Management

Are the right managers in place?

It’s important to motivate and reward your best people, but is promotion really the right call? Promoting your best people into management roles seems like a quick fix to show employees you recognize their hard work. Unfortunately, many companies find out the hard way that not every great employee is management material.

Before promoting your best people, here are some thoughts to consider:
1. Is the role correct?
Too many companies have a flawed methodology for selecting people into management. How? They base hiring and promotion decisions on an employee’s past experience, and then reward them by giving them an entirely different role.

2. Managerial talents
Management candidates should have a broad set of skills including:
Ability to motivate employees
Take initiative to resolve problems
Support a culture of accountability
Are able to develop trust among employees
Can make well-reasoned unbiased decisions that benefit their team and the organization.

3. Alignment with Company Goals & Vision
A manager will be representing your company in a more visible way. They’ll be interpreting company goals for a team and ensuring organizational objectives are achieved. It is important the employee in question is strategically aligned with company goals and culture. If your company culture says, “The customer is always right,” then managers should embody this mission statement. Just because an employee excels at the day-to-day work of an organization, however, doesn’t mean they’ll be great with big picture initiatives.

4. Are they Communicators?
Communication is important, but listening is essential.
Managers need to listen up and down the organizational chart so they can clearly communicate workflow to their team. They need to not only listen to what is being said, but understand what is unsaid among the employees they manage. If a manager is more focused on their work than their workers, this could spell bad news in a management setting.

5. Do they want to manage?
Not every superstar employee wants to become a manager.
Your top-notch sales rep might have become invaluable because they really love the work they’re doing. You want to reward them by giving them a manager position, but what you’re really doing is taking them away from the work at which they excel.
If the candidate doesn’t seem motivated to manage, find another way to recognize and reward their hard work and find someone more suited to the management lifestyle.

Bad management can truly hurt your company, kill employee morale, and bring down your bottom line. Before promoting someone to a management position, ask yourself these questions in order to ensure you’re making the right decision.