11 Ways to Manage Subordinates Effectively in Every Situation

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

Employees are a vital resource for business growth, yet personnel management has never been easy — especially for large organizations or those with complex work. Understanding those concerns, SimERP presents effective employee management methods in the article below.

How to manage employees effectively

A business cannot grow well without a high-quality workforce — in character, ethics, and professional skills alike. However, these are all factors that can change over time, influenced by many different forces acting on each employee. Therefore, if managers lack the right management strategy, the company's internal operations will fall into disarray.

So as a leader, what qualities and skills do you need in order to positively influence employees and inspire effort and dedication at work? Let's walk through the content below.

Be a shining example at work

To become a good leader, you must first earn your employees' respect and admiration. To achieve that, a manager needs to:

• Be dedicated and highly responsible at work: always complete agreed-upon goals according to the standards and deadlines you set, and dare to face up to and acknowledge your mistakes. This is an important quality that many new employees lack.

• Possess all the necessary professional skills and work professionally: complete assigned tasks properly and never stop learning new knowledge and skills to boost productivity, making it easy to share expertise with employees when needed.

• Strictly observe discipline: follow the rules the company has set, frankly acknowledge mistakes, and accept appropriate consequences.

Holding a senior position does not mean you can relax, do as you please, and disregard company rules — it is precisely your constant compliance that builds goodwill and respect from the employees you manage. Moreover, many managers habitually shift blame, turning employees into a "shield" when damaging errors occur. You may think this demonstrates your authority, but the result will only breed resentment and internal division.

Know how to listen, empathize, and share

As a manager with professional communication skills, listening is always a key activity for recognizing the difficult problems your employees are facing.

Listening attentively and sincerely, empathizing with their concerns, and sharing with employees about a problem they are going through brings surprising benefits, such as:

• Reducing internal conflict: spotting emerging problems early through listening helps managers provide the tools and methods needed to resolve issues in a timely manner.

• Improving work performance: when people exchange ideas and feedback more, it becomes easier to spot the flaws or strengths of each opinion and solution, helping employees and managers better understand the nature of the work and learn and improve their knowledge and skills — which in turn raises productivity.

• Personal development: listening helps managers understand each employee's strengths and weaknesses, so they can plan task assignments that encourage employees to build on strengths and correct shortcomings.

• Building cohesion: an ideal working environment is one where every employee knows how to listen and empathize. Shared emotions fuel enthusiasm at work, help people better understand their own value and that of those around them, and thereby boost motivation.

• Creating a culture of sharing: alongside the growth of Big Data, gathering feedback from employees is extremely important for improving a competitive working environment. Today there are many tools that help managers listen to employees, such as SMS, email, and Google Forms surveys.

Listening and sharing must be done the right way and at the right time. To get it right, managers need to stay promptly informed about their staff's situation in order to notice anomalies such as: a sudden drop in performance, stubborn employees who resist supervision, demotivated staff, and so on. From there, they can find solutions to the problem or offer appropriate encouragement to motivate employees to work with greater energy.

Align employees with the company's shared direction

One of the most widely applied ways to manage employees effectively is aligning them with the common goals set by the company and the team. Without a specific work goal, employees tend to act on their own opinions, prioritizing personal objectives instead of proposing a shared solution. Without timely intervention, this leads to a lack of cooperation and internal division within the team, resulting in poor performance.

However, setting common goals is never easy, as it can get tangled in conflicting opinions. So how do you build shared goals effectively? Consider the following suggestions:

• Build goals together with employees: employees are the company's most important resource; they have the expertise and skills to evaluate what shared goals will actually raise productivity, sales, and profit in line with the company's situation.

• Goals must be clear and measurable: vague, general goals will cause employees to misunderstand or miss the point. On the other hand, assessable goals let you monitor employees' work, so you can offer practical, timely feedback.

• Regularly re-evaluate goals: evaluation helps managers check whether employees are adhering to the goal — and how faithfully — in their working process.

• Goals don't necessarily have to be tied to sales or profit: a shared work goal is not always the business's top priority during a given period.

• Make sure goals are achievable: shared goals must be realistic and suited to employees' capabilities and circumstances. Setting goals beyond their reach can leave employees feeling overwhelmed, demoralized, and unmotivated.

