It is commonplace to see individuals in organizations use the terms managers and leaders synonymously. While there are similarities between the two, calling them out as identical would be an over statement. The difference lies in the way the individual approaches his/ her role as well as the way others around react. Developing leadership practices to transcend from a manager to a leader is most sought after among those who are new into seniority positions and seek to go an extra inch. Often managers feel that despite complete commitment, efficient delegation, meeting deadlines i.e. doing everything right, they are not able to inspire confidence in their team members. 

That’s where the difference between a manager and a leader comes in. While a manager is an execution specialist and can ensure everything is in place, a leader comes with a vision to motivate and inspire everyone to go beyond the paper and achieve excellence. 

Manager vs leader: Understanding the difference

It is common for people to miss out the distinction between a manager and a leader. While they’re overlapping, a thin line distinguishes manager vs leader which needs due recognition. Here are three main areas where a clear difference between a manager and a leader:

1. Instructing vs Inspiring

More often than not, a manager gives out instructions on what has to be accomplished. Naturally, employees are expected to follow the instructions and deliver the output. On the contrary, a leader inspires his or her team to do what comes across their table. A leader motivates their team members by communicating the culture of the company and the philosophy. This not only ensures that the task in hand is completed efficiently, but also encourages team members to go beyond what is expected out of them and achieve new heights. 

2. Micromanaging vs Empowering

Generally, managers keep control over everything that happens in their team and wish to know everything that is going on. While tracking performance is important, managers might get too involved and lose sight of their true role of guidance and management. Leaders, on the other hand, step away from micromanagement and believe in empowering their teams. While they oversee that everything is in order, they give their team members the space to work as they see fit and provide them with the right resources and knowledge to set them up for success. Instead of seeking control over everything and trying to do it all on their own, leaders empower, delegate and believe in shared success. 

3. Targets vs Vision

Focused on execution, managers are driven by targets. Instead of seeing the big picture, managers mostly view targets as their end goals and all their efforts are motivated to achieve diverse targets which may or may not align with one another in the long run. However, leaders come with a long term vision and approach for the organization, their team members as well as themselves. For them achieving targets is a means to reach their vision and not ends in themselves. They believe in sharing the vision with their team members and maintain that everyone should work towards larger goals and a shared vision, and treat targets as milestones on the way.

What makes a great leader?

Transitioning from managers to leaders is an organizational imperative. In any organization, the engagement quotient of those who are able to inspire confidence in their teams is higher than those who don’t. Consequently, the engagement of their respective teams is also high. Thus, retention, motivation at work, commitment, etc all increase in proportion. While most organizations invest in leadership development programs, there are hardly any initiatives to develop leadership practices to aid the transition. Here are a few practices that individuals and organizations can collaborate on to transition from managers to leaders and inspire impact:

1. Faith, confidence & freedom

A manager focuses on efficient execution and, therefore, is particular about delegation in a controlled environment. A leader on the other hand seeks to play on people’s strengths and has faith and confidence in them. To develop leadership practices, a manager must let go of micro-managing every part of the work for his/her team members and give them the freedom and autonomy for experimentation and self discovery. This is not to say that there should be no order or structure, rather there needs to be trust and confidence that allows room for flexibility.

2. Empathy & emotional quotient

Managers, generally, are practically driven and seek logical reasoning. Leaders, on the other hand, don a cape of empathy and are high on emotional quotient. They do not simply rely on rational logic to make decisions. Additionally, it is not only about being able to connect and sustain with employees on an emotional level, but also about personal emotional fitness. In positions of seniority, there are bound to be ups and downs and the way one deals with them makes all the difference. Leaders are calm, composed and do not freak out when things go south and are emotionally resilient. To nurture leadership practices, emotional stability and fitness is a prerequisite.

3. Mentoring, purpose & responsibility

Finally, most managers focus on getting things done, without much attention to individual development and growth. Leaders believe in developing their people via mentoring, coaching and upskilling. Their focus is on aligning the organizational goals with the professional goals of employees to create the purpose of work. At the same time, leaders leave their ego at the door and take complete responsibility for their team’s performance. They also inspire this quality in their team members by taking ownership of anything they do that doesn’t work out. Invariably, leaders come out as genuine and authentic. 

How do managers become leaders?

With a fair understanding of the differences between a manager and leader and qualities that make a great leader, it is important to discuss how one can transition from a manager to a leader. The journey from a manager to a leader can be challenging at times, but once traversed brings positive impact for the organization, team members and leaders themselves. Here are six steps that can lead the transformation from a manager to a leader:

1. Look at the bigger picture

Individuals traversing the journey from manager to leader must shift their focus on the bigger picture and must disassociate themselves from just management. The focus should not only be on how a particular target can be achieved, but how teams can be developed in a way that achieving the target creates additional value for all stakeholders. A leader must focus on going beyond the quantifiable targets to empower and motivate their team members to push themselves and reach their full potential. Invariably, meeting targets will be a natural byproduct when the entire team will give in their 100%

2. Learn to delegate

A manager becomes a leader when they perfect the art of delegation. As one moves up the leadership ladder, the role shifts from on ground execution to oversight, visioning and direction. Here, most individuals struggle with letting go and delegating. While it is humanly impossible to work on all the tasks of a team single handedly, even if you can, you shouldn’t. A leader delegates tasks by developing the right talent assets who can be relied on in the longer run. This enables the leaders to focus on more value oriented and high-level tasks that might require greater expertise and experience. The more a leader delegates, the more the team is able to push their boundaries and perform better, leading to a win-win situation for all.

3. Communicate the larger vision

A leader not only focuses on a larger vision but also makes all efforts to communicate it to everyone in the team. The objective here is to have a clear and transparent messaging on what the organization and the team stands for and the impact it seeks to create. The importance of this communication lies in motivation and inspiring all team members by creating awareness about the contribution they are making. The more a leader talks about a shared vision everyone is working towards and how each effort makes a difference, the more a team grows and develops. 

4. Be empathetic

Transitioning from a manager to a leader requires empathy and emotional intelligence. Empathetic and emotionally intelligent leaders are capable of understanding and managing their own emotions as well as those of others. Naturally, they are great motivators and are able to nurture a team for success. As a key responsibility of a leader is to develop their people, empathy can go a long way into helping them communicate in a way that is effective. Those with high EQ are great listeners and go an extra mile to ensure the other person feels safe and comfortable and promotes their growth. And, that’s exactly what a leader is supposed to do. Hence, to become a leader, a manager must focus on building empathy and emotional intelligence.

5. Ensure transparency 

What differentiates a leader from a manager is their ability to win the trust and confidence of their team members. Leaders are not only direct reports for their team members but are also their mentors and confidantes in the organization. Here, transparency in communication as well as action can help leaders build an effective rapport with their team members. This opens up doors for two-way communication, sharing of ideas and collaboration and most importantly, team cohesion and success. 

6. Appreciate and take responsibility

While a manager instructs and expects impeccable performance, a leader appreciates sincere efforts and dedication. This suggests that a leader is not only concerned about meeting the end goal, but takes into account the journey as well. For instance, for a leader, it is not only about meeting the sales target, how the team members are able to achieve that, how much effort they are putting in and what their growth has been on the way, all have equal weightage. Leaders not only appreciate their team members for a job well done, but also recognize each contribution they make, irrespective of the end outcome. At the same time, if things go south, a leader takes responsibility and does not play a blame game with the team members. 

Are you ready to transition from a manager to a leader?

While the journey from a manager to a leader might be difficult and challenging, the end destination is beautiful and worth every effort. As a first step, those seeking to make the transition, must start by gauging what their team members feel about them and the particular areas of improvement. A comparative analysis on their style of delegation and management alongside the points mentioned above can be a good starting point to map out a course of action. Subsequently, professionals can invest in leadership development programs to get first hand experience on how to traverse the journey effectively and make a smooth transition. Leveraging platforms like SuperBeings for their leadership development practices with coaching, mentoring, etc. can help budding leaders get a headway in their journey and set them up for success. 

Suggested reading:

The Ultimate Guide to Building Organizational Culture

Leadership Diaries

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An organization must identify and execute performance management measures and outline what an efficient manager definition is in its policies. Measuring performance of managers is imperative for any organization since a manager is supposed to drive and motivate the team, ensure steady growth and development, and bridge the gap between employees and the organization.

An effective and efficient manager is presumed to be skillful and expert in critical thinking, decision making, communication, playing with numbers, and project management. Yet, the managers are often held accountable and responsible for employee turnover and disengagement. Therefore, each manager's effectiveness and managerial performance measurement need to be evaluated and scrutinized continuously. Management effectiveness has different perceptions and implications in organizations. It is not merely the managerial efficiency and effectiveness that matter, but performance management measures that contribute to the overall organizational growth and success. Businesses can set performance measures for managers by defining clear-cut KPIs and aligning by efficient management definition towards organizational goals and objectives.

