Hiring the best staff starts with you

If you want happy and satisfied staff, it’s not just the job you’re hiring for and the salary you’re paying. How you are perceived as a manager can be instrumental in how long your employees stay with your company – and even whether they accept a job offer in the first place.

Research by HR company Penna discovered that a fifth of people would refuse a job offer if they found out their new manager had a bad reputation.

Pull quote text: Poor managers can also directly reduce productivity, with 25% saying it had caused them to lose sleep

The survey of 2,000 employees late last year found that in most cases, staff will just leave rather than raising the issue of a bad manager with their superiors or HR department. Poor managers can also directly reduce productivity, with 25% saying it had caused them to lose sleep and 16% admitting taking sickies to avoid a bad boss.

Another recent survey found that 35% of bosses behave badly, with 12% displaying inappropriate behaviour such as bad language, bullying, lying or breaching confidentiality. Carried out by ICM for INSPIRING Business Performance, the poll questioned more than 1,000 workers. 13% said they had looked for another job due to a bad boss and 4% had quit without having another job lined up. The results support the findings from Penna, although to a lesser degree, with just 8% saying they had taken a sickie because of bad management.

Interestingly, it also found that there were regional variations, with London and Scotland having the most well-behaved managers, while those in the South West were the worst.

Qualities of a good manager

The Penna survey also looked at the benefits of good managers, finding that they helped workers by:

• teaching them motivation skills – 56%
• teaching them how to run a team – 42%
• making them realise their own potential – 27%
• inspiring them to improve their career – 25%
• increasing their confidence – 16%

What attributes do you need?

However, according to Gallup, which has carried out extensive research on the importance of good management, great managers need the following attributes:

• Ability to motivate others. They need to be able to inspire individuals to do well and to build up their employees’  confidence and for them to see their role within the company and do it to their best ability.
• Assertiveness. They drive outcomes and ensure that employees have the right attitude to overcome issues.
• Accountability. They lead by example and ensure everyone is clear what their responsibilities are and the repercussions of bad behaviour
• Able to build relationships. They encourage transparency and honest communication.
• Able to make decisions. They make decisions based on their team and business rather than politics.

According to Gallup, only one out of every ten people possesses all of these innate traits. When these people are given managerial roles they are more likely to retain staff and have a highly productive team. This is important because Gallup has identified a link between engagement and performance indicators; when staff engagement is consistently high, performance will be too.

From its research, it suggests that employers often fail to identify the best managers because they focus on whether someone deserves to be promoted into a managerial role, rather than whether they would be a good manager. And while you can train someone to become a better manager, you need to consider their raw talent if you want to develop a great manager.