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Success in business depends heavily on good people management skills. You can acquire and improve these skills. Having a spontaneous skill for getting along with people can be an advantage, but there are a lot of skills you can do that will make this process easier.

Relationship Development: Remembering individuals by name will be a great beginning. Encourage conversation; look people in the eye during a conversation. Be respectful, in addition listen to what the other individual says, even if you disagree or have another point of view. Listening to what staff say is one of the most critical people management skills you can have. Be sure to exhibit interest in what people can offer the business organization.

Keep your word: Keeping your promises is very important. When you don’t keep your word, the fragile bond of trust is fractured, and nobody will offer you their best efforts without trust. When you give a commitment or make a promise about something, you are squandering your time and effort if you don’t keep your promises. To be honest, if your people can’t count on you, you can be certain they will act in the same fashion.

Feedback is essential: Feedback should be a two-way process. Maintaining an open mind with regard to other people’s ideas is very important in managing staff. Being approachable and receptive establishes that you appreciate other people’s ideas, your thoughts will be respected in the same fashion. Supporting discourse also opens doors to innovative ways of thinking, ways of fulfilling goals, and improves the team dynamic. If team members are given a voice, every employee takes an interest in the project’s outcome.

Communicating is the key: Communication is central to dealing with individuals with skill. Be accessible, listen attentively to other people, welcome all sorts of feedback, and permit each of your team to express themselves. Inspire staff not just to communicate to you, but to talk to each other. The creative process relies a great deal on the open exchange of opinions, and when the team communicate effectively, you can spot any issues swiftly, allowing corrective measures to be implemented to prevent further problems.

Acquiring these techniques will take some effort, yet the rewards are worthwhile. Through encouraging a good team dynamic and developing good listening skills, you can easily have a successful business.

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Numerous companies feel that, by supplying staff with basic training in workplace safety, they have got everything they might need to cope with a disaster. In reality though, instruction in health and safety regulatory affairs simply isn’t adequate. You need to provide your staff with adequate supervision, not to mention provide the right safety gear and give them the opportunity to practice. Anyone in a supervisory job has a larger function to play than simply managing the shop floor. A supervisor requires good people skills, they should also see health and safety education as important. On top of ensuring conformity with health and safety legislation, the role of a supervisor also often includes maintaining employee performance. This isn’t a simple undertaking. A good standard product knowledge is an essential for a supervisory job not to mention a high level of understanding of safety regulations, risk assessment, and first aid. Offering health and safety training really isn’t adequate for your workers. Your employees must practise risk assessment and the recognition of hazards. Employees also need to acquire a solid understanding of the required safeguards that they are required to put in place as well as knowing what to do when anything unforeseen happens. Not until these procedures become a habit are employees completely protected.

Education is in reality useless without the necessary safety equipment. Without the appropriate apparatus or alternatively if employees see that equipment is broken when they actually need them, even the most advanced instruction isn’t going to help them.

It’s a good idea to inspect often to ascertain if you possess everything you might need and also to check that it is functioning well. When anything does not meet the applicable standards, ensure that it is remedied ASAP and returned to the appropriate location. Proper health and safety instruction is vital to the safety of your employees, but in addition they also need to have decent apparatus, the opportunity to practise, and a supervisor who has infectious enthusiasm. When you implement these steps you should find the safety regulations become a normal part of life in the workplace rather than something everyone has to attempt to remember.

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Effective people management skills are extremely important in reaching the best in your business success. These skills may be improved and learned. It may be a plus to have a natural affinity for getting along with people, nevertheless there are many things you can do to make the process easy.

Relationship Development: Remembering people by name can be a great beginning. Talk to staff; make eye contact during a conversation. Show respect, and be sure to listen to everything the other individual says, even if you don’t agree or have a different viewpoint. Paying attention to everything others say is one of the best human resources management skills you can have. Show an interest in what they can contribute to the business organization.

Live up to promises: Don’t make promises you won’t fulfill. If a promise is not kept, it will destroy trust, and if they don’t trust you people certainly won’t offer their best. Each time you make a statement or make a promise, ensure you can deliver or don’t bother giving your word at all. The truth is, if you can’t be depended upon, you can be certain they will act in the same way.

Feedback is important: It’s a two way street. Human Resource management skills mean being open to all feedback. Being accessible and receptive demonstrates that other’s thoughts matter to you, and they should value yours. Promoting open discussion also encourages new ways of thinking, ways of fulfilling the goals of the company, and develops the team. By giving the team a voice, every member invests in the project’s outcome.