An organization may have several managers subject to its diversity, efficiency, and size. The fundamentals of performance measurement of managers rely on employee engagement, labor utilization, on-time project delivery, team performance, departmental growth and development, employee satisfaction, and turnover. Evaluating and correlating the measures of performance VS. measures of effectiveness against his skills, activities, attitude, and strategies will uncover and quantify the manager's effectiveness, efforts, and expertise. Businesses must invest time and energy to improve the manager's effectiveness successively. Higher employee engagement, lower turnover, higher recruitment score, subordinate satisfaction, and lower absenteeism are factors that are in direct association with a manager's effectiveness.

11 key metrics to measure manager effectiveness‍

1. Set benchmarks to evaluate the manager's effectiveness

Organizations must establish precise goals (OKRs), KPIs, and performance management measures to optimize the manager's effectiveness. It will help you evaluate the quality and quantity of the manager's effectiveness and performance in the organization. An effective and efficient manager must fulfill his duties and responsibilities based on the expectation and goals set. Such benchmarks must be SMART.

The manager's effectiveness relies on accomplishing specific, measurable, achievable, results-oriented, time-bound goals that are scalable and challenging. Such benchmarks may include:

• Achieving precise organizational objectives
• Realizing long-term goals with precise specifications
• Carrying out financial and non-financial objectives
• Developing strategies for excellence, progress, and growth
• Establish vital success factors and performance management measures
• Assist in departmental/organizational development and growth
• Recruits and expansion strategies
• Achieve sales and operational target
• Getting new talents, clients, business partnerships on board
• Ability to delegate tasks and develop interpersonal relationships
• Willingness to lead, guide, and collaborate strategically.
  

2. Aligning organizational and managerial goals in the same direction to improve manager effectiveness

Measuring managerial performance must be a consistent process and policy. The definitive aim of a manager is to improve productivity and performance while balancing employee welfare and growth. There are situations where organizations rely thoughtlessly on the manager and make hasty decisions that result in disengagement and poor productivity. 

Researchers state that employees generally leave their managers, not a company. Therefore, organizations must align the managerial goals and organizational goals in the same direction.

Organizations often are not quite commanding when deciding on how to measure managers’ performance. Performance measurement for managers must have a focus on the goals, vision, and objective of the organization. Managerial effectiveness can be aligned to the organizational goals by:

• Sharing regular feedbacks about what is required from a role
• Having frequent visits to reiterate the manager’s focus
• Implementing a performance culture
• Recognizing and acknowledging performance management measures 
• Providing required training and educational programs
• Giving necessary space to grow and develop
• Making sure managers have necessary resources to complete a project
• Expanding and aligning KPIs to OKRs i.e. the organizational vision 
  

3. Learn how to measure managers’ performance and establish goals for increasing effectiveness

There is no standardized performance measurement criterion for managers due to the operational and behavioral diversity of organizations. Therefore, managerial performance measurement must be tailor-made and identified based on the organizational objectives. Businesses must set expectations for managerial effectiveness and identify traits of a good manager.

The most accepted traits of a highly effective and efficient manager are;

• Ability to delegate and collaborate without prejudice and discrimination
• Organizational skill and team-building skills
• Transform from a boss to a coach and mentor
• Be inspiring and able to infuse performance triggers
• Ability to communicate and convince clearly
• Be transparent in actions and behaviors
• Be an effective listener and a solution provider
• Ability to recognize and appreciate the team for their efforts
• Proficiency to make positive and convincing decisions on time
• Proficient and resourceful enough to guide, lead, and support
  

4. Evaluate management effectiveness and measure managerial performance at regular intervals

An effective and efficient manager plays an indispensable role in organizational success. Therefore, organizations must know how to measure managerial performance and effectiveness and examine the same at regular intervals.

Read through the below points to learn how to measure management performance and managerial effectiveness:

• Use management effectiveness survey questions
• Generate employee feedback and reviews at regular intervals
• Analyse the employee turnover and retention rates
• Examine the promotion rate and team development ratio
• Evaluate employee behavior, absenteeism, and productivity under a manager
• Assess the recruitment, team growth, partnerships, and business expansion
• Identify how the team responds to tight deadlines and job schedules
  

Employee performance and productivity underline a manager’s effectiveness.

An effective and efficient manager will have happy employees working with him. A good manager acknowledges and recognizes the hard work, achievements, and efforts of his employees. Therefore, employees will be inclined to work more to achieve more. 

A bad manager will be surrounded by disengaged employees who will facilitate absenteeism and turnover.

5. Measure management performance by analyzing the overall team performance

Managerial effectiveness is identified easily by analyzing the team performance. A motivated team under an effective and efficient manager will accomplish more, whereas a bad manager will have a group of disengaged employees who drag behind tasks.

Evaluating team performance is a managerial performance measurement tool that will disclose a manager’s effectiveness in the organization. A few factors to consider include;

How well the team performs under a manager?

• Quality and quantity of productivity
• Interpersonal and departmental collaboration
• Timely completion of projects
• Organized work culture and standards
• Employee engagement and absenteeism
• Attraction of best talents and resources
• Longevity of best employees and talents
• Energy and willingness of the team to undertake challenging jobs
  

The above factors speak in favor of the manager’s effectiveness. An organization must set performance benchmarks, organizational objectives, and management performance measures for a manager to perform better and be effective.

6. How do appraising employee engagement, turnover, and retention rates help in measuring managerial performance?

A manager’s effectiveness is evident in the performance of his team. An effective and efficient manager will nurture a bunch of motivated employees who are high-performing and productive. These employees will remain in the organization for long, as a good manager will let them grow, develop, and achieve more. Therefore, employee engagement is a crucial point in managerial effectiveness. 

A bad manager will be bossy and take undue credit for the achievement and effort of his subordinates. Employees working under such a dominating manager will quit jobs, be absent from duties, be indifferent to organizational goals and objectives, and demotivate other employees.

Therefore, it is critical to evaluate the following factors to ensure managerial effectiveness in organizations.

• Employee engagement has direct correlation with managerial performance 
• Productivity and performance levels
• Employee turnover
• Retention of high-performing employees
• On-time completion of projects
• Quality and quantity of jobs done
• Complaints, criticism, and indifference 
  

7. Evaluate the growth and development of a team/department to pinpoint a manager’s effectiveness

Measuring managerial performance is effortless if you study promotions, growth, and development for a specific duration. A high-performing manager will have advancements and achievement milestones at regular intervals. An effective and efficient manager will let his team grow along with him and keep them motivated and inspired. Performance management measurement will reveal how influential and supportive a manager is.

How to measure management  performance by analyzing the development of the team

• Increased sales
• High employee engagement
• Milestone achievements
• Addition of new talents
• Improved project completion and deliveries
• Increased productivity and performance
• Growth and promotion of employees
• Improved employee satisfaction and well-being
• Departmental expansion and growth
• Improved employee morale
• Better employee culture and collaboration
  

An effective and efficient manager will always build their team and help the team grow. A manager’s effectiveness is very noticeable when he takes time to recognize, promote, recommend an increase in pay scale, and appreciate his subordinate for every milestone completed.

8. Measuring manager performance by analyzing task completion and delivery time

Managerial effectiveness is understood easily by analyzing the performance, task completion time, and delivery processes. A vibrant team under an effective and efficient manager will thrive in their projects and complete them on time. A manager’s effectiveness comes to the picture when the department stands united to complete a project in time. They will not make excuses but find ways to resolve an issue at the earliest.

Indifferent and less efficient managers will come up with many excuses and reasons for poor performances. Great managers will always plan retrospectively and accomplish their missions and prove their competency as managers. A poor manager will always worry about the volume of work and complain about his helplessness and incompetent team members.

A good manager, on the other hand, will always motivate the team and help them achieve more. He will need no more overtime and additional labor.

9. Measuring performance by appraising how managers respond against a tight deadline or a complex job

An effective and efficient manager always leads from the front. He will not be challenged or intimidated when assigned a complex job or a strict deadline. A great manager trusts his team and motivates the team to perform better. The group puts faith in the manager and relies on his leadership.

A great manager knows how to delegate the right tasks to the right people and improve productivity. He takes effort in building relationships and creating reliability. He loves challenges and invests time in mentoring his teammates. A great manager knows the capabilities, skill sets, and efficiency of his team members. He can create strategies and programs to bring out the best in them.

10. How do teamwork, low absenteeism, and collaboration support managerial effectiveness?

Analyze employee absenteeism to know a manager’s effectiveness. It is an old-school technique to reveal managerial effectiveness. A great manager will build a great team by mentoring, coaching, and educating them. 

A bad manager will only look forward to his survival and comfort. There will be increased absenteeism, complaints, and indifference under such managers. It will adversely affect the productivity and performance of the organization and its operations.

Employees will perform better, display excellent teamwork, and collaborate easily under an effective and efficient manager. Such managers will nurture a positive culture and productive work-life balance for employees. Happy employees will collaborate more with each other and act as a team to achieve more.

11. Examine the profitability, conversion rate, and revenue against direct expenses as managerial performance measurement metrics

A manager’s effectiveness in the organization will improve profitability, lead conversion, project completion, employee engagement, and income generation. An effective and efficient manager can identify the strengths and weaknesses of his team and use them properly to improve the overall productivity, efficiency, and performance.

