People Management for Organization Success

Introduction: India’s startup ecosystem is flourishing, with a significant increase in tech startups. However, many organizations, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups, overlook the critical aspect of people management. Neglecting employee well-being and satisfaction can hinder organizational success. This article delves into the necessity of prioritizing people management for sustainable growth and success.

India has emerged as the third-largest startup ecosystem in the world after the US and China. As per Nasscom, India has added over 1,600 tech startups in 2021, taking the total number of tech startups to over 12,500. There has been a 2x growth in the number of startups from around 7,000 in 2016 to over 14,000 in 2022.

Employees first, customers second: Customers can be delighted only if employees are delighted and, hence, committed to your cause. Success or failure of any business depends on its employees to a large extent. It is seen that most small and medium-scale organizations or new startups are less concerned about people or employee management. Such companies do not spend much on people or employees. The bottom line is the only goal of these companies, and they don’t care about employees. According to them, employees are replaceable; if they lose one employee, they can easily replace them. Such organizations don’t consider their employees as resources; they just consider them as order-takers. There are also cases where an organization wants to spend much on its employees, but they don’t get a good people manager and couldn’t make proper manpower planning. There is a big requirement to create a culture of Good People Management in organizations across all industries. There is a great need for good people managers and much requirement and scope for training in People Management.

Proper Manpower Assessment

For making manpower assessment, generally, what happens is that the organization chart is prepared, then work activities are listed down, but it is hazardous for manpower planning. An entity must list down the activities to be done by the respective department first, and based on those activities, resource requirements should be decided. Proper planning ensures that repetitive tasks are avoided. Resources are either not overburdened or idle. Generally, what happens in organizations is that some resources are overburdened, some do not do much work, and new hired resources are not even aware of what they need to do, what their key responsibility areas are. It also happens that resources are hired for one activity and then deployed on another activity.

Resource Management

One of the biggest goals of futuristic organizations is to attain a high rate of employee retention. Quick growth rests on the strength of manpower stability. A stable workforce runs smoothly and efficiently because team members are knowledgeable about their jobs, understand the company’s requirements, and can work well with their colleagues. This continuity in workflow helps to create a more predictable and efficient work environment.

The most obvious issue in losing an experienced staff member is that you lose their experience and expertise. Of course, you may find a replacement, but they will not have the inner knowledge of your company and processes. Thus, you will need to spend time and money on training that new staff member and getting them up to speed. In doing so, you are missing out on the productivity levels of that already knowledgeable employee who has just left. The cost of replacing an employee is estimated to be anywhere between 33 percent to 200 percent of that employee’s annual salary. That is a lot of money, and if you are regularly replacing employees, then you are leaking cash in recruitment costs. Consistently losing staff could also be deterring the best talent in the market from joining your firm. If those researching your company see that it has a high staff turnover, they will assume that it is not a fantastic place to work. Besides that, the morale of remaining staff is also affected. It is tough for employees to consistently see their colleagues move on to new opportunities. The organization of a business can feel constantly in flux when the foundations are constantly moving.

People Management for Organizational Success

It is important to consider each and every employee, from the bottom line to the top line, as partners. In fact, employees who are treated as an important part of the organization are more likely to contribute to organizational growth, irrespective of their designation. Such recognition fosters a sense of ownership and encourages collaboration within different departments and nurtures innovation. It leads to an understanding among employees that they have insights that are critical to a company’s success and start incorporating this into the organizational framework. In this way, the potential of an employee can be explored to the extent it is.

Open House Meeting and Feedback System- An Open House meeting is very necessary with employees by which employees can talk to you, share their feedback, concerns, and accomplishments. It creates a transparent mechanism where it updates employees about their organization, employees get the chance to remove their misunderstandings or rumors about the organization. Besides, it boosts the morale of employees.

