Business Tips – March 2013 (Vol. 2, Issue 4)
This may be particularly relevant for SME’s, where smaller business units require closer 
working relations between the business owner/managers and their staff.
What are ‘healthy’ working relations? Working relations resemble a rapport that allows you to get along with your staff, where they can be open with you as their employer, and all individuals are mutually respectful, professional, and promote a friendly environment. This rapport shouldn’t go much further than that, because any further might be a symptom of over-familiarity. Of-course, each business owner/manager makes their own choice as to how much their staff get to know about their personal life. At the end of the day we are in business – therefore this is the foremost priority. Seeing staff in any other way than as employees could potentially be harmful to you, as it could cloud your judgement, or affect your ability to objectively consider their performance. Worst of all, it may stop you altogether from making harsh decisions about their position, or prevent you from having meaningful discussions with them if their standards are not meeting business needs.
What are symptoms of over-familiarity? How much do your staff know about your personal life? This is usually the first sign of an unhealthy manager-employee relationship, where staff know too much about your life and activities outside of work. Furthermore, think about how your staff talk to you, and how they see you as a manager. Workplace productivity may also suffer as a result of over-familiarity. Unfortunately, one of the traits of human nature (varying degrees of prominence between people!) is to not work as hard unless there is a repercussion. If staff don’t fully respect you as a manager, subconsciously they may decide not to work to their full capacity, as their mind knows they can get away with it.
What can you do to keep working relations healthy? If you recognise any of the above symptoms of over-familiarity, you may consider introducing the following measures gradually – because if you suddenly change, staff will notice it, and that could cause employees to question the change (probably in amongst themselves):
- Don’t start personal conversations with your staff. This doesn’t exclude asking general things in the flow of friendly conversation, such as “what did you do at the weekend?”, but it does mean that you shouldn’t go into fine details of your life and family with staff.
- Don’t entertain personal conversations from staff. If your employees talk about personal matters – don’t show interest.
- “Laughter is the closest distance between two people” – Victor Borge
It isn’t unnatural to inject the occasional piece of very subtle humour from time to time – but don’t make your office a place of continuous laughter and enjoyment. This undermines the purpose of people being at work.
- Keep non-work-related matters restricted. Don’t speak to staff about anything other than business unless it’s break time.
- Be firm when appropriate – At times, matters such as performance must be addressed, and you need to firmly speak with staff so that they know what is expected of them. Maintain your objectivity always, because if you can’t do this in your career, your business shall suffer.
- Set the example – Be the consummate professional in front of your staff, and lead by example.
- Always start as you mean to go on – With every new employee that joins your firm, always enact these points from the beginning.