How to measure management performance is no more a challenging question. The managerial effectiveness attribute directly to the team’s performance. Compare the income vs. expenditure of the organization to accumulate information about the direct and indirect expenses of a department. Comparing it with the revenue generated by the team will underline a manager’s effectiveness and efficiency in the organization.

Final thoughts on how to measure manager effectiveness

Advanced software technologies and tools help modern organizations for measuring management  performance and managerial efficiency and effectiveness. Therefore, set benchmarks for the manager and align goals in the same direction. Educate the managers on what you expect and give them liberty, authority, and confidence to perform with conviction and assurance.

Suggested reading:

Promoting Manager Effectiveness at Work

Team management 101

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If your organization is committed to driving a high performance culture, OKRs or Objectives and Key Results, must definitely be a part of your growth journey. And as a leader with a vision, you must have contemplated adopting an OKR software to make your journey seamless. 

However, are you struggling with which OKR software to go for which fits in your budget and is also able to support your dynamic needs? 

If yes, then you have come to the right place.

In this article, we will help you find the best OKR tool for your specific needs. Here's what we will discuss here

• What benefits to expect from an OKR software,
• 8 step guide to making the right choice, and
• 4 questions you should answer before making the final decision. 

Benefits of using an OKR software

An OKR software is designed to help you put a structure to your entire process of formulating and implementing OKRs. They enable you to make collaboration towards a shared goal seamless. Put simply, the right OKR tool can make the journey to building a high performance culture easy to navigate. 

Here are the top benefits of using an OKR software:

1. Assign goals easily

With the right OKR software, you can easily assign goals and tasks to the respective members in the team. This gives everyone the visibility of what they are responsible for and how they are contributing to organizational success. This is bound to increase engagement, focus and dedication. 

2. Align OKRs and company values

An OKR tool powered by AI helps you ensure that your OKRs and goals are aligned with your company values. You can easily undertake an analysis to ascertain that the new objectives and intended results do not conflict with the basic fabric and the values the organization stands for. 

3. Facilitate goal visualization 

Not only can the OKR tool help you in assigning goals, but it can also enable you to monitor progress on each OKR. Take a break from anticipating and contemplating what could go wrong and focus on achieving goals instead. 

To learn more about the benefits of an intuitive OKR software, read this

How to find the best OKR software: 8 best practices

If you are convinced about the benefits of adopting an OKR tool, let us now focus on the key steps you must follow to find the best one for your unique business needs: 

1. Be clear on the objective

Start by creating a list of requirements or objectives you would like your OKR software to fulfil.

‍Do you want your OKR tool to simply set the objectives or do you want to ensure maximum visibility, transparency and accessibility among all employees too? 

Create an organization-wide consensus on what you seek to achieve with your OKR tool.  

2. Measure your team size and scale up needs

Different OKR software caters to different team sizes. Therefore, you need to contemplate the number of team members who will be using the tool. Furthermore, if you are a fast growing company, you are likely to expand your team size soon. 

Therefore, select a tool which offers you the flexibility to scale up and down without burning a hole in your pocket.

3. Identify the integrations you use

If you have to toggle between multiple tools, it will be rare that your team will actually use the OKR software. Hence, identify the top integrations you use and ensure that the tool you choose supports those integration. 

For instance, SuperBeings offers sophisticated integrations with chat platforms such as GChat, MS Teams and Slack, as well as data and project management software like Jira, Trello, Github, Hubspot, MySQL etc. to minimize the need for context switching. 

Check out 50 SuperBeings integrations, click here

4. Gauge your experience with OKRs

You also need to focus on how well you understand OKRs. If you are introducing the whole OKR framework in your organization for the first time, go for an OKR software that provides OKR coaching by OKR experts as well as facilitates OKR training and onboarding support for all users. 

The right OKR software will help you set the right goals, leverage best practices, and ultimately make the most out of OKRs. 

5. Explore features and functions

Any OKR software can offer several features and functions. However, you may or may not require all of them. In fact, you may find some of the premium features not aligned with your requirements at all. Therefore, based on your objectives, understand the features and functions you do need, like reporting, goal assignment, goal visibility etc. before making a choice.  

6. Understand your budget

You must also take into account your budget and finances when deciding on the right OKR tool. If you are in the growth stage of your business journey, you may have certain financial restrictions and must choose a tool which can offer you the best within your budget.

Start by making g a list of basic features that you need your OKR software to perform and create a base budget around that. Then use that list to compare the OKR tools available in the market to make an informed choice. 

7. Focus on user experience

Ultimately the success of your OKR software will depend on how effectively your team is able to use the same. Therefore, focusing on user experience is extremely important. 

Answer these simple questions:

• Does the OKR tool require your team to toggle between different platforms? 
• Is the platform mobile friendly? 
• Are the instructions clear?
• How prompt is the customer support?
  

These are some areas that you need to take into account to understand how the users (your team members) will react to the tool as well as how much time they would need to spend managing it.

8. Understand data protection compliance

Finally, you will be sharing a lot of important information about your company as well as the team members over your OKR software. Such information and data needs to be protected and privacy must be maintained. 

Therefore, you must check whether or not your OKR software is compliant with the major data protection and GDPR guidelines. 

Top questions to ask before buying an OKR software

To make your journey towards finding the best OKR tool easier, we have compiled a list of questions that you may want to answer while comparing the different available options. 

1. Does this OKR software offer a big picture?

Many OKR tools will only give you an overview and not the big picture of what you seek to achieve. They will majorly adopt a quantitative approach and give you insights in the form of data points and figures. 

However, you may want to choose a tool which can help you derive meaning from each data point. The right OKR software will be able to understand the challenges your team is facing. Otherwise, you may achieve the key results, but you will end up compromising on creating the right culture. 

2. Can you scale up with this OKR software?

If you are growing fast, you will be scaling up in no time. But will you be able to scale up with the OKR tool you have chosen is a question you need to ask yourself. The ideal situation is to anticipate a situation where your team has grown considerably. 

In such a scenario, contemplate whether or not the platform in question will be able to address all your needs and expectations. 

You may want to gauge whether you will be able to link OKRs across the organization or will the tool allow different teams to set different timelines, etc.

SUPER TIP: When you choose an OKR software, aim to find the best one and choose it for the long run. 

3. How effectively does the OKR software help you monitor progress?

The best OKR tools not only help set the goals and objectives and align the responsibilities, they go beyond to help monitor progress. This way you can keep track of your status on the growth journey and take effective actions to accelerate the same. 

For instance, SuperBeings allows better goal transparency and collaboration across teams and departments by giving team leaders the opportunity to link OKRs and track collective progress accordingly. Moreover, it allows you to integrate OKRs with 1:1 check-ins to help team members and leaders always stay on top of high priority goals.

4. Can the tool help you augment engagement?

Finally, an OKR tool should not intimidate your team members with big objectives and key results. It should focus on creating an inspirational culture where employees are made aware about their contribution to organizational success. This will motivate them to outperform themselves. 

The right OKR software should help initiate the right conversations where team members can share feedback on what is working and what is not. Invariably, they can change the conversation narrative from a top down approach to ensure that problems are discussed before they stunt growth and collaboration becomes seamless. 

OKR Software by SuperBeings

It is evident by now that the right OKR tool can help your team move towards a shared goal at an accelerated pace. One such tool that can help you power your OKR journey is SuperBeings. With SuperBeings’ OKR feature, you can put your key objectives at the center of your business processes and get everyone to row in the same direction. You can also integrate your OKR analysis with SuperBeings’ guided 1:1 and continuous feedback features to drive seamless continuous performance management.

Along with all the above mentioned features, SuperBeings also help you with flexible OKR frameworks to allocate strength-based goals and configure visibility, track employee performance in real time and AI-driven recommendations to take impactful actions.

To see all of these in action, book a free demo today. No credit card required.

Suggested reading:

The Ultimate guide to setting and implementing OKRs

Master OKRs in 10 days with our free OKR email course‍

As the focus on employee experience and satisfaction increases, your organization must also be contemplating the adoption and implementation of an employee engagement software. However, if you have started the process of selecting the right one, you would understand that it requires a lot of thought and research before you choose one. To make your journey of adopting the best employee engagement software, we have a comprehensive resource right here.

This blog will help you answer all your questions around employee engagement software including the what, the why, and the how. 

What is employee engagement software?

Put simply, employee engagement software is a set of programs or a platform that is designed to help growing organizations like yours to augment their employee engagement. Focusing on different aspects of engagement including satisfaction, happiness, belongingness, etc. the right employee engagement software can help gauge employee pulse, monitor key organizational parameters or employee wellbeing index, share insights and best practices and monitor progress to bridge gaps. 

