work as one. Open channels of communication and feedback provide an effective tool to manage people better. If communication is important enough to control how people feel at and about work, it is important enough to be a key criterion for effective people management. You need to ensure the availability of the right channels of communication and feedback in order to encourage that they can communicate often and effectively.
- Collaborate. Acknowledge that work cannot happen in silos — even for single-team-member endeavors. Success is a team-function — and so is failure. With the wide array of collaboration tools available in the market today, teams and leaders can ensure that sharing and delegation lead to the best results. Working with other human and non-human components at work also helps members realize the role that they and others play in.
- Confront. People are different and in order to set a tone for respect, loyalty, and commitment, people management needs to focus on optimizing these differences. By “confront” here, we don’t mean to antagonize but rather to face, acknowledge and tackle these variations positively. People perceive things differently and engage with issues with diversity. This, more often than not, leads to assured conflict. Resolving this conflict is an important part of people management since it can either lead to resentment and negativity or strengthen the team.
Crucial Skills in People Management
There are several qualities an individual should possess to become an effective leader/manager.
- Ethics, integrity, trust-building. When it comes to team-building, building trust is a crucial people management skill to have. Leaders who inspire trust, make their team members feel that they have their back (not in selective situations, but always) and who allow the teams to explore risks within the span of sensible goals are perceived as enablers.
- Empathy, appreciating. Whether it is with regard to planning work, assigning tasks, communicating or providing feedback, empathy is a skill that people managers cannot do without. It is the ability to be able to truly being able to see the world from their perspective and understanding their motivations, fears, challenges, and strengths.
- Clear communication. An effective leader communicates clearly, frequently, and thoughtfully, keeping team members apprised about what is happening in the business. Good leaders encourage two-way communication and are receptive to feedback.
- Empowerment. A people manager needs to be an effective motivator. Leaders who develop and enable others can create high performers and improved retention within teams.
