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Being a first-time project heads or business owners can be a daunting task for anyone. Handling the workplace is more than just dealing with paperwork and delegating tasks. It’s also about handling people, different personalities, and finding the right work process for them to perform at their best.
Making people work for you is not an excuse to overwhelm them with the majority of the workload. Setting a positive work environment should allow both you and your staff to get a better grasp of the company culture, improve on valuable skill sets, and learn more from the experience in your respective positions.
Designing the right way to lead your team both on growth and success requires the implementation of the 5 Rs which are responsibility, retention, reward, recognition and recreation.
Task delegation is one of the first aspects of creating a positive work environment. Many personalities clash and workflow disturbances come from miscommunication regarding task delegation. Proper task delegation makes it clear on who is responsible for which deliverable. Proper task delegation as well helps your employees hone new skills or develop on the ones they have.
Make sure that boundaries and range of responsibilities are properly communicated. Open up a call for questions after the project orientation if there are any confusions with the project at hand and be ready for any questions or clarifications throughout the duration of the project.
One of the biggest dangers and demotivators in work is declining retention. Your employees might not feel motivated to go to work for numerous reasons. Business owners often forget that their employees might not share the same enthusiasm and energy that they have. Some of these factors that stop them are to deal with such as commuting to the office, traffic, and more.
One way to improve employee retention is being clear about the requirements that are necessary at work. A common excuse that often pops up during employee conversations is that face-to-face meetings ‘could’ve been an email’. Let your staff know the value of face-to-face meetings. Questions and concerns can be brought up and resolved on the spot. You can also show your staff how much you value your time with them especially during necessary interactions.
Learn to be more adaptive to the current generation that isn’t too open to the standard nine to five work schedule. You have to be smart about setting up meetings and sending deliverables. An excellent way to balance both on-site and online meetings is having a bit of both.
Recognition is used to empower not just those who excel but also everyone else to follow through example. Celebrating your staff’s accomplishments allows them to feel a sense of recognition and pride in the work that they do. A morale boost is necessary especially during long stretches of work or even right after a project is done.
Accomplishments on big or small projects, it’s good to boost morale by showing that you’re keeping track of their progress as their project manager. The effect of high morale can go a long way not just on the individuals who are recognized but also by the rest of the team.
With any project, it’s necessary to set a project calendar to keep things running smoothly. However, there will are times where things don’t always go as planned. Though these may be unprecedented setbacks, you can also create ways to speed up the process. An excellent way to bump up productivity is by offering an ‘optional’ bonus or incentive.
Rewards don’t always come in the form of a set of gift cards from a restaurant. One of the best ways to reward recognition is by enticing them to do more with incentives and benefits at work.
As important as money can be, time is also an underappreciated gift that most employers fail to utilize. Designing valuable incentives such as additional paid-leave days or the opportunity to work from home is a luxury that most employees look forward to having.
All work and no play makes for an unlively bunch. Know when you’re pushing too much with deadlines and learn to make time for recreation. From a simple night out for dinner or a full day of rest can do wonders. A good metric of measuring when to set rest days is estimating the time it takes to finish the requirement. If it goes a little over two weeks non-stop, then it might be best to put the brakes on the project.
The trick to properly scheduling recreation is a well designed project calendar. An untimely break during the workflow could do more harm than good if placed at the wrong date. In scheduling a conflict calendar, always try to involve your staff members so that there’s a consensus of the viability of deadlines and the need for rest.
Being a project manager is far from easy. Not only are you tasked with handling and supervising deliverables for a project, you’re also meant to direct and support your team members in executing their tasks to maintain a solid workflow. Curating a productive work environment is the key to powering through a successful campaign, and can work even further in developing employee relations by improving levels of motivation, camaraderie, and company spirit.
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