Communication is fundamental: Managing your team comes down to the same thing - good communication. Keeping an open door policy, listen intently to people, remember to welcome all sorts of feedback, and give team members an equal voice. Staff must be inspired to talk to each other as well as with you. The sharing of ideas is crucial in the creative process, and in listening to one another, you can spot problems swiftly, and corrections can be applied before things get out of hand.

This may require some work, but the dividends achieved far outweigh the work. By establishing the bonds of a good team and taking heed of your team’s opinions, a successful business will be yours.

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Do you manage or operate a small or medium business? You must get the message about web conferencing because you could be cutting costs by utilizing this internet meeting technology.

We’ll commence by stating a definition and depiction of web conferencing. In essence web conferencing is best understood as a set of technologies that lets any collection of persons hold internet meetings and collaborative conferences. It takes advantage of the world wide web and readily available devices like webcams to make web conference calls reasonable and easy.

At this point we will now move on to discussing why your operation will profit if you seriously consider the use of internet conferencing services. Conferences and meetings create the foundation of what makes many corporations operate successfully. The smallest one-man shops still find it necessary to to confer with their customers and vendors. Internal team meetings are more likely to take place in larger companies, where teams of co-workers customarily come together to clear up problems and engage in forward planning. In both cases, the attendants may be apart by a few steps, a few miles, or thousands of miles.

When people in diverse areas need to get together, what’s the most major cost? Travel! Standard travel expenditures include food, lodging, rental cars and airfare. With an internet meeting or online conference call, all the travel costs simply evaporate.

You may not have noticed, but there’s a further relevant cost sustained by your enterprise. You also need to account for the less specific expense of unproductive time sacrificed to traveling.

Now that the advantages and savings are obvious, now is when you should to propel your business into the 21st century by employing web conferencing for your next gathering.

I’ll give you another reason to take action now. Today a leading online conferencing company, GoToMeeting, is offering a trial subscription that’s free for 30 days for their first-rate service. And after the trial period you can even get a $10 discount when you use this GoToMeeting Promo Code. Why not get going with your free trial right away?

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Here are 20 of the tips that we at WorldGAMES use when training others to train:

1. Always use a simple frame-up that sets tight rules for the training
2. Acknowledge participants and draw out their benefits for the training (not yours)
3. Get participant buy-in to rules and benefits
4. Seek to influence with integrity
5. Walk your talk
6. If you do not know something … say so
7. Care about participants and show it
8. Ask plenty of questions
9. Listen, watch and get a feel for where your audience are at - constantly
10. Draw out participants’ experience - collectively the group knows more than you
11. Honor participants’ experience of the activity - do not tell them what they felt
12. Paint pictures, use metaphors and war stories and keep them short and relevant
13. Be a coach, guide and facilitator rather than a preacher or teacher
14. Accept that participants will see the world differently - honor their model of the world
15. Appeal to all learning styles whenever possible (visual, auditory and kinaesthetic)
16. Handle hot issues - avoid them at your peril
17. Be cautious with humor - it is easy to offend
18. Involve the whole group at all times
19. Be yourself
20. Be open

By John Radclyffe of WorldGAMES, leaders in business training games, tools and programs.
John is a rare breed of facilitator, trainer and consultant who has in-depth and
hands-on experience in a broad range of skills; training, financial, marketing,
new business development and business management among them.

©WorldGAMES Pty Ltd

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Do you manage by walking around? What do you see? People excited about their job or people just going through the motions? Here are seven ways, that do not cost much if anything, to turn the “it’s just a job” employee into one that is powered up and willing to give their best every day.

Spend time out in the field. Ask your employees how you can help make their jobs easier. Work alongside them and even let them teach you what they do. Southwest Airlines has a mandate that every manager must spend 1/3 of his or her time in direct contact with employees and customers to create a stronger feeling of teamwork.

Hold a voluntary good news hour. Set aside time once a week so that everyone can share good things that have happened in their lives and work during the last week.

Celebrate everything you can. For example, meeting of short term goals, the end of the budget process, winning grants or new customers, extraordinary work, safety successes.

Surprise with spontaneous treats. Rent an ice cream cart or a popcorn machine. Take coffee and donuts to each person’s work station. How about a package of Lifesavers during a stressful time?

Praise frequently. A pat on the back, a short note of thanks, or a voice mail message from a manager can refill employees’ emotional bank accounts for weeks.

Hold informal “grapevine sessions” to control the flow of the rumor mill. Managers must be prepared to listen and to be completely truthful and open. Even when they can’t share specific information, they can honestly explain why and when it will be available.

