Things Managers Should Know About Their Employees

It is essential for a manager to know his/her team members well to understand their strengths, key responsibility areas, weaknesses, capabilities and where all they need his guidance and hand-holding. Calling employees by their first names not only motivates them to strive hard to deliver their level best but also leads to happy and satisfied employees. Organizations, where managers do not even know the names of their team members often face problems of high attrition rate, dissatisfied employees, conflicts and misunderstandings among employees eventually leading to lower productivity.

Let us go through certain things which are mandatory for a manager to know about his/her employees:

A manager needs to know the complete background of each and every individual who is a part of his team. Find out whether the individual concerned has:

• Any criminal record or not?
• How well has he/she performed in his previous organization?
• His/her credentials, past experience, specialization, interest levels and so on
• How frequently has he/she changed his/her previous organizations?
• His/her permanent residential address, contact numbers etc

Please do not forget to collect the photocopies of their educational certificates, passport or any other address verification proof for your own records. It helps you check the authenticity of an individual. You need to find out whether the other person is actually speaking the truth or not?

You really need to know individuals well before you recruit them in the team and make them responsible for ongoing projects. Reference checks are essential and help you in knowing a lot about an employee.

Make sure, reference checks are done only when you are really sure of hiring the individual, else it might land the other person in trouble. Understand whether the individual really deserves to be a part of your team and organization or not? Do not hire individuals just because you have to fill a vacant position.

Believe me, if you do not bother to know your employees well and verify their basic details, they would not stick around for a long time. Trust me, one fine day; they will disappear, leaving both you and your organization in deep trouble. You would have nothing to do if an employee leaves you in the middle of a project.

Managers ought to know the capabilities, expertise, skill sets of each and every individual. It helps in effective delegation of authority and tasks. Mismatch of job responsibilities leads to unnecessary confusions at the workplace.

A manager needs to know interest areas and hobbies of employees to understand them better. As a manager, you need to know which employee can perform what all tasks with perfection and where all he/she still needs some improvement. You need to understand an employee’s growth plan and his/her role in the team as well as organization. A manager ought to know what motivates an individual to perform as per expectations.

Managers need to know the contact numbers of all their team members. You need to know the birthdays and anniversaries of your employees. Do not forget to wish them on their special days for them to feel important at the workplace.

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