Peer to Peer Magazine

From Manager to Leader Watch the Clock Obviously, you want to pay employees to work a number of hours per week that best meet the needs of the firm. But if the firm’s needs are being met, and you are being overly watchful of the clock, is it possible you are being the chronological equivalent of penny-wise and pound-foolish? At what cost to morale do you harp on rigid schedule keeping? If the firm can absorb some flexibility — especially when overlapping schedules are in place — then there is no need to degrade morale by admonishing your staff for a few minutes swing in their schedules here and there. Of course, every situation is different, and concerns such as parity with other staff members are equally important to consider. For example, over time, the fastidious employees who are always on time will come to resent their peers who are always late, always take extra long lunches, or always leave early — and they will resent you for permitting it. Chronic time-related issues should be addressed, and patterns should be managed. But occasional slip-ups happen. Life happens outside of work. This flexibility is especially important when managing exempt (salaried) staff members who are regularly required to work late at night or over the weekend without any additional compensation, but it is also applicable to non-exempt (hourly) staff. Don’t fall into the trap of allowing the time sheet process to convince you that all of your hourly staff members are keeping to rigidly consistent schedules. Let them know that you want their time sheets to accurately reflect the times they were in the office, versus an almost robotic completion of time cards, which show precisely the same hours worked each day. If it is necessary for them to keep up with their time daily so that they don’t forget that their train ran late on Wednesday, then it behooves you to require daily completion of time sheets. Your more time-conscious staff members will understand that you are not targeting them. And, if they are worth keeping, your time-challenged staff members will understand that it is simply a matter of fairness. Watch the Vacation Calendar Per firm policy, the number of vacation days to which your staff members are entitled should be specific and transparent. Don’t grant days off begrudgingly or make your staff feel guilty for taking them. As with the clock, weigh the impact upon morale of being overly dictatorial with vacation days. Leaders don’t permit time off; they encourage it! An emotionally content and mentally rested employee is a more effective employee. Keep Track of the Details (In General) Beyond vacation days and work schedules, tardiness and long breaks, there are countless ways you can give the impression to your staff that you are a bean counter: Did you need to order that extra spindle of CD media? Couldn’t we have gotten away with 10 patch cables instead of 25? Did you tell me that 10 people were having a problem with that Outlook plug-in, because I only count eight? Some of these metrics are important to track. Some are not. Leaders know where to draw the line and when to let things go. They know not to sweat the small stuff — unless there’s a long-standing pattern of the small stuff accumulating to the point where it creates a negative perception at the firm. You should be able to recognize if such a pattern indicates a real problem. And when that invisible line has been crossed, a good manager knows that business needs now outweigh a slight hit to morale and that the pattern needs to be addressed. Manage Ongoing Reactive and Proactive Work A micromanager tells employees how to do their job. Micromanaging might manifest as looking over someone’s shoulder, giving unsolicited advice on how to solve a problem, or double- and triple-checking on the status of a high-urgency matter. Micromanagers feel the need to have their tentacles into as much of their staff’s ongoing work as possible. Leaders step back, look at the department’s work as a whole, and help their staff manage their time and balance their priorities. From my personal experience, helping your staff to better manage their time is often one of the most valuable contributions you can make to their professional development. Monitor Performance (By the Numbers) How fast can your staff turn around a project or deliverable? How many helpdesk tickets can your coordinator process in a given day? How long does it take to resolve a Word formatting problem? A good manager has a handle on the numbers of the business. It is important to understand whether your department is adequately staffed, whether patterns may be emerging that indicate there are as yet unidentified issues with your technology infrastructure, and yes, which members of your staff are more effective than their peers. But numbers only tell part of the story. Walk the floors. At random, ask the “customers” of your staff how they are performing. Publish a simple survey via e-mail or SharePoint that asks questions about your staff’s effectiveness. The “softer” aspects of determining your staff members’ individual and collective efficacy are oftentimes more telling and important than an analysis by the numbers. The Path to Leadership Now that you’ve seen what it takes to manage your staff to perform to the best of their abilities, here you’ll find out how to inspire them to perform beyond their abilities. Peer to Peer the quarterly magazine of ILTA 53

• Cover