What is people management?

What is people management? This article explores the process, components and best practices associated with critical people management skills.

People management strategies are what can differentiate between a mediocre to a great employee experience. The upgrades made in human resource systems and their functioning have altered the extent, scope and nature of people management.

Having talked about the upgrades, the foundation of people management still revolves around managing people so that the work becomes impactful, more accessible and empowered.

 What is people management?

People management can be described as providing continued support for businesses by encompassing practices around talent acquisition, optimisation and talent retention so that employees are adequately guided across their tasks.

Under the umbrella of employee management , there are many sub-sets of human resource management, thereby covering different aspects of how people work, engage, behave and grow at the workplace.

The key pillars of people management include recruitment, employer branding, performance management, compensation, organisation development, wellness, safety, benefits, engagement, employee motivation, communication, administration and training. In order to succeed in people management in the workplace, you must also consider workplace injury management.

When all these aspects of people management come together, they weave the fabric that binds the organisation together, leading to an employee experience that is prodigious while retaining the best talent for the organisation.

Critical components of people management-best practice navigating the evolving work ecosystem.

Under the canopy of people management, five significant components can be utilised in conjunction with each other to effectively build an engaging employee experience that is beneficial to the organisation, as it optimises and retains the best talent.

 Five key components of people management include

1. Create- Building of workforce that builds a better future.

If people management was compared to a linear process, it would sequentially begin with talent acquisition, where the foundation is to build effective teams. This begins by understanding the purpose behind each team and how every member can contribute to its success. When managers are building teams, it is vital to select the right tools to do this.

Hence, managers must select the right recruitment platforms and develop an employer brand that the candidates want to work with, trust and are enthusiastic for. The managers must engage with the candidate to further aggrandise their experience. Once the best talent has been brought on board, it is critical to provide them with the right type of training that can further refine and evolve their skill sets to suit the business’s dynamic needs.

Moreover, investing in skill development helps to build organisational commitment and loyalty. Additionally, the right team structure should be created by setting a process, implementing strict boundaries and ensuring that the framework of functioning is robust. Utilising these steps help to create a roadmap that is both functional and practical to guide the organisation to success. 

2. Comprehend- Understand the present and future better.

Simply put, people management revolves around understanding the intricacies of people who compose the organisation, including their motivation, personality, working style, and personal as well as career goals. A people-first approach, laced with empathy, active listening and mutual respect, helps to teach a deeper understanding of collectives and individuals.

The foundation of a people-first approach is understanding that every individual is different and has different skill predispositions and traits. The adage of managing people by hovering over them has recently changed, and now tech-enabled methods help managers spend time with the people, leading to deeper insights and better understanding.

3. Communicate- Opening channels to connect effectively.

Your style of communication directly impacts the quality of the work. One of the most effective tools to manage people better is open channels of communication that provide a system for feedback. The communication format prevalent in an organisation reflects how the employee perceives the organisation’s culture and atmosphere.

Taking this logic further, if communication dictates how people feel about work, it is an essential criterion for deciding the effectiveness of people management. Today, organisations need to ensure that their employees are supported with the proper channels of communication and feedback so that they can encourage effective, glitch-free and authentic communication.

4. Collaborate- Cooperating smarter, faster and stronger.

Better management of the people process involves the strong acknowledgment that good work cannot take place in isolation or silos, even for endeavours requiring single team members. The team function and collaboration dictate success or failure. Many collaboration tools are available in the market today, and managers can select their preferred tool to delegate tasks for better coordination.

Effective team collaboration adds value to the process of work as well as to the lives of the employees while simultaneously enhancing the effectiveness of the team. Team collaboration, where individuals need to interact with other human and nonhuman components, makes them realise how their granular tasks help create a more excellent picture for the organisation.

5. Confront- Optimising healthy differences 

Every individual is different from the others, and to set a tone for commitment, loyalty and mutual respect within the organisation, people management needs to emphasise optimising these differences. Here, confrontation does not mean antagonistic, instead acknowledging and tackling these variations in a lively manner.

Due to the diversity in working preferences and styles, people tend to perceive the same thing differently and engage with the same issues in various manners. Consequently, this leads to conflicts, the physical representation of which may be overt or covert. Resolving this conflict appropriately is vital to ensuring that there is no residue of resentment or negativity and that the team’s strength enhances.

Winning people management skills for 2023

The difference between good and great managers is often challenging to articulate. A great manager has the potential to identify the drivers that can lead to skill enhancement. By highlighting and optimising these drivers, the effectiveness of people can be improved, and the workflow process can become more accessible.

 Here are a few examples of how people management can provide dedicated support to the team, helping them walk into a brighter future:

• Trust building: A crucial people management skill that every manager must have is building trust, which leads to team building. Managers who inspire authentic and genuine trust make their team members feel supported in particular situations and when exploring risks. As a result of adequate trust building, team members can exploit risks and opportunities and perceive themselves as enablers of success. Trust building is a long-term strategy and requires a foundation of transparency, honesty and authenticity.

• Empathy: Empathy is a skill that all people managers need, whether they are planning work, delegating responsibilities or providing feedback. Empathy is the ability to put oneself in another person’s shoes and attempt to understand their perspective, motivation, strengths and challenges. The path to great empathy is built through active listening and understanding that facades often don’t serve any purpose.

• Motivational mapping: A great manager is a great motivator. The ideal path for skill enhancement naturally progresses from empathetic, active listening to understanding the individual drivers of motivation. This skill requires managers to develop a fundamental understanding of their perceptions so that they can adequately tap into the emotions of others to create strong bonds, happier processes and better decisions.

• Appreciating: Appreciation is a skill set often undervalued but has real-world implications. To master this skill appropriately, individuals need to develop authenticity so that their praise feels like a reward instead of a false applause. Genuinely appreciating an individual for a job well-done impacts how every individual perceives their work, their efforts and the organisation in totality. With authentic appreciation, organisational loyalty and commitment enhance. Appreciation is beyond monetary bonuses or paid vacations and can be simple as expressing gratitude. Appreciation is the most significant in impacting employee experience.

• Knowledge seeking: In this data-driven world, knowledge is power. As a people manager, gaining access to the correct data type is critical to your future decisions. However, how you choose to utilise insightful data, its application and where you built knowledge enables a more profound understanding of processes and people. Accurate data allows you to take decisions based on facts, not assumptions