What is people management and why is it important?

What has been driving the name changes is the rapid transformation of how employees are regarded, and the evolving responsibilities that the function has.  

Organisations are putting increased emphasis on managing the employee experience at all stages of their journey to attract, retain and engage their people.  

Regardless of the latest trends or what your organisation chooses to call it, people management is all the things you do in your business to hire, engage, care for and get the best out of your team.  

What’s most important is that you define it for your own organisation and include it at a strategic level, so that your people are at the heart of your decision-making. 

Sir Richard Branson is quoted as saying, “If you look after your staff, they will look after your customers. It’s that simple.”  

It might be simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy.  

People management involves balancing the needs of your organisation and its stakeholders with the needs and capabilities of your people.  

Ideally, you should be aiming for a diverse team, and that brings its own rewards and challenges. 

How can you keep everybody happy all the time?  

The answer is that you won’t. But you can put in place the right strategies to give your people an input and a voice.  

Now more than ever, we want to be heard. Not just as employees – it's a wider social trend. Giving your people choices, asking for their ideas, caring about their wellbeing and progress, and taking any complaints seriously are all an integral part of people management. 

There are certain things that your business is legally required to do for its people. For example, you must keep your people safe from harm – stress management has recently been added to that. You need to pay employees, give them contracts, provide time off, and treat them fairly.  

But beyond covering the legal essentials, why is people management important? 

As with many things in business, people management activities are often driven by the potential to positively impact the bottom line by increasing productivity or saving costs.  

Here are some key reasons why it’s important: 

• The business is the people – service-based businesses don’t exist without people to deliver their services, and many product-based businesses have some in-house support services that influence the customer experience. 
• Optimising productivity – well-managed teams that are engaged and have what they need to do their job with minimal waste of time, energy and other resources will be more productive and generate more profit. 
• Skills shortages – finding people with the right skills is especially difficult in some sectors and functions, so a business needs to keep the good people it has and be able to attract new ones. 
• Reducing absence – from letting customers down to putting other employees under more pressure, high absence rates hurt a business, so it’s in everyone’s interest to keep employees physically and mentally healthy. 
• Reducing staff turnover – replacing employees can cost a lot, and if people are leaving for good reason because of poor people management, that can hurt your reputation for recruiting too. 

You can think about people management as like going on a journey with your employees from initial impression to leaving. 

From the moment someone encounters your business, they are forming an impression.  

Maybe it’s a happy employee telling a friend about how their company gave them a wellbeing workshop, or an unhappy one saying their stress levels are through the roof and management isn’t doing anything to help. It’s that easy for someone to decide they would like to find out more about you or not. 

Some aspects of your employer brand you can control, but others will be about how you treat your people and what they share about you. 

So, all the aspects of how you manage your people are important. These might include: 

Hiring: 

• Employer branding – showcasing what a great business you are to work for 
• Recruitment and selection – scoping and creating job descriptions and salary levels, advertising, shortlisting, and interviewing 
• Appointing someone – making offers, giving feedback, sorting out contracts, getting references and checks done 

Engaging: 

• Internal communications – sharing important information and inviting discussions within the business to keep your team informed and feeling part of the action 
• Feedback – checking on how people are feeling and addressing any concerns 
• Culture development – organising social activities to help people meet new people in the business and encouraging a positive culture 

Caring: 

• Wellbeing strategy – ensuring that your team are supported to improve and maintain their physical and mental health 
• Managing absence – keeping an eye on absence rates and reasons and supporting your team to return to work with adjustments if needed 
• Task management and monitoring – making sure your team’s workload is manageable and in line with the organisation’s priorities 

Empowering: 

• Training and development – ensuring that your team has the right skills to do their job and supporting their aspirations 
• Resource distribution – equipping your team with all the systems, processes, budgets and people they need to effectively perform their role 
• Coaching – encouraging your team to identify and try out solutions to challenges, and reflect on their learning 
• Performance management – supporting your team to grow in their roles by setting and monitoring objectives, negotiating pay, succession planning, identifying promotion opportunities, and addressing any underperformance 
• Disciplinaries and grievance – correcting any areas of concern and mediating solutions 

Whether you’re a company owner with just a few employees, a manager within a larger organisation, or running a people management department, you’ll be wearing many hats.  

As you can see from the broad range of responsibilities people management covers, you will always have room to grow your skills and try out new ideas.  

It takes a very different energy to guide a disciplinary compared with having a coaching conversation with a member of your team. Therefore, being able to adapt is likely to be the most important skill in people management. 

Other skills you might like to hone are: 

• Communication – verbal and written 
• Coaching 
• Assertiveness 
• Trust and effective delegation 
• Decision-making 
• Understand data 
• Diversity and bias awareness 
• Conflict resolution and de-escalation techniques 
• Health awareness – for example, mental health, stress, menopause 
• Resilience 
• Resource and task planning and management