Connect and Participation of Ground Level Staff

It is important for leaders to educate employees on the strategic line of thinking of the company, its core mission, history, and vision. This leads to employees having a greater connection with the company, a sense of pride, identity, and a clear understanding of how they can contribute to the organization’s strategic goals and overall growth. In general, top management does not know the basic hurdles of the ground level, and ground level employees know the situation in their offices, plants, or their working areas better than the corporate team or management, and they can advise you on the area of weakness and how to improve. Ground Level staff is mature enough to make the organization super as they know the way of reducing revenue leakage and non-productivity. For getting efficiency in operation, to uncover opportunities, it is required to have participation of ground level staff. Organizations should believe in their employees and their expertise and create opportunities for them to come back to you with recommendations.

Involve employees in decisions and execution: As far as possible, involve employees in the implementation of their ideas. This ensures collective buy-in and can help overcome roadblocks and resistance that might arise when plans seem to be imposed from the top-down. Two-facedness to employee involvement is worse than not having employee participation at all. If the leadership does not have the will to persevere, to stay the course until this succeeds, and the commitment to continue the effort even after you succeed, it’s better not to begin at all.

People Managing Style Impact Performance of Employees

Mr. Zed was a graduate from a top Business school and CEO in a reputed organization. He was very arrogant and always remained in his cabin. Only 6 cabinet members were there with whom he spoke and exchanged information. He didn’t like to speak with middle and junior employees; any person willing to speak with him had to take appointments through his cabinet members and in their presence only he spoke with staff members, but via Hook n crook, he always achieved the business target, so management does not have any issue with him and his team person. But nobody dared to discuss with him about operational issues.

Once, the management auditor submitted its observation to board Members about misappropriation in target incentive distribution. As per Auditor findings, the business order on which incentives were given was getting canceled in the coming months after the disbursement of incentives. Resultantly, Mr. Zed had to leave the company with all cabinet members.

When Mr. Y who replaced him was a down-to-earth person, He graduated from a Normal Business school but was a good people manager. His cabin was always open to every team member out of 200 people. He was approachable to every team member, and even he used to go to one or another team desk and discuss with each and every team member. Resultantly, team members got confidence in them, and morale was boosted; they can approach him for any operational issue and get the solutions, and now business started to grow and compete with other industry competitors.

For a manager, it is very important to be in touch with junior team members as they are the true carriers of Business.

Different Management styles in Corporate

In the corporate world, you will find so many styles of managing large teams. There are Managers who just manage a large team via camera. The whole time they visited the camera and on the basis that they reprimand, guide and motivate staff. Similarly, some members believe in detectives. They leave the detective in each Department on the basis of information received from the Department detective; they manage the team. There are managers Who are always abusive to team members. They make their fears among the team by way of speaking so rude, and in this way, they manage the team. In MSME organizations, one can find managers who get the responsibility of managing a large team but due to a lack of Experience, they do not have their rational power, they always make decisions on the basis of other team members, and every second day change their decision. They do not have confidence in their own decisions. Some of the managers do not have discretion at all and do not try to be involved in operations. Whenever any issue comes they ask the line manager way out and then give the go-ahead for that way out. There is one style where CEO makes bonding with the core team with the central team by outing with their families and dinners. They are good to other employees also but making their strong core team they managed their operations well. Some managers manage the team by celebrating the success of each team member and make appreciation. When a manager celebrates success and appreciates their team members in group every second day it creates bonding and enthusiasm among employees. You will also find managers who try to own the achievement of their team members and show that achievement as his own achievement but this way team members’ morale get down and the team is discouraged to do new work.

For people management, the very first requirement is that people managers must be mature enough to understand people’s behavior and Mentality. One learns such things by study and Experience. You will not find all team members of the same temperament and same basic needs. Though monetary benefits may be the common motivation factor of all People, besides that, there are so many factors and needs which boost employees’ motivation. And one has to apply a separate motivational tool for each team member. It is very important for a manager whether a manager is using own discretion to manage the team or business or any other discretion power being used. A manager must be experienced enough to assess people, individual behavior, forecast/diagnose/identify a person. In this, we can make the team of reliable people and manage the team and made team members thinking contributors rather than executors.

Conclusion: Effective people management is indispensable for organizational success. It involves proper manpower assessment, resource management, and fostering a conducive work environment. By valuing employees, fostering open communication, and involving them in decision-making processes, organizations can enhance productivity, retain talent, and achieve long-term success.