Employee engagement software can help you adopt a technology lens as well as a scientific approach for:

• Collecting employee feedback
• Undertaking pulse surveys
• Streamlining manager action
• Aligning the team to work towards a shared goal
• Creating the right culture for growth

Top 5 benefits of employee engagement software

If employee engagement has been a priority for you, you may be relying on spreadsheets and documents to capture employee feedback and associated actions. However, the right employee engagement software has the potential to relieve you from the administrative nightmare of handling large spreadsheets, vulnerability to human error and promote greater insights. 

Here are some of the top benefits you can leverage: 

1. Focus on people analytics

Employee engagement software can help you make sense of the data that you collect and capture through various surveys. It can enable you to gauge trends and perform analytics on the data to derive meaningful insights. The bottom line here is that you can use the software to adopt a data driven approach to foster a culture of engagement.

2. Access a real time dashboard

Accessing employee feedback at the end of the year may not be the wisest approach. Employee engagement tools can help you access employee data in real time to ensure that any challenge or concern is addressed instantaneously, before it becomes too difficult to handle.

3. Save time

Manually sending out surveys, collecting responses, organizing them and then translating them into insights can be very time consuming, especially if you are using pulse surveys. Employee engagement tools here can take care of all these activities in a process driven manner to help you focus on acting upon the insights to drive change rather than just preparing for it.

4. Leverage AI recommendations

Some of the top employee engagement software leverage technological drivers like artificial intelligence and machine learning to provide intelligent insights based on wide spread research. It can offer you guided templates by leveraging AI to create a high performance culture and drive continuous performance improvement.

5. Understand employee sentiment and pulse

Finally, the right employee engagement software can help you understand employee sentiment and pulse in a continuous manner. It can enable you to constantly monitor diverse organizational health parameters based on employee pulse.

Top 6 questions to ask before choosing your employee engagement software

If you are wondering how to start your journey with the right employee engagement software, ask yourself these six questions and follow the steps thereafter:

1. Do you just want a snapshot of employee engagement?

Start by understanding if you simply want to know how many employees are engaged and how many are not or do you want a deeper understanding. While the former will give you a quantitative view with strong data points, the latter can help you identify strengths and weaknesses to take the next steps.

2. Do you want a clear picture of active disengagement?

Next, ask yourself, whether you are only concerned with engagement or do you want to get insights on disengagement as well? The right employee engagement software can help you get a comprehensive understanding about which employees are disengaged, why and how to navigate the same.

3. Do you want to monitor engagement trends?

Increasingly, mapping employee engagement is becoming a continuous approach. You need to decide whether or not you wish to keep monitoring the different factors impacting employee engagement with tools like pulse survey or do you want it to be a once-a-year activity. 

4. Do you want real time insights?

While some software might give you regular updates, others might provide you with real time insights. You have to take a call whether or not a real time focus on employee engagement is an organizational priority.

5. Do you want to scale your team?

Your software choice will also depend on the size of your team. Depending on whether or not you wish to scale, your options will differ. As a fast growing company, your team size is likely to increase, hence choosing a software that supports flexible scale up and down makes sense. 

6. Do you need integrations?

Finally, you need to gauge whether or not you wish to integrate the employee engagement software with other platforms you are already using. Integrations can be a powerful way to eliminate the friction of toggling between different platforms and increase participation in surveys and other activities. 

Evaluating the right employee engagement tool: A step-wise guide

If you have an answer to the above mentioned questions, follow this detailed guide to evaluate to evaluate and select the right platform:

1. Specify your need

Be clear on what you need and what are the main challenges or requirements that you seek to fulfil with the employee engagement software.

What are the features you require?

Start by listing down the features you need. These can include the ability to conduct surveys, perform analytics, get guided templates for conversations and much more. These features will help you narrow down your list and eliminate the ones that are not able to offer the basic functionalities you require. 

Decide your scaling needs

In addition to the features, you need to understand how many people will be using the platform. The idea is not only to have a figure for right now, but also for a few years down the line in accordance with your scale up plan. You cannot choose one employee engagement software now and then change it once you add more members to the team. That would lead to unnecessary complication and resource wastage. Go for a platform that allows easy scale up and down.

2. Understand the software available

Compare the various employee engagement tools based on what they are offering and how it can add value to your organization.  

What are the basic facilities? 

Make a list of all the basic facilities or features you will get access to in the base version without any add on. Compare it to your needed features list and identify gaps if any.

How is the user experience?

In addition to the features, gauge the user experience the employee engagement software is able to offer. Unless the experience is enriching, it will be very difficult for you to encourage your team members to use the same. Try to understand if the software is intuitive and user friendly or not, by hands-on testing. 

Does it leverage technology?

Next, check whether or not the platform leverages technological advances to create meaningful impact. You may want to go in for a platform that leverages data analytics to help create meaningful insights and AI driven recommendations. Take the case of SuperBeings. Powered by AI, this employee engagement platform provides AI driven 1:1 recommendations and templates for managers at all levels, amongst other offerings.

Does it capture the right parameters?

Finally, you need to check whether or not the employee engagement tool captures the right parameters and has a solid foundation. Check whether it maps all parameters for organizational health index, if it has insights to improve managerial skills, whether it provides guided templates for powerful conversations, etc. 

For instance, to promote employee engagement, SuperBeings captures data on 40+ organizational parameters, and helps build 20 key leadership competencies for managers. The right employee engagement software will be backed by science and based on evidence of practices that drive change. 

3. Explore the product comprehensively

After a macro view, dive deep to get a detailed understanding of which employee engagement software best suits your needs.

Does it offer integrations?

Understand the type of integrations that the employee engagement software offers. In the absence of integrations, your team members will be forced to switch from the work tools to the software you have chosen for any activity/initiative. This inertia of toggling will reduce participation and give you an incomplete picture. 

For instance, SuperBeings offers integrations for Slack, Gchat, Email and MS Teams which will allow your team members to participate in daily pulse surveys from their preferred collaboration tool itself. 

What are the insights and analytics provided?

It is equally important to understand what insights and people analytics will you be able to gauge from your employee engagement software. The right software can help you get insights on different parameters and cultural aspects like innovation, competition etc. These insights can help you take informed actions to facilitate better experience. 

SuperBeings can help you with insights on employee engagement and its drivers and deep dive to slice and dice the data with filterable heatmaps. It also provides cultural insights based on Competing Values Framework for leaders to build the right culture for their business needs.

Does the platform offer comprehensive support?

Finally, from a product standpoint, you need to understand the support available. This refers to the resources you might get access to as a user including e-books and other material that can help you understand different employee engagement practices. 

Furthermore, comprehensive customer success support is also important to address any technical challenge you may face. Therefore, ensure that the platform is able to provide assistance along the length and breadth. 

4. Make an informed choice

Based on your research and analysis, you will be able to shortlist the top 2-3 options for the best employee engagement software. You can make the final call using these three steps.

Request a free trial

Check if the employee engagement platform can give you a free trial. Even if it is not free, request for a trial period before you make a long term commitment for a test ride with your employees. 

Explore reviews

Go through the online reviews of different fast growing organizations using the software and see what they have to say. While not all reviews will help you, some genuine and authentic ones can help make the final choice.

Suit your budget

Finally, choose that platform that suits your needs, but also fits your budget. You wouldn’t want to go above and beyond just on the software. 
Fall back on this guide to choose the best employee engagement software in 2022. SuperBeings can be your partner to create an enriching and high performance culture by connecting OKRs, employee engagement, continuous performance management, and manager development in one unified solution.

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How to use custom pulse surveys

How to use employee pulse survey results

Take your employee experience to new heights with our customizable employee engagement module. Book a free demo today!"

Increasingly, performance management is becoming one of the key indicators for organizational success. However, as an HR professional or a line manager, you must find the entire process of managing and improving performance difficult if you are just working manually, on spreadsheets. 

Leveraging a performance management tool can help you seamlessly monitor and track performance, identify challenges in real time and address risks and concerns to ensure success. 

This article will help you understand all about the what, why and how of a performance management tool. Get ready to explore how you can leverage a performance management software to unleash the potential of your people and how to make the right choice when selecting one. 

Purpose of performance management tool

Before we jump onto how a performance management software is important for fast growing organizations, let’s quickly understand the rationale behind performance management. 

In simple words, continuous performance management can empower you to gain insights into the productivity or performance of your team members. These insights can help you identify areas for improvement, achieve better goal alignment and much more. However, tracking and managing all employee performance aspects over spreadsheets can be a nightmare for you. This is where experimenting with a performance management software can help you considerably. 

Using a performance management system can enable you to:

1. Focus on consistent and continuous performance management. It can save you from the perils of ad hoc management, which doesn’t yield the complete picture. 

2. Gain a 360 degree perspective and feedback on employee performance. A performance management tool can help you understand your employee’s performance not only from their direct manager, but from everyone they have worked with. This can help you gauge their contribution to organizational success as a whole, not just limited to their KRAs and tasks assigned. 

3. Seamlessly track performance and gauge whether or not performance is showing an upward trajectory. It can help identify key trends in performance, which often have a direct relation with engagement, retention, satisfaction, etc.