• Goals must be consistent: apply goals consistently to employees with the same responsibilities; otherwise you create resentment over perceived favoritism.

• Timing of goal setting: depending on the business, goals can be set at the start of the year or ahead of a new sales season — whichever approach you choose, it should happen at a fixed time so employee performance can be managed more objectively.

• Goals that tie employees to the company's success: by offering a reward for achieving a shared goal linked to the company's overall objectives, you can successfully boost employee morale.

Assess and guide employee capabilities

Employee capability reviews are essential for managers to understand performance, effectiveness, and job fit for each employee over a given period. In addition, through this process, employees learn their own strengths and weaknesses so they can plan to develop or improve accordingly.

Using the data gathered from assessments, managers can assign work that matches each employee's abilities and set up a sensible praise-and-criticism system. This activity also plays an important role in the company's talent management, guiding the training of a professional workforce by identifying knowledge and skills that are still lacking.

Here are 4 employee evaluation criteria to consider:

• Continuity/regularity: conduct evaluations on a consistent, continuous cycle (improvement meetings are usually quarterly, interspersed with performance reviews every 6–12 months, combined with weekly direct feedback) to avoid pressure and give employees the chance to proactively improve and develop themselves.

• Time: apply software technology to employee management and evaluation to assess more accurately and shorten evaluation time effectively.

• Accuracy: avoid common management mistakes such as focusing only on results without considering the working process, judging the whole person from a single strength/weakness, assessing based on gut feeling/personal assumptions/gender bias, or taking one individual's behavior as representative of the group.

• Purpose: the goal of evaluation is not to tie material factors to performance, but to identify each employee's strengths and weaknesses and then offer feedback and a suitable development path so they can grow their capabilities and advance in the future. Moreover, rewards should be kept separate from the assessment so employees strive on their own merit.

Reward employees appropriately

According to a study by the O.C. Tanner Institute, 78% of employees say they would be more committed to a company when they receive deserved recognition of their achievements from their boss, compared with 34% who would stay when recognition is scarce.

That is why a well-planned reward system is a practical activity that helps you make a strong impression on employees, show that you care about and value their effort, and recognize and celebrate the results they have worked for. In turn, employees gain motivation, lifting their morale and sense of responsibility so they contribute more to the company, creating a friendly and highly competitive working environment.

Depending on the purpose, managers can choose when to reward: on major holidays (work achievement bonuses, a 13th-month salary bonus, etc.), when employees complete their assignments well, or when employees come up with ideas, initiatives, or contributions for the business.

So what reward techniques can managers apply? Consider the following suggestions:

• Send a sincere thank-you: expressing sincerity through praise and timely thanks is more effective than any physical gift for encouraging and recognizing employee achievements.

• Publicly commend and reward outstanding employees: this is an honor given to employees who have made positive contributions to the company's development; commendation plus an incentive reward gives them more motivation to strive and creates a learning, effectively competitive working environment.

• Create promotion opportunities: based on capability assessments and employee contributions, create promotion opportunities to make the most of talent for the company.

• Grant special privileges: privileges such as joining leadership gatherings, managing a department on leadership's behalf, etc., help employees appreciate the weight of leadership, gain more skills, and take greater responsibility at work.

Build a friendly, cheerful working environment

One of the most desired effective management approaches is creating a working environment that is friendly, comfortable, and competitive. When working in a positive environment, employees become cheerful, relaxed, and energized, performing better. Conversely, in a toxic environment, employees feel bored, exhausted, and demotivated — and may resign to move to a company with a better working culture.

Understanding employee psychology and needs, businesses can consider the following ideas to build the working environment they envision:

• Improve the workspace: consider the decorations and furnishings in the space, such as warmer lighting, plants, air quality, air conditioning, and lighting, to create a comfortable workspace that boosts concentration.

• Provide suitable amenities: raise employees' quality of life by providing facilities such as day-care rooms, gyms, canteens, vending machines, etc.

• Give employees freedom: avoid rigid, negative, pressuring supervision; instead create comfort and let them freely voice opinions and make decisions within their delegated scope.

• Communicate effectively: talk with and care about employees appropriately so problems are identified and resolved promptly.

• Train and create advancement opportunities: give employees the chance to learn from one another and provide suitable training to raise their skill levels.