Let people know what they do is important. Help your workers focus not only on a job description but also on how they fit into the big picture. That new sense of purpose will boost their self-esteem and motivation.

If someone asked your staff or frontline workers a few general questions about the company or your department, would they describe it in terms like ‘they’ and ‘them,’ or in terms like ‘we’ or ‘us’? What can you do, in your position, to move your people to feel engaged and part of your team?

Marcia Zidle, the ‘people smarts’ coach, works with business leaders to quickly solve their people management headaches so they can concentrate on their #1 job to grow and increase profits. She offers free help through Leadership Briefing, a weekly e-newsletter with practical tips on leadership style, employee motivation, recruitment and retention and relationship management. Subscribe by going to
http://leadershiphooks.com/ and get the bonus report “61 Leadership Time Savers and Life Savers”. Marcia is the author of the What Really Works Handbooks resources for managers on the front line and the Power-by-the-Hour programs fast, convenient, real life, affordable courses for leadership and staff development. She is available for media interviews, conference presentations and panel discussions on the hottest issues affecting the workplace today. Contact Marcia at 800-971-7619.

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On your quest for the perfect candidate you might overlook one important componenthow will they fit with the company culture? This type of “fit” is important to their happiness with the company and your happiness with them.

First, you need to think about what qualities make people effective in doing their jobs. Is a very upfront, challenging, demanding style required to get what they need? Think about this in reference to handling external clients, vendors, or even internal clients. Someone who is more softspoken and is coming into a demanding environment may find themselves pushed around and frustrated that they can’t get their job done. There are people who can learn to step up to the challenge, and those who are naturally more introverted and reticent who just don’t have it in them.

A more common problem is hiring someone who is pushier and bringing them into a more collaborative, consensus-decision making environment. These people can have abrasive qualities that don’t mesh with what you have in place, and cause a lot of resentment among your current staff and customers.

So how do you trap for that?

Ask them questions about a time when they had any sort of customer service problem. It can be a frustration with an airline, the post office, grocery store, or a situation at their current job. You want to hear examples of how they treat people when they are not getting what they want, and what it takes for them to get really angry. How did they handle the situation? What did they do as their issue wasn’t getting resolved in the early stages of the conflict? How quickly did it escalate? When they are describing this situation, are they getting angry all over again? Can they empathize with the customer service person who is trying to help them? Listen closely to how they handle the situation because this will give you an idea of their thought process in handling conflicts at your company.

Again, you can use the lead in “This job requires that you get information from many different parts of the organization. They don’t report directly to you, but you need them to help you get deliverables to clients. Have you ever been in this situation, and can you tell me about a time when you had a conflict with one of these people?” or “How would you describe your style in working with others?” If they tell you that they can’t think of a time when this happened, just tell them to take their time, everyone has an occasion when they had to resolve a conflict with someonegive them a minute to think of a good example.

Abrasive people are more likely to have these examples at the tip of their tongue, and will relish describing them and how they handled the offending party. You need to assess if their actions were warranted for the situation, and if that style is going to work well within your organization.

Copywrite 2006 Melanie Szlucha

Melanie Szlucha has been a hiring manager for over 10 years. She founded Red Inc. two years ago to help people become more relaxed and prepared during the job interview process. Combining presentation and communication skills with her experience in conducting job interviews, she is able to coach job applicants through landing their perfect job. Ms Szlucha is also a job interview forum moderator on the site http://www.careercube.net She is available for individual coaching, classes for employers and interviewees and can be contacted on her website or melanie at redinc.biz.

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It’s hard to believe the year will be half over in just a few weeks. All the planning you did is either turning out great, coming along slowly but surely or hasn’t really gotten off the ground because other issues keep getting in the way.

With so many things to distract you from your small business this time of year - like outdoor activities, yard work, vacations and the kids being home from school, just to name a few - the next 90 days often fly by and you find yourself further down the road and farther away from accomplishing your goals. The key to avoiding the Summertime Blues and running in place until September is to conduct a mid-year check-up.

Success Handler Action: With your team, spend some time discussing what you’ve accomplished so far this year. Focus on the positive things occurring in your small business. Celebrate your successes - however small they are - so everyone recognizes there are indeed good things happening. Here are some questions to help you get started:

~ What is the best thing you’ve done as a company this year?

~ Why are you better today than six months ago?

~ Which part of your business has improved the most this year?

~ What are some of the good comments you’ve heard from your customers?

~ How have you personally helped your team achieve their goals?