4. Ensure fair and transparent performance management and appraisals. A performance management system is free from any bias and will give you a transparent and authentic picture of how well the employee is matching his/her expectations. 

Invariably, the right performance management tool can help you manage and develop your talent holistically. On the one hand, you will benefit from better performance, productivity levels and organizational success. On the other, the right people analytics can help you provide your employees with the right development opportunities and resources to encourage greater engagement and reduce voluntary turnover. 

Attributes of an effective performance management software

Let us quickly look at the elements of a powerful performance management tool before moving onto the checklist to select the right one.

1. Goal and OKR setting

Performance is directly linked to goals and OKRs. These can help gauge whether or not the performance has been upto the mark or not. Therefore, an effective performance management tool will provide you with OKR setting and monitoring functionality as well to ensure proper alignment.

(To learn more about choosing the right OKR tool for your organization, click here)

2. Performance tracking

Continuous tracking is one of the key elements of performance management. Hence, a performance management software enables you to track critical areas of employee performance which are not only integral for organizational success, but also for professional development of your team members. An effective software will give you the flexibility to customize the parameters for tracking based on your needs. 

3. Gauging pulse

An effective performance management tool not only helps track performance, but also helps capture employee pulse. It can enable you to understand how your team members feel about their performance, the culture of the organization at large and other aspects which impact performance. 

4. Performance analytics

In addition to tracking, an effective performance management software will provide you with key insights based on the performance. It can help you understand areas that need work and commitment versus those that are in good stead.  

5. Guided conversations

Finally, the right performance management tool will help you and all your managers to have meaningful 1:1 conversations with your employees. With guided templates based on AI driven recommendations, you will be able to send the right message across, and focus on your business at hand. 

How to choose the best performance management software?

With a firm understanding of the key elements of an effective performance management software, let’s uncover the 8 points in your checklist to make the right choice. 

1. What are your pain points?

Start by documenting the pain points that are bringing down your current performance management process. 

Is it lack of time or bandwidth or the absence of resources or an ad hoc approach to measurement and feedback? 

When you list down all the pain points, you will clearly have a comprehensive understanding on where the top areas are that you need interventions for. While a performance management tool can have a plethora of functionalities, this list can help you differentiate between the ones that are core and those which are peripheral for your organizational needs.  

2. What do you require?

Based on the list created above, narrow down your requirements. There might be some pain points which can be addressed with a single feature while others might require multiple ones. For instance, if you find the current process cumbersome and time consuming, you would need a performance management system that can automate the same to ensure consistency and continuity, without eating into your bandwidth. 

3. Which integrations do you need?

As a fast growing company, you might already be using productivity, team communication and other tools and introducing yet another stand alone software may reduce the level of participation and engagement. Therefore, you must select a performance management software which provides integration with your most preferred tools. 

For instance, SuperBeings has attractive integrations with communication platforms like Slack, MS Teams, Gchat etc. as well as project management tools like Jira.

This will reduce the inertia of toggling between different platforms and increase the level of participation. Additionally, integrations with existing platforms and generating insights from them can help you get a holistic picture of the performance of your employees, more than their activity just on the performance management tool. 

4. What are your scale up plans?

If you are in your scale up phase, you are likely to add more members to your team as you progress ahead. You need to gauge your requirements, not only for now, but for a few months or years down the line as well. 

Therefore, a key parameter on your checklist should be whether or not the performance management software you choose will be able to support your scale up plans. This support is likely to come in different ways including knowledge sharing and resources for new team members, only incremental increase in costs with new additions, etc. Developed primarily for fast growing teams, SuperBeings can aid your scale up process comprehensively.

5. Do you need real time reports?

Next in line is you need to ask yourself whether or not you need access to real time reports. Your performance management tool should not only be able to gauge and track performance, but also provide you with reports in real time to monitor performance trends. 

These reports can help you seamlessly evaluate employee performance, undertake fair appraisals and ensure that no key concern, issue or development is missed out. You should be able to track every part of the employee lifecycle and performance to address any risks in real time, before they turn into challenges. 

6. Do you require heatmaps for performance improvement?

Some forward looking performance management tools will also provide you with heatmaps in addition to performance tracking and insights. These heatmaps, like those provided by SuperBeings, can help you gauge the pulse of your organization as a whole and create the future plan of action based on industry benchmarks. As a fast growing organization, the heatmaps can enable you to analyze performance levels comprehensively. 

7. What is your budget?

If you have any financial constraints, the budget should be a key point on your checklist for a performance management tool. Based on your budget, you may want to relook at your core functionality requirements and add or delete from the list. 

Whatever be your budget, look for a platform that offers you a trial period to understand the user friendliness, intuitive capabilities and the overall compatibility with your team members as well as existing tools. 

If you are interested in checking out how SuperBeings can improve the performance management process in your company, book a free demo here.

8. Do you need AI driven recommendations?

If you want to stay up the curve and actually drive business value with your performance management software, choose one which provides you with AI driven recommendations. For instance, SuperBeings provides AI driven 1:1 recommendations and templates for your managers. These templates can help guide all conversations to facilitate better performance, constructive feedback and greater levels of engagement. 

Undertake a comprehensive review of the top three performance management software that you narrow down based on the checklist mentioned above. 

As a continuous performance management software, SuperBeings can provide you with end to end support. Right from setting goals and OKRs to tracking performance on them, monitoring progress, identifying risks and concerns, and finally leveraging heatmaps to address the same and drive business performance, SuperBeings is your answer for effective performance management. Sign up for a free demo today.

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How to go from performance management to employee development

Ever since the start of the pandemic and the transition to remote work, ‘burnout’ has become a buzzword for many professionals. Put simply, burnout is a state of complete physical, mental and emotional exhaustion which leaves a person unable to do the simple day-to-day tasks, let alone work to their full potential. While the whole notion of burnout has been plaguing professionals across the globe for a long time, a spike came along with Covid-19. More and more individuals started identifying signs of burnout with managing work and home all at once, coupled with the stress caused by the spread of the virus, economic and health crisis as well as episodes of social isolation. Put together, each one of these has acted as a stressor, contributing to the high levels of burnout since the pandemic broke and the world went virtual. 

According to a study by Monster, 69% of employees are experiencing burnout symptoms while working from home. What is even more shocking is that, despite work burnout, the majority (59%) are taking less time off than they normally would, and 42% of those still working. With the economy and the job market marked by ambiguity and uncertainty, professionals are choosing burnout in the fear of losing their jobs. 

What does work from home burnout look like?

Frequently, people dismiss burnout as daily stress of work and do not try to intervene to make things better. From a manager’s perspective, understanding if an employee is on the verge of burnout may not be the easiest task. However, there are certain signs that managers can look out for and trigger immediate intervention to prevent situations from going south. To help managers be aware of the wellness of their team members, we have created a list of common signs to look out for that might point towards burnout: 

1. Alienation and disengagement‍

Professionals on the verge of complete exhaustion tend to distance themselves from others and rarely engage with anyone at work. Managers must be on the lookout for any unusual or reduced patterns of engagement. This could be felt by noticing delay in responses, lack of energy and enthusiasm, unwillingness to participate in collective brainstorming, etc. 

2. Increase in number of sick days

‍Since burnout is marked by exhaustion, it is natural for team members to face physical symptoms like headaches, loss of appetite, fatigue etc. This invariably will lead to a greater number of sick days to deal with the physical signs. While a regular pattern of time off is good and healthy, team members requesting for an unusually higher number of sick days to deal with headaches, stomach issues etc. might need some attention. 

3. Reduced performance

‍As direct reports, managers are well aware of the calibre, capabilities and level of performance of all their team members. It is true that minor fluctuations in performance and productivity are common, natural and normal. However, if the performance and productivity go down more than the general threshold, it might be a sign of burnout and deserves immediate intervention.

In addition, lack of concentration, perpetual tiredness, irritability with co-workers, etc. are some signs that managers must constantly lookout for. In case there are any such signs, managers must immediately intervene and communicate with the team member in question. It is important to connect in a safe and supportive environment with empathy to help him or her create a plan of action and restore wellness and wellbeing.

Preventing work from home burnout: A manager’s playbook

While remote work burnout is becoming increasingly common, there are many forward looking managers that are flattening this curve. Based on industry benchmarks, we have below a list of practices that managers can adopt to prevent work from home burnout before it lays its foundation: 

1. Accept the problem

‍Managers need to begin with accepting that remote work burnout is a real problem. Simply dismissing it as the inability of some professionals to take work stress and pressure creates a toxic work culture. Therefore, managers should educate themselves about what work from home burnout typically means, what might trigger it, how to prevent it and how to deal with it if it occurs. Organizations can play an integral role by investing in mindfulness programs to help managers develop the right competencies to acknowledge the problem and deal in an empathetic manner. Once managers begin acknowledging that remote work burnout is real, it will encourage team members to better share their concerns and catch the challenges in their roots. 