• Recognize achievements and reward fairly: acknowledge employees' efforts and contributions through rewards at the right moments.

Empower employees

In practice, many managers find themselves overloaded and unable to fully manage a large number of employees. So what is the best way to manage subordinates in this situation? The answer is to delegate.

Delegation is when a manager entrusts someone else with doing something on their behalf, under supervision. Empowering employees to make decisions and manage a team or department not only reduces the manager's workload, it also gives employees the chance to take on new work, gain experience, and discover and develop their own abilities.

However, many managers refuse to delegate, for reasons including:

• Conflicts of responsibility and interest: many managers/employees do not want to be answerable for the results achieved after successful delegation. When results are good, they fight over the credit; when results disappoint, they push the blame onto each other, straining the relationship. Managers must therefore be transparent about responsibilities and benefits before delegating.

• Lack of confidence: for many managers, delegating feels like doubting their own abilities; even after good or bad results, they feel they haven't done well enough, feel uncertain, and blame themselves.

• Need for control: delegation heightens the urge to control, because other complications may arise that leave managers uneasy (friction between the delegate and other employees, mutual cover-ups or favoritism at work, etc.).

• Lack of trust: managers cannot find an employee they trust enough to delegate to.

So what delegation skills do managers need to know?

• Delegate openly: make the specific duties and responsibilities of the delegate clear in front of the other employees to prevent conflicts when handling work, and help the delegate recognize the value and responsibility they carry for the team.

• Delegation must be grounded: delegate through a written decision (letter of authorization, official dispatch, etc.) to serve as the basis if problems arise.

• Never arbitrarily revoke delegated authority: arbitrary revocation makes employees doubt the manager's competence and decisions. Managers should therefore prepare themselves mentally for mistakes that may occur when delegating, offer feedback, and give employees the chance to correct course — creating space for them to grow.

How to manage stubborn employees — approaches you can't skip

In reality, not every employee will follow your management. They are all capable people who were hired for a reason; they have their own viewpoints, thoughts, and working methods, which sometimes clash with other employees or with management.

So what are the effective ways to manage non-compliant employees that you need to know? Consider the advice below.

Always stay calm

Working with stubborn employees can frustrate you and sometimes cost you control of your emotions, leading to uncontrolled words or actions while angry. This only makes the working atmosphere more tense and leaves a bad impression on employees. Always remember that scolding is merely a form of venting; the wise person finds a practical and more effective solution.

So what a manager needs to do at this point is breathe deeply, stay calm, keep words and actions firmly in check, and think things through before making any decision.

Find out the cause

Once your mind is calm, you need to understand that your employee is not being stubborn and defying management without reason. Everything has a cause — to manage employees effectively, what you need to do is find that cause.

The first thing a manager should do is put themselves in the employee's shoes and think seriously about what they themselves did when the defiance appeared — this often yields some insight. Then arrange a small, informal conversation to hear feedback directly from the employee.

Talk with employees tactfully

Once the cause is understood, the manager needs to express understanding and talk frankly and tactfully to resolve the problem:

• If the cause lies with the manager, frankly acknowledge it and find a way to fix it.

• If the reason stems from a misunderstanding, don't hesitate to explain clearly so that you and the employee understand each other better.

• If the cause lies with the employee himself, give him the opportunity to open up and correct his mistakes.

Be transparent and flexible in your management process

The mistake managers often make is managing with favoritism and without grounds, breeding resentment among staff. Employees who are treated unfairly at the workplace often develop an opposing attitude toward their superiors' decisions. As a manager, therefore, you need to assign work clearly and fairly to all employees, give them the right to voice opinions, and be ready to listen to feedback and make reasonable adjustments.

In addition, you should praise and criticize in proportion to employees' achievements as an effective way to lift their morale. However, when an employee shows no willingness to correct mistakes and keeps resisting in ways that affect the work, the manager must take appropriate measures based on company regulations, setting an example for other employees.

Personnel management is always an essential skill that every manager needs to keep refining and learning. A good working environment with a professional team — in both attitude and skill — helps a business grow continuously and becomes a beacon that attracts talent. Through this article on effective employee management, SimERP hopes you can apply reasonable, suitable practices to make your management work better.

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