Read Simon Brown’s article “Do you have what it takes to be a good boss?” Having surveyed SSON members, he highlights the five most important characteristics of being a good leader and offers tips for improving your management skills.

As he rightly points out, your employer brand will have a big initial impact on the potential candidate selecting you as an employer of choice. Yet there is a well-known saying, “We join a company and we leave our manager”. If that’s the case, how can employers ensure their managers don’t frighten off talent?

The relationship an employee has with his/her boss will determine the “should I stay or should I go” phenomenon among your employees. In consecutive order, here are the five most important qualities managers in a company should aspire to:

1. Provide a clear vision of where you are going and lead by example
2. Empower and trust your employees
3. Offer support and provide regular coaching
4. Keep employees well-informed of the company’s progress
5. Manage the performance of your employees fairly, by either rewarding or challenging their results

Mr. Brown provides some excellent recommendations in his concluding must-do list for all leaders. To add to it, however, I would put in question a manager’s ability to inspire others.

Perhaps a more abstract quality to measure, but it determines the ability of top management to: arouse positive feelings, animate and quicken teams into action, and exalt influence on achieving corporate objectives. Ultimately, it’s about getting your staff to perform at the best of their abilities and make the impossible happen.

The meaning of inspiring top management
From an employer branding perspective, ‘inspiring top management’ is relatively important for young career-seekers who are considering various employers. For them it mainly means selecting a company based on top management’s ability to 1) inspire staff, 2) demonstrate competence and expertise in their area,  3) allow staff to partake & influence decision-making, and 4) act as role models.

True leaders are a rare breed and the best go down in history. The art to inspire others is a rare quality, which few are endowed with. Yet if you are gifted enough to be able to inspire others, you are in a good place – as your people will move mountains.

• It’s mostly about generating a positive work environment and giving employees the means to live – a secure and steady income.

People would naturally assume that work/life balance would mean working less and having more spare time with family and friends. Or would it mean something else?

UK students define the meaning of work/life balance, based on the answers of 13,000 students. The good news for employers is that it doesn’t mean working less.

Surprisingly for UK career-seekers, work/life balance mostly means the following: a positive work atmosphere (27%), financial stability (26%), job security (24%), interesting and challenging work (23%), flexible working hours (22%), etc.

In fact, only a minority of students think that work/life balance should be: consideration for private interests when requesting leave (6%), leisure activities with colleagues (6%), adequate recovery time following peak work periods (5%), compliance with standard working hours (5%) . 

In short, if you’re an employer keen on implementing a work/life balance programme in the UK, you’ll just have to work on 1) creating a positive vibe, 2) remunerating people fairly, 3) offering them secure employment,  4) giving them interesting and challenging work as well as 5) flexible working hours – doesn’t sound hard now, does it?

Be careful though, work/life balance could take on a different meaning depending on the culture and country you work in. Therefore, don’t be to bold and claim you offer something, until you have confirmed how the labour market understands the employer offering.

The meaning of work/life balance