2. Reduce Zoom fatigue

‍As work went remote, so did the meetings. Naturally, Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and other video conferencing platforms became the go-to-solution for any form of meeting or interaction. While initially, synch tools were considered highly productive, sometimes even more than physical meetings, a fatigue has now begun to set in. Simply because a meeting tool is at one’s disposal, doesn’t mean there is a need to use it every now and then. There are several conversations which can be a simple mail, message or a voice call. Converting them into a video call may not be wise. To prevent this burnout, managers must juggle between different forms of communication ideal for different situations. At the same time, the total number of meetings should also be reduced to reduce the disruptions during the day.  

3. Mind the workload and mails

‍Managers need to be cognizant of the fact that just because employees are at home and are not going out a lot doesn’t indicate that the workload can be increased exponentially. At the same time, internal emails for any purpose need not keep piling up just for the sake of it. Managers need to be mindful of the amount of workload any employee can do justice to and make sure that the work delegated to them doesn’t fall out beyond that threshold. Undoubtedly, there will be days when work will be more. However, that cannot become a pattern. Pushing employees to work 12-14 hours everyday with mails every other minute can cause exhaustion at all levels.

4. Encourage boundaries

‍The whole remote work or working from home culture has led to a blurring of the boundaries between work and life. Starting from calls and emails at odd hours to expecting employees to pull all-nighters to get a presentation out, the boundaries where work ends are no longer visible. Managers on a mission to prevent burnout of their team members need to reinstate and respect these boundaries. Everyday there should be a dedicated time when team members must be off the clock, unless there is something urgent or planned in advance. Additionally, weekends and other off time should be sacred and beyond work purview. Finally, managers may encourage the team members to take some time off now and then, just to relax, rejuvenate and destress.

5. Offer flexibility and control

‍While professionals have been working from home for quite some time now, there are still many things that they need to manage at home while working. Therefore, some flexibility and the ability to control their work and priorities must rest with employees. Managers should step away from micromanaging every task to the last minute. Undoubtedly, building a culture of accountability and responsibility is important. However, empowering employees to craft their own schedule during the day and take breaks when they need to, can prevent burnout because employees don’t feel that they are constantly under the radar. 

Building the right managerial leadership to prevent burnout

Preventing remote work burnout is not something that happens with one click. It requires managers who are empathetic with strong interpersonal and communication skills who actually care about the wellbeing of their team members. Here, organizations can partner with platforms like SuperBeings to offer managers with some subtle behavioural nudges based on real time data to help them lead their teams effectively and promote a culture of wellness and wellbeing. 

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Take your steps towards becoming a remarkable leader with our customizable people and strategy management module. Book a free demo today!

Team management is increasingly becoming a sought after organizational priority. At a basic level, it is about bringing and keeping people together to achieve set objectives and goals. While the focus on team management has been around for decades, its importance is lately increasing as organizations begin to realize the need for holistic collaboration and the perils of working in silos. Through the course of this blog, we will shed light on the meaning and importance of team management. At the same time, we will share some tried and tested tips to augment team management and how it is being redefined in the age of remote work.

What is team management?

As the term suggests, team management is essentially about managing a team to achieve a set target. While some professionals believe that team management is simply about delegation and allocation of tasks, it is important to understand that it is a much more comprehensive concept. Team management is practically the key to the success of any team. 

It starts from bringing together the right talent, to nurturing them and leveraging their strengths, to retaining them and facilitating their personal and professional growth. Undoubtedly, the ultimate objective of team management is to ensure that a team is able to achieve what it sets out for. However, there are several factors like communication, delegation, problem solving, collaboration, etc. that make this achievement possible and collectively define team management.

Importance of effective team management

If you find yourself wondering if team management is actually worth the while, take a pause and reflect on the question. On a macro level, the goal of effective team management is to achieve the set targets and goals. This is a direct reason why organizations must pay due heed to team management. However, if you are questioning how team management is able to achieve this success, we have a few reasons to support our assertion.

1. Positive work culture

With a combination of enabling factors like effective communication, clear directions, seamless collaboration, etc., team management has the potential to create a positive and empowering work culture. Consequently, a positive work culture results in happier employees and acts as a great tool for employer branding. According to a study, more than 50% of executives say corporate culture influences productivity, creativity, profitability, firm value, and growth rates. Therefore, team management is a great asset for organizations to build the right culture.

2. Greater productivity

On a similar note, effective team management has the potential to facilitate greater productivity and performance. The rationale is simple, team management entails clear expectation setting and accountability. There is no scope of confusion or chaos which leads to efficient work and meeting of targets. At the same time, team management enables employees and managers to share their expectations and concerns, augmenting satisfaction as a whole. Research shows that satisfied employees are 12% more productive than the average worker. Evidently, team management augments clarity of work resulting in increased productivity. 

3. Increased retention

Finally, one of the major challenges faced by organizations is retaining top talent. According to a study by Gallup, 50% of employees quit their bosses and not their jobs. At the same time, the cost of replacing an individual employee can range from one-half to two times the employee’s salary.  This is alarming and clearly indicates the cost of poor team management. Fortunately, effective management can help bridge this gap. When employees find a culture they can thrive in and a team that supports their goals and ambitions, they are unlikely to look out, reducing turnover significantly. 

What are team management skills?

With a clear rationale of how team management helps and how an organization can benefit from the same, we can now move on to explore some of the top team management skills that managers and leaders must possess.

1. Communication

Team management essentially involves clear and more importantly a two-way communication. Managers should not only focus on ensuring that they are able to set clear expectations and communicate their thoughts well. They should also strive to promote active listening to gauge employee pulse, thoughts and ideas. 

2. Delegation

Delegation refers to allocation of tasks and responsibilities within the team based on the strengths and competencies of each member. Delegation, and therefore, team management is effective when leaders are able to gauge the capabilities as well as interests of all team members to ensure effective and efficient allocation of responsibilities. The result is not only effective performance, but also professional development for all team members.

3. Empathy

For a team to work effectively, managers need to have a high emotional quotient and must display empathy for all team members. Employees need to be seen as humans and focus should be on their physical, mental and emotional wellbeing. Empathy and emotional quotient enables leaders to manage their own emotions as well as those of others to be able to motivate and influence their team members.

4. Decision making

Team management is all about making the right decisions which come together to result in great productivity. Decision regarding prioritization, resource allocation, and others that involve and impact the team. At the same time, decision making is often based on consensus, which when it goes well, results in effective team management.

5. Problem solving

The role of a manager is not simply to allocate tasks or perform those that come in their corner. Rather, problem solving is an important part of a manager’s key responsibility area. Managers who are good at problem solving have the potential to identify a challenge, critically analyze the same to come with the best solution. In most cases, when done effectively, managers can solve problems to bring teams closer together.

6. Expectation management

Each member in a team has several expectations when they come to work. At teams, the expectations of two or more members can be in conflict with one another. Effective team management is all about managing the expectations such that it creates a win-win situation for all. This often requires having difficult conversations with one or more team members and leaders who possess this team management skill are on the path to success.

7. Fairness and respect

Since team management is about bringing and keeping a team together, skills of ensuring fairness and respect are very important. No team member should feel that anyone else in the team is getting more attention or importance. Here, transparency plays a major role. When everyone knows what’s going on in the team, a culture of fairness and respect builds naturally.

8. Organization

Finally, the skill of being organized is integral to effective team management. Only when the professional leading the journey is organized and has control over what has to be done, will the team function effectively. Lack of organization and discipline will lead to chaos in the team. Therefore, organization is a great tool to manage and lead a team efficiently.

How to improve team management: Top team management tips

It is clear that effective team management practices need to be a key area of attention for organizations today. Team management practices are not only about getting the work done efficiently. Rather its importance lies in ensuring that in addition to the work being done, there is progress for both the individual and the organization at large. There are some team management tips that leaders can adopt to successfully mentor and navigate their organization towards success.

1. Be consistent

One of the first team management tips is consistency. Managers must be consistent across different avenues. On the one hand, their performance across tasks should be consistent. On the other hand, the way they react to the behaviors and actions of others must be uniform. For instance, one should not reward a behavior by a certain employee and disregard and punish the same by another. 

2. Understand your team 

The next one in the list of team management tips is understanding one’s team. This involves making an effort to communicate and collaborate with team members. This involves being clear in what you say and expect out of them, setting the goals and showing empathy. According to a study by Interact, 69% of managers are uncomfortable communicating with employees. This trend must change to augment manager effectiveness. 

3. Build authentic relationships 

In addition to understanding the team, it is equally important to build authentic relationships. As another one of the key effective team management practices, managers must facilitate building trust and confidence in their teams. The road to building such relationships starts with being transparent in whatever one does. Additionally, managers must be fair in their decisions and create credibility for their teams to respect them and augment effectiveness in the way they lead. A report by IBM illustrates that 83% of employees experienced a more positive work environment when they felt there was trust in their managers. Building trust and authentic relationships breed manager effectiveness. 

4. Lead by example 

Finally, managers who really wish to lead effectively, lead by example. Expecting others to perform to the best of their abilities while the management doesn’t walk the talk is ineffective. Managers must lead by the way to efficient performance. Creating the right expectations for team members to follow becomes a key motivator in effective team management.

