How to Manage Your Employees (Without Making Them Nervous)

Anxiety and stress are some of the most common issues at the workplace that make the employees lose their morale and productivity. Leaders and managers can directly affect their employees' anxiety and stress levels depending on the management style. 

When employees are self-confident, they become motivated, perform better and excel in their careers. To boost their self-esteem, you need to manage them in such a way that they feel like part of the organization. Use the following five tips to manage your employees well.

1. Create a healthy work environment

Creating a healthy work environment to cater to the complete mental, physical and social well-being of employees can help to deal with anxiety in the workplace. Such an environment goes beyond the lack of harmful conditions but is characterized by the fullness of health-uplifting conditions.

When the working environment is characterized by poor work-life balance, infrequent breaks and poor eating habits, employees may become anxious. You can create a healthy work environment by promoting a work-life balance. Create a culture that caters to the needs of employees outside work.

Be an example to your employees by avoiding working for long hours. By so doing, you encourage the employees to follow suit. Be a role model in promoting healthy habits and mind how you spend time.

Implementing natural breaks and walking meetings is an excellent way of encouraging people to disconnect and participate in different activities together. Try a standing or walking meeting, especially when the weather allows. You can also launch a competition meeting for your team, such as a fitness competition and include rewards for participation and an overall prize for the winner.

2. Relate well with employees

A poor employee-manager relationship can make the employees nervous and affect their productivity. Any kind of disrespect between you and your employees can create a sense of unhappiness among employees and cause their work to influence their personal lives negatively. 

One of the most effective ways of improving relationships with employees is asking them for feedback consistently. Gather opinions and ideas from employees and their leaders on how best you can serve them. Take those opinions seriously and be committed to taking action based on the feedback. 

You can also review some articles and books to find some tips about cultivating manager-employee relationships. Conducting frequent one on ones can also enable you to build solid relationships with your employees.

The meetings can make the employees feel appreciated and this may help them to open up and talk about work issues. The meetings can allow you to understand your employees' personal goals and career goals. Finding out the leaders your employees admire the most could also be a source of inspiration. 

3. Avoid micromanaging employees

After assigning tasks with well-stated deadlines to talented employees, it is time to give them time and space to deliver.

Avoid sending endless emails to know the progress or dropping by their desk from time to time.

To avoid micromanaging employees, practice delegation. Failure to delegate effectively may make you micromanage your team, leaving them with a lot of nervousness and anxiety. Assign tasks to employees based on their goals and strengths and encourage them to work independently.

After delegating, you should be more interested in the ultimate results and not the step-by-step procedures of accomplishing tasks. Ensure that the employees have the required training, authority, and resources to meet their goals. 

Setting clear expectations is also a great way of avoiding micromanaging. If the expectations aren’t clear to employees, your team is likely to fail. The clearer the expectations are to the employees, the better your team are likely to perform. The idea is to tell employees what you expect from them, not how to do the work.

4. Improve the financial security of your employees

Financial concerns contribute to anxiety and nervousness among employees. Since the paychecks they receive from your business may be the main source of their livelihood, make deliberate attempts to improve their financial security. 

Although you can’t be directly involved in making financial decisions for your employees, you can take some simple steps to improve their financial well-being. For instance, having empathetic and transparent financial conversations may be of real benefit. Such conversations may be challenging, so you need to be prepared.

To keep the discussion fair and transparent, use referencing documentation and be open about the employees' remuneration potential. While it’s difficult to solve all the money issues, understanding the financial burdens of your employees and offering proper guidance may be useful.

You can also introduce bonuses for exceptional performance. Let the employees understand how their initial compensation was arrived at and what they can do to climb the ladder. 

5. Communicate to the employees about their future fit

Stress and anxiety at the workplace can be caused by uncertainty, especially in matters of the future fit of employees in the business. When employees aren’t sure of what they need to do or whether they are part of the organization, this can lead to anxiety and stress.

These things can negatively affect the organization’s productivity. Try to deal with any uncertainties within teams and establish the reasons for that. Identify what creates a sense of clarity and certainty among the teams and respond accordingly.

Communicating the team and organizational strategies and possible changes can create a sense of certainty. Set goals that are aligned with your organization’s mission and vision. All employees must understand the impact of their work on the team and the organization in general.

Conduct work and performance dialogues with your employees and the future needs of the company. All employees should understand their ranking regarding their performance.

Conclusion

Proper employee management is the basis of reducing nervousness and enhancing productivity. It makes the teams recognize that they’re appreciated and their input is relevant towards meeting the overall goals of the organization. Collaborate with your teams to monitor their stress levels and take the above steps to deal with them. Your employees look to you as a role model with the ability to amplify their emotions by doing things right.