Managing a Team – The Basics

So far I’ve shared many of my tactics and strategies on hiring so you can stop doing the busy work around your business and focus on service. Once a team is in place, there are a whole other series of challenges I’ll be addressing to support you. The first is “how do I manage my team?”

At the very beginning, know that managing takes time and these tips are just the beginning! But if you get organized, settle on one communication method, view this time as an investment, and then actively manage your people and projects, you’ll succeed where many entrepreneurs give up.

Get Organized

To start with, every time you bring on a new team member I suggest writing down, in a safe place, the name, personal email, phone, address, hire date and pay rate of each new employee or contractor. You’ll also want to collect the W-9 and contract for each team member for reference (even interns!). If you’re storing this information digitally be sure to password protect the files.

When you bring on a new team member, be sure to put their contact info in your phone as well. By having this information readily accessible you’ll be able to reference it easily if any questions come up such as “when did I hire that person?” or “what was the starting pay rate?”

Choose ONE Communication Method

Instead of throwing assignments at your team on Skype, chat, email, multiple software platforms, sometimes on Facebook, by phone conversations, etc. choose just one communication method for assigning tasks. If you ever ask yourself why an employee doesn’t do a task, look no further than how you’re asking them to do each task. It’s hard to track a half dozen places consistently and often theoretical discussions like “we should do this” don’t have the clear direction like “you should start on this today.”

I’ve mentioned it many times before but Asana is our choice for project management for our virtual team, because we can sort workspaces by client so the task “send welcome packet” is associated with the right client and clears up a lot of questions.

Having a clear written record of tasks assigned and any follow up communication allows you to easily correct employees when things go awry.

View Training Time as an Investment, not a Waste

It’s easy to think that all the time you put into writing down your system of posting a blog or doing client follow up or creating a graphics package is wasted. After all, if you did it on your own you’d save money and the work would be done already.

But time spent training employees is an investment in the growth of your business. The first time you train someone it may take twice as long as doing it yourself, sure. But the second time when they work independently it should only require your oversight and soon, just minimal supervision. So while in the short term it takes longer, long term you’ll save hundreds or thousands of hours because you’ve cloned yourself – or at least the part who did that task.

What happens when my employee leaves?

Managing People + Projects

It’s inevitable that managing a team feels like a waste of time when someone fails at their job responsibilities or quits. You may even be considering that it’s time to DIY and contract. I’ve heard from so many entrepreneurs that when things don’t go perfect they go back to playing small and stop growing. You can’t let one hiring or management mistake stop your progress! Remember this time is an investment in the future and especially when you have the correct systems in place, recruiting, hiring and training a new team member is much easier the second time around.

While it may take a few months, if you continue to manage the projects to ensure they’re completed the way you want and invest in your team, then you’ll need to do very little oversight and just enjoy the freedom.

(Psssst! Want even more strategies targeted at managing a new team? Be sure to sign up for our weekly Systems Expert newsletter! This Wednesday we’re sharing tips on management that won’t be found on the blog – enter your name and email at the bottom of this page for access.)