We get so busy trying to survive the daily onslaught of crises that it’s easy to forget to look at the big picture - to step away from the grind and remember even minor progress is still progress. It’s important to stay focused on continuous improvement, striving every day to become a little better. The Japanese call this management philosophy “Kaizen” - making incremental progress one day at a time.

Success Handler Action: Review the goals you made at the beginning of the year. Take a candid look at what you set out to do and whether you’re actually doing it. Gather your team and talk about the reasons you’re not achieving the forward momentum you expected. Instead of dwelling on what isn’t happening, choose five attainable goals from your list and create action plans for accomplishing them. Assign specific responsibilities and timelines for completing each item. To help everyone understand the importance of their role in making the second half of the year remarkable, follow these five steps:

1. Ask your team to repeat their responsibilities, and if they have questions about their parts.

2. Create a buddy system in which two employees work together to ensure accountability.

3. Post the action plans in a visible place where everyone sees them each day.

4. Encourage team members to look for opportunities to help each other reach their goals.

5. Cheer for small victories by blowing a whistle and recognizing deserving employees.

Rather than overwhelming everyone with yet another plan for changing the way you operate your small business, limit yourself to these five goals - focusing on what each person needs to do to complete his/her pieces. Bring your team together each week for a brief 15-minute discussion in which every member provides an update on their progress. Encourage them to share roadblocks that are preventing them from moving forward, and work on solutions for overcoming delays.

It is important to take time to plan the direction of your small business. However, the only way to achieve your goals is to actively work the plan. Do this every day, and you’ll find there actually is a cure for the Summertime Blues.

Copyright © 2004 by Success Handler, LLC. All rights reserved.

The Coach, David Handler, is the founder of Success Handler, (http://www.successhandler.com), and specializes in helping small business leaders find clarity and take action. He understands the challenges of running a business, because he’s been there - as a small business owner, franchisee, franchisor, corporate leader and trainer. Much like sports coaches, his coaching will show you how to compete on a level playing field in your industry.

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Do you have a Gantt chart for each one of your projects, on your wall? (By the way, a Gantt chart is just a chart with time along the horizontal and the tasks drawn on as long thin boxes). If you don’t already use them, here’s why I think they are worth it:

1. Communication: everyone can see the project, where they fit in, and why if they go late they will affect others.

2. Monitoring progress - by colouring in the Gantt chart you can make sure you’re keeping up with the Today line, and you can take action as required if you’re not keeping up (crashing tasks, slipping the programme, whatever). Without a coloured-in Gantt chart you can only say you’re about half way through and probably on schedule - not good enough! Your weekly or monthly progress meetings will probably be based around the Gantt chart (you do have these don’t you??)

3. Planning loading - by looking vertically you can see the weeks or months when everything is going to hit at once, so you can slide some of the floating tasks to reduce the peaks, and even if you can’t level out the peaks you can plan accordingly - extra people, overtime, or taking longer over the project.

4. The big loading over-view: you can add up all your projects and make sure that the department as a whole will be able to cope with the total planned workload and therefore keep it’s promises. And of course if it can’t you can use this loading plan to either get the customers to choose which project they want first (they can’t have them all) or to lobby for more resources using logic and without appearing negative or pessimistic.

5. The Gantt chart can be used to generate a predicted cost curve, since it shows the amount of labour and the moments of capital expenditure during the project. then, during the project, you can make sure you stick to the plan. Without a predicted cost curve you are reduced to hoping that the rate of expenditure will be approximately linear - unlikely!

6. Interpreting cost figures: the accountants are telling you that you’re underspent: but is that good? Only if you’re keeping up with progress! More likely you’re running late and that’s why you’re underspent. Maybe you’re a long way behind, and for the work you have done you’re OVER spent? The Gantt chart is the only way you can know this.

6. Assessing whether subcontractors know what they are doing - ask to see their Gantt chart - they do have one don’t they? If not - worry! During the project have a regular meeting to see how the colouring-in of progress is getting on.

7. Blowing your own trumpet - why not show your boss and your customers that you are in control, that you know what’s going on with your project

So there we are: Gantt charts: go on, you know you want one!

Chris Croft runs one day and two day project management training courses all over southern england. You can find more of his Project Management tips at http://www.cc-training.com/project_management.html, you can read about his DMS (Diploma in Management) programmes at http://www.croftcentre.co.uk/lecturers.html, and you can get free emailed tips on all sorts of subjects at http://www.free-management-tips.co.uk

Chris started out life as an Engineer from Cambridge University, then worked as a manager (not fun enough) then as a University Lecturer (lots of fun but not enough money) and is now a freelance trainer (not bad for both). His dog, Marmite, is 17.

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