Managing Your Employees

managing employees

managing employees

I was told that unless you are paying for a guy to physically come into an office and work, you, as the employer, have no control over them.  In other words, you can’t expect freelancers to be accountable.  This statement of course was made by an unaccountable freelancer.  And by unaccountable I mean, having little to no communication in the form of updates or deliverables throughout the course of a project. This of course makes managing a project, or running an efficient business impossible.  If your designer or developer can’t manage their own time, how can you expect them to help manage yours?

Managing a really good web designer, is analogous to managing for Keith Richards. You know the end product is always gonna be fantastic, but the work involved just to get them to that point.  Dear God.  The coddling involved. Can you imagine trying to get Keef on stage in time for a gig back in the 70’s? Can you imagine trying to get him to do anything during the 70’s?! The absolute dysfunction.  It’s enough to drive you nuts.

So having a place for your employees to come in and do their work, chained to a desk means nothing when it comes to accountability.  All it means is you actually can see if they show up or not. Whether or not they actually “show up” is another story all together.  It’s about integrity.  If you’re not going to do what is required, then you’re not going to do what is required.  Beit working from your home office, Starbucks or Dunder Mifflin. Whether your boss is down the hall, or 2000 miles away, if you don’t feel like following process, you’re not going to.  Instead, you’ll drive everyone around you into the ground.  They’ll work with you because you are good, but being good or being great only takes you so far.  People around you will eventually tire of coddling you and, they’ll find someone else just as good who also understands process. Someone who understands running a business. Being an awesome designer doesn’t make you like Keith Richards, only just as dysfunctional.

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