5. Role of the Organization 

While these are important steps and actions that managers must take to promote team management, organizations also play an equally important role to equip managers with the necessary resources and assistance. To begin with, organizations should clearly define what effective team management means to them. This involves clarity in metrics and indicators across business verticals that define success. Additionally, organizations can experiment with investing in soft skills training and coaching programs for managers to help them develop the key competencies to lead their teams effectively. Ignoring effective management practices comes at the cost of poor organizational performance and team high team attrition rates. Providing managers with the right resources and support can help them build strong teams, a positive work culture and ultimately a healthy organization.

Managing virtual team: Tips and tricks

It goes without saying that organizations have spent years perfecting their team management practices. However, the advent of the pandemic disrupted every aspect of our lives, including the way we work. Invariably, organizations are being pushed to don a new avatar to keep pace with the changing conditions and adapt to the new normal. Here are a few ways organizations and managers can write the new playbook for team management practices.

1. Set clear expectations, early on

Team management practices for a virtual workforce start with clear demarcation as well as communication of roles and responsibilities. Managers need to explicitly state deliverables and what they expect out of the employees. At the same time, KPIs or Key Performance Indicators, which can be captured and measured for a remote workforce must be agreed on and communicated. To ensure that everybody is on the same page is essential, because your employees will not be able to run to you every second like in the office. 

2. Provide the right resources

Working remotely requires employees to have a robust setup at home to ensure effective working. Managing a remote team, thus, requires managers to ensure that all employees have the right resources when working from home. This majorly covers all the hardware (computer/ laptop), software and broadband needs. Obviously, the resources to function effectively will change from company to company. Therefore, managers need to come up with an exhaustive list of resources and ensure that employees have access to them. It would also be a good idea to alter the terms of contract for employment, wherever suitable. For instance, the travel allowance can be changed to a broadband allowance. 

3. Leverage the top tools

Owing to major online platforms and tools, managing a remote team is increasingly becoming easier. Some of the major challenges of working virtually, including, communication, collaboration, productivity trackers, time management, brainstorming, etc., all have their solutions in these tools. 

4. Ensure role suitability

The efficacy of managing a remote team largely depends on the people you have onboard. Thus, it is very important to ensure role suitability. This means that hiring of human resources should be on the basis of what skills and competencies the role requires. The needs and expectations for each role must be mapped to the skill set of potential candidates before hiring. Today, organizations can leverage several HR tech tools to make this journey smoother. When the person is suitable for the role, working remotely becomes easy and effective. 

5. Build a culture of trust and ownership

Finally, it is very important to trust your team. More often than not, managers don’t have faith in their team and constantly nag them for their progress and deliverables. Invariably, a shift to a remote workforce requires a gradual change in the organizational culture. Once you start believing in your employees and trust them, they will start taking ownership of their work. And, once a culture of ownership and self motivation kicks in, managing a remote team becomes a breeze. 

These five practices are the basics that every organization, contemplating a long-term remote work strategy, must consider. Once you get the basics in place, you may want to explore more advanced strategies and practices that involve greater investment and leadership buy-in to promote team management.

Top team management tools for organizational success

Team management, whether online or offline, benefits when organizations employ and leverage different tools to create a positive experience for the team members. Based on the functional needs, different organizations can use different tools, while some can be common for all. Let’s quickly discuss a few areas where team management tools can promote performance and productivity.

1. Meetings and communication

With communication being one of the core pillars of effective team management, it is important for organizations to invest in tools that facilitate the same. Depending on the nature of scope of communication and collaboration, different team management tools should be explored. Asynchronous collaboration can be done over tools like Slack and Google docs. On the other hand, real time meetings can be hosted over Zoom, Google Meet, WebEx, etc. Organizations can also leverage features like break out rooms and whiteboards to make communication engaging and participatory.

2. Project management

For teams to work effectively, being on the same page is very important. This becomes slightly tricky in case of remote work. Fortunately, there are plenty of project management tools like Trello, Asana, Jira where teams can seamlessly work together, track progress and stick to their timelines to achieve the deadlines. 

3. Employee opinion

Unless managers and leaders know what their employees and team members feel and are thinking, managing them effectively will be very difficult. Here, leveraging tools like SuperBeings will reap results. SuperBeings enables organizations to gauge employee pulse on a regular basis and provides action based insights for managers based on the responses received. It empowers leaders with the right steps, actions and insights to promote effective team management.

4. Engagement 

Bonding between team members is critical for effective team management. In conventional times, team members could simply bond over a cup of coffee. However, the trend saw a decline with the transition to remote work. Fortunately, with tools like Dive and Shuffle, team members can engage and interact with others who have shared interests and bond over similar likes and dislikes. This is a great way for team members to know more about each other and promote teamwork.

Team management: A collaborative effort

As we come to the conclusion, it is important to note that team management is a collaborative effort. While managers are responsible to sail the ship forward, senior leadership must provide them with the right tools and resources to navigate the way. At the same time, the onus lies with all the team members too, to make sincere efforts to work with their coworkers to the best of their abilities. A combination of the above mentioned tips and tricks, the right tools and a positive attitude is what organizations need to promote effective team management.

Suggested reading:

Team Management 101

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We have all been reading about and pondering over the challenges that accompanied the pandemic. However, if we look at the glass half full, it brought along several new opportunities. One such opportunity has been the transition to remote work. While the conversations about accelerating a remote workforce have been on the cards for India Inc for a long time, the pandemic has been the key means to achieve the same. Future of work with a virtual workforce, operating remotely is now a possibility. With a few hiccups in the sudden transitions, all transitions have now been surpassed. Right from worry about dropping productivity or potential challenges in communication and collaboration, all have been brushed away with the future of work going remote in the new normal. 

Embracing remote future of work

It goes without saying that the transition to remote work was rather forced to prevent the spread of Covid-19. However, organizations are now uncovering the other underlying advantages and thus, contemplating a long term shift. There are several reasons to strengthen such a move. To begin with, remote work will enable organizations to greatly reduce operating expenses, including real estate costs. These resources can be reinvested in employee coaching, mentoring and other capability development activities. 

Secondly, with increasing confidence in the future of work being remote, organizations are able to attract talent from across the globe. They no longer have to settle for the second best due to location constraints. At the same time, this allows organizations to engage freelancers and gig workers to leverage their domain expertise.  

Finally, remote work allows employees to leverage the flexibility and create a schedule that suits them the best. This is the way towards a better work life balance. Invariably, when employees are able to achieve this balance, their engagement and performance at work increases exponentially. 

The hiccup

While the remote future of work has had a grand welcome in India Inc, there are still some hiccups along the way. For the major part, there are some roles that require onsite presence. Invariably, suggesting a complete transition to remote work is not the wisest idea. For instance, remote work in a manufacturing setup may not yield the desired results. However, adoption of right technologies to facilitate a hybrid model of work is definitely aligning organizational priorities to the future of work. Take for example, leveraging robotics process automation to automate a few repetitive processes in manufacturing with remote foresight can be a solution. 

Future of work: Organizational move

Most employees are now happily adapting to this new normal and the changed notion of the future of work. Now, the onus is on the organizations to equip the employees with the right resources. For instance, compensation for a strong broadband connection, as well as investment in cybersecurity solutions to make remote work a smooth journey.  

An important part of the transition would be to identify potential platforms and tools that can effectively take care of engagement and learning and development activities. For instance, a platform like SuperHumans can be effective in engaging the remote workforce with virtual coaching and helping them navigate their way through virtual work efficiently. The idea is to empower the workforce with the right resources in an attempt to embrace the new future of work seamlessly.

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Transitioning to a Remote Workforce

Employee Experience in remote work

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If you are a people manager, you would definitely be spending a lot of time in identifying tools and practices to boost employee engagement. However, you must have overlooked the importance of constructive employee feedback to facilitate the same. If that is the case, you need to pause and revisit the importance of employee feedback for employee experience. Put simply, employee feedback involves having a constructive discussion with your employees and team members about what is working and what is not. 

Statistically speaking, employee feedback has a direct impact on engagement and performance. Research shows 43% of highly-engaged employees receive employee feedback at least once a week. Additionally, 75% of employees prefer their feedback as early as possible. A culture of employee feedback opens up the gates for two-way communication, leading to greater understanding, synergies and collaboration.

Understanding the employment feedback lifecycle

More often than not, you might see employee feedback as a unidirectional process. It is understood as a process where a manager evaluates employee performance and offers feedback on the same with a way forward for improvement. However, if you closely look at the employee feedback lifecycle, you will come across three major components, each of which has its own value.

1. Performance evaluation

The employee feedback lifecycle begins with evaluating the performance of an individual as well as the team as a whole. Performance evaluation can be undertaken using several practices like measuring key performance indicators, achieving targets, etc. Following a few parameters, you can evaluate how well the employee has been able to perform as well as identify areas of improvement. You must encourage a self-reflection exercise as well to understand the evaluation of performance by employees themselves. 

