Many employees are concerned about micromanagement in workplaces, which leads them to walk off the job. Employers do not realise they are being controlled freaks, which builds a toxic work culture. Micromanagement makes employees feel like they are being monitored at every split second. They feel unnecessary stress and think they are not trusted at all.

Micromanagement sets a tone of mistrust that lowers the morale and motivation of your employees. Upon finding that your workplace culture is subject to micromanagement, they will start quietly quitting and marking time until a good opportunity comes your way. In the end, your business will suffer. Many employers do not give a toss to what employees are leaving or not, but chances are you lose the best employees.

Hiring is not complicated, and perhaps you may have a lot of money to spend on the recruitment process at every turn, but remember that you cannot always be lucky enough to hire the best candidate for your company. Micromanagement restricts the scope of freedom of your employees to work and keeps them on the prowl for good job opportunities. As soon as they grab them, they leave you.

Micromanagement is not just good for your own growth as an employer. It hampers your ability to focus on important things, such as effective strategies used to improve sales. It rather focuses on the number of hours employees spent in the office and how much time the computer screen was idle.

Ways to stop micromanaging your employees

Here are the ways to stop micromanaging your employees:

·         Reflect on your behaviour

First off, you need to ask yourself why you micromanage your employees. You need t understand where this is coming from if you actually want to control your micromanagement behaviour.

·         Are you a sort of a person who wants to dive into details?

·         Do you simply not trust your employees?

·         Do you have a gut feeling that they are not doing their job perfectly?

You must find an excuse for why you love micromanaging. You might think that productivity will be hampered if you do not intervene. Too much is on the line, and things go wrong if you do not track every minute of your employees.

Well, whatever excuse you have for micromanagement is bad and will certainly affect your business in the long run. You should focus on things that help your team to grow. As a result, your business will grow as well. Therefore, it is vital for you to stop micromanagement.

·         Get feedback

Employers and employees often lose connection. If your company follows a strict hierarchy, there is a greater chance of a disconnection between you and your team. Managers or team leaders might manipulate you. It is not always possible that your junior staff are lagging behind. Sometimes, they are restricted to work within their scope of liberty.

Despite a strict hierarchy, you should establish a connection with everyone. Nothing can get in your way to reach out to your employees. Feedback is essential from your employees. Ask them about the workplace or work culture. Is there anything they want to make changes in?

You might believe that your employees hardly have any problem with your micromanagement, but they might be annoyed by your constant hovering. Feedback is paramount to understand how damaging your micromanagement is. Make sure you appoint someone to get feedback in a confidential way.

Employees would not want you to know who said what. Unless you know the impact of your micromanagement on your employee’s performance, you would not be encouraged to turn over a new leaf.

·         Define expectations

In order to deal with micromanagement, you should clearly define expectations. Everybody, including your managers in your company, should know what role they are supposed to play. Clearly communicating their roles can help keep their efforts in the right direction. Make sure your managers do not get highly involved in every task. The junior staff must be able to get things done independently. Otherwise, most of your time will be wasted tracking them.

Ask your leaders to provide their teams with support as and when needed, which is what their job is. Leaders are not supposed to perform their jobs. Keep calling on the meeting periodically so you know everyone knows what they are expected of and what they have to do to meet them.

·         Provide training opportunities

The lack of leadership skills is one of the greatest reasons for micromanagement. You do not trust your employees to do their job right. You should try to provide them with training. Even though they have experience in their field, management training can help address areas of improvement. Try to provide onboard training to managers and other employees so everybody knows what they are supposed to do.

Proving onboard training is expensive, and therefore, many employers rebuff its need. Well, it will help you save a lot of money in the long run. You should try to ignore these expenses for the sake of long-term benefits. In case you do not have enough money to provide your employees with onboard training, you can take out a business loan with instant approval.

These loans can help fund your small needs; however, you must have a good credit rating and a strong repaying capacity. The size of the loan will be decided based on your profile.

·         Encourage your team to come up with their own solutions

Sometimes, employers are forced to micromanage because the team does not think outside the box. It will cause unnecessary intervention by you, and things will get out of control. You should encourage your team to think outside the box. Make sure that they come up with new solutions to help you increase sales.

In fact, your hiring should be based on cognitive skills. Assign them a situation to see how they deal with it. Creativity and analytical thinking are a must to set yourself apart from your competitors.

·         Prioritise what matters

Micromanagement creeps in when you have multiple tasks, and you want to manage all of them at once. This is not the right technique to get your business done. Try to delegate your work. Keep important and critical projects for you, and the rest should be delegated to your team. You still have a lot of work to do, but try to prioritise. It is quite impossible to handle all projects together.

You should take up the project based on the priority. This will help you stay more oriented.  Make sure you create a list of to-do tasks at the end of the day before clocking off. Stick to that list so you know what has to be done and when. Planning in advance will help you stay organised.

The bottom line

Micromanagement is bad for the growth of your business. Most of your employees will feel annoyed, disgruntled and mistrusted, and therefore, they will start quitting. You are at stake of losing your best employees. Though you can hire new people, it is not likely that every time you run into a good candidate. Identify why you mismanage and try to fix your behaviour.