2. Giving feedback to employees 

Next step in the employee feedback lifecycle is giving feedback to the employees based on highlights of performance evaluation. The objective is to offer constructive feedback on what worked and what didn’t work. Simply, saying your performance could have been better will not suffice. You must encourage your managers to spend adequate time on offering feedback to each employee highlighting their strengths as well as areas to work on. Additionally, managers should explore offering employees with the resources, guidance or direction on how they can work on the areas mentioned. Feedback is not only about identifying areas of improvement, but also identifying ways and means to improve based on experience of the managers.

3. Receiving feedback from employees

Most managers believe that the employee feedback lifecycle ends at the above-mentioned second step. However, this third step which revolves around seeking feedback from employees is equally important. This involves empowering and encouraging employees to share their side of the story. This should not only be limited to their performance and what worked for them and what did not. Rather, it should entail constructive feedback for the manager as well as the team as a whole. You should give each employee an opportunity to voice what they perceived worked and what are the areas of improvement on an organizational, manager, team and individual level. This particular step holds great importance when it comes to engaging employees and making them feel valued.

Importance of employee feedback to manager and back

Now that you understand the various components of employee feedback, let’s understand why employee feedback to managers matters and vice versa. 

Need for employment feedback to managers

There are several reasons why you should focus on creating a culture of sharing employee feedback to managers, including:

1. Gauge employee pulse‍

Get an understanding of what the employees feels and perceives about the organization and the manager and address any challenges.

2. Create an open culture‍

Ensure that employees feel free to share their views and perspectives and organizational hierarchy doesn’t stand in the way of open communication.

3. Facilitate accountability

Promote a culture where everyone is accountable for their actions and to everyone in the team, irrespective of the position.

4. Increase in engagement and value

Facilitate greater engagement as employees feel valued when their opinions and feedback is being taken seriously

Thus, with employee feedback to managers you can ascertain that employees feel more connected to the organization with an increased sense of belongingness.

Need for manager feedback to employees

Similarly, there are multiple benefits you can reap by creating a culture of feedback with managers providing the same to their team members, such as:

1. Clarify expectations and path ahead

Help employees understand where they are going wrong and gives them the chance to perform better.

2. Facilitate individual and organizational health

Allow employees to play on their strengths and work on their weaknesses to boost their performance and bring in greater productivity.

3. Decreased attrition‍

A study by Gallup showed that turnover rates are 14.9% lower in employees who receive feedback than those who don’t. 

4. Opens up conversations and communication‍

Promote great relationship building that enables managers to understand employee personality and ensure effective mentoring and guidance.

Therefore, constructive feedback from managers to employees can enable you to facilitate greater productivity, engagement, relationship building and retention, promoting organizational growth and success. 

Types of employment feedback

At the first glance it seems that there are just two types of employee feedback, positive or negative. However, if you look closely, it becomes clear that there are several types of employee feedback based on the nature, scope, frequency, etc. While the list can go on, we will talk about the key employee feedback types that most fast growing organizations have adopted:

1. 360* Feedback

This is an all-encompassing form of employee feedback from across all stakeholders on all parameters. For a 360* feedback, you should focus on capturing performance evaluation for a particular employee across all aspects to get a comprehensive view. This involves getting feedback from different team members, other managers, and a few key stakeholders in the organization. The idea is to get feedback from superiors, juniors as well as peers to identify strengths and weaknesses and lead the way for improvement.

2. Continuous vs Annual Feedback

Amongst the various types of employee feedback, one factor lies in the frequency of the feedback. 

Conventionally, you might have relied on an annual feedback mechanism. In such a case, employees are given feedback and the chance to share their feedback too once a year based on the annual performance. While this form of feedback may be less time consuming for you, it deters incremental growth and implementation of corrective measures in an agile manner. 

It is time that you start your journey towards continuous feedback mechanisms where employees receive and offer feedback on a regular basis. There is no need to wait for the year to end for managers and employees to share their opinions, reviews and feedback and identify areas and ways of improvement.

3. Reinforcing vs Redirecting Feedback

Finally, in the types of employee feedback, our last focus is on the objective or the nature of feedback. For most people this resembles positive or negative feedback. However, it takes the whole idea a step further to make it more constructive and result oriented. 

Reinforcing feedback is on a positive note where the aim is to encourage the employee to continue what he or she has been doing. This generally comes after a performance evaluation which has shown positive results indicating that things are going well. In a way, it aims at reinforcing the actions being undertaken.

Redirecting feedback, on the other hand, comes to the picture if you want to offer negative feedback. However, simply stating that this is not working out is self-defeating. Therefore, with redirecting feedback, you must highlight the challenges in the current state of work as well as identify and share corrective measures.

Top 15 employee feedback questions

To make employee feedback effective, you must focus on asking the right questions. The below mentioned questions are primarily from an employee’s point of view to capture their feedback on their performance, as well as on different managerial and organizational factors.

1. Personal reflection

• How would you rate your performance during the last year?
• What are the major responsibilities that you take care of?
• What have been the top 3 achievements for you in the past year?
• What are the skills you have acquired in the year gone by?
• What do you want to change/improve about yourself as well as the work you do?

2. Leadership satisfaction

• Would you agree that your manager has contributed to your personal or professional growth in the last year? If yes, how?
• If you were leading the project, what would you do differently?
• Do you feel confident and comfortable enough to voice your opinion with your manager?
• Do you feel comfortable sharing feedback about your manager?
• How would you rate the leadership in terms of offering support that you seek?

3. Organizational focus

• What are some processes that you think can be improved?
• If you were running the organization, what is the one thing you would do differently?
• How often do you receive/offer feedback to individuals beyond your team?
• What could the organization do to create a better experience for you?
• How would you rate your level of satisfaction from the organization?

Employment feedback: Best Practices

With a firm understanding of the importance, types, questions, etc. of employee feedback, it’s now time to explore the best practices. We will cover the best practices to offer employee feedback, followed by a few examples for greater clarity. Next, we will highlight the best practices on how to gather and leverage feedback from employees.

How to give feedback to employees

Let’s start with how you and your managers should give feedback to your team members to ensure it is effective and meaningful.

1. Be straightforward

Don’t beat around the bush. Directly come to the point on what worked and what are the areas of improvement. While it is important to set the context, don’t waste time in random conversations.

2. Be specific

Keep the feedback to the point and be constructive with examples. When you are mentioning what didn’t work, offer a course that might have been better and how one can improve. Be very clear in what your expectations are.

3. Be open to conversation

Offer feedback with an open mindset to hear their side of the story. Actively listen to what the employee has to say and then respond accordingly. Don’t simply stick to the feedback you have prepared. Customize the conversations according to the situation.

4. Be regular

Offering feedback once a year is not enough. Offer feedback regularly and follow up on the actions suggested. Take a review of the feedback offered before and gauge the improvements before providing the next feedback.

Employee feedback examples

Here are a few statements that you can use to start your feedback sessions which ensure effectiveness:

• I believe you are really good at ‘xyz’ and you can further hone your skills with ‘abc’
• I think your performance during <particular incident> was remarkable, keep it up
• I believe your strength lies in <particular task> and you should focus on the same more
• Your performance on <area of strength> was good, however, you may want to focus more on <area of weakness>. I would suggest <some corrective measures>
• I believe that you are struggling with <area of weakness>, you should consider <improvement tips> to step up your game
• I think a little more focus on <area of weakness> can help you take your performance and growth to the next level

How to gather employment feedback

In the next leg, let’s focus on how you can effectively gather feedback from employees to facilitate an open culture.

1. Surveys

You can float regular surveys to gauge employee sentiment. From pulse to annual, you can explore different ways and questions to understand what employees feel.

2. Suggestion box

Create an anonymous suggestion box for employees to share what they feel can be improved and what they appreciate.

3. 1-o-1 sessions

Encourage closed room conversations with employees to understand their specific challenges and grievances.

How to benefit from employee feedback

In the last section of the best practices, let’s quickly explore how you can benefit from the feedback gathered from employees.

1. Actively listen

Ensure that you really listen to the employee feedback and don’t take it as a mere tick in the box. Try to understand the concern and make mental or physical notes.

2. Don’t react instantly

Don’t get defensive on the feedback instantly and don’t take offence if something negative is shared. Take it in the spirit of growth and action on the challenges.

3. Ask questions

Try to get to the route of the problem. Ask follow-up questions to truly understand what the feedback means and how the employee proposes to address the same.

4. Share the next steps

Create a list of action items and share with the employees on how you seek to implement the feedback. Once implemented, share the progress made at regular intervals.

Take employment feedback to the next level with SuperBeings

By now it is evident that employee feedback is a critical part of creating an empowering and positive employee experience. To facilitate the same, you must start by gauging employee pulse to understand their sentiment. Learn how SuperBeings can help you gauge employee feedback in the most effective manner with pulse surveys. Furthermore, SuperBeings can empower you with actionable insights to predict employee turnover, address the reasons for low productivity, calculate the cost of turnover and boost engagement.

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The Ultimate Guide to Building Organizational Culture

Continuous Feedback in the Workplace

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