The People Manager Guide

Manage your team better than ever with Workplace.

As a people manager, you play an important role in setting working norms and habits that help your team work better together. That's a big responsibility, but we're here to help.
This guide will walk you through Workplace tips and best practices that every people manager should know — so you can manage your team better than ever.
Your team group

Your team group

Create a central place for you and your team to communicate and keep each other up-to-date on what you're working on. In Workplace, this place is called a team group, and creating one is simple. To create your team group:
  1. In the panel to the left of your News Feed, click Create Group. You may need to click See More first.
  2. Fill in the group name and select the privacy setting. For a team group, we recommend a secret or closed group.
  3. Type in the names of your team members one-by-one to add them to your group.
  4. Make sure chat is toggled on.
  5. Click Create Group.
Your team group comes equipped with a Files tab, where you'll be able to find any file that's been shared in your group. Groups with 250 members or less can also have chat, which you can use for instant messaging or audio and video calling.
You can learn more about groups by watching the video below.
Posts
Posts are the primary way you'll be sharing important updates and information with your team. That's because posts keep discussions organized in comments and are easy to find again later days, weeks and months down the line. All of this makes Workplace posts ideal for sharing information that your team will need to reference again or respond to in the future.
Use posts to share regular updates with your team and encourage team members to do the same. For example, at the beginning of each week, have everyone on the team share a post outlining their accomplishments from the previous week, their priorities for the week ahead, and any problems they're facing. This will help you stay in the know on what everyone is working on while also flagging issues or blockers that you can help your reports with. Make sure you model this behavior by making these same posts as well.
Here are a few helpful tips to keep in mind when communicating using Workplace posts:
  • Pin posts with important team resources to the top of the group so they're always easy to find.
  • When you add a PDF to your post, group members will be able to add comments and feedback as annotations.
  • Tag people to trigger notifications, it’s the best way to make sure people see your post.
  • Try not to post outside of working hours. Instead, schedule a post to publish the next day.
  • When sharing or documenting a lot of information, try creating a Note. With Notes, you can embed photos and videos, allow group editing and add a cover photo to catch people’s attention.
  • If your direct reports are shift workers, they can use Workplace posts to find coverage for their shifts. Note that Shift Cover first needs to be enabled by a Workplace system admin. Learn more about Shift Cover in the Help Center.
For even more tips and best practices to help you master the art of the Workplace post, check out Engage and influence: Your guide to work posts.
Chat
Chat is best when you need an answer fast or just want to have a casual conversation with your team. You can start a chat with one person or a group of people and share files, photos, videos, GIFs and more. Or, jump on a quick audio or video call to make decisions faster. Watch the video below to see a quick overview of what Chat can do.
Make sure your direct reports understand when to use chat and when to use posts. If you notice people using chat for sharing important resources, encourage them to share a post instead.
Here are some Workplace Chat tips and tricks:
Plan, host and document meetings

Plan, host and document team meetings

Meetings are an important element of your team's collaboration. You can manage them in Workplace by following these simple steps:
1. Create an Event for your upcoming meeting
Create an Event from your team group and invite your team members. Make sure you toggle on calendar invites so that everyone involved can block that time off on their calendar tool. You'll be able to track responses to invites from Workplace.
2. Align on an agenda
Use polls to identify topics for discussion during the meeting. Team members will be able to vote on items as well as add their own to the poll.
3. Use video calling or Live video for your meeting
You can start a video or audio call from any group or one-on-one chat by clicking on the icons at the top right hand corner of your screen.
To record your meeting, try going Live with other hosts. Live video will broacast your meeting to your team group in real-time. Once the broadcast ends, a recording will automatically post to the group so people in other timezones and anyone else who couldn't make the meeting can catch up later.
4. Share notes
After the team meeting, make sure you post meeting notes and next steps to your team group. You can add notes as text to your post. @mention people in a post so they receive a notification.
Manage one-on-one relationships

Manage one-on-one relationships

Create secret, one-on-one groups with each of your direct reports. You'll be using these groups to share updates with one another, give and request feedback, manage performance, assign tasks, ask questions and more.
Secret one-on-one groups allow you to privately interact with each of your direct reports and provide individual feedback and guidance that might not be relevant or appropriate to share with the whole team.
Share your team's work

Share your team's work

Share your team's hard work across the entire organization with cross-functional groups. Groups like "Sales Wins", "Marketing Announcements" and "Support FYI" are great for keeping everyone informed on your team's achievements and gathering valuable feedback. Here's how to create one:
  1. In the panel to the left of your News Feed, click Create Group. You may need to click See More first.
  2. Give your group a clear and succinct name that can immediately indicate what it will be used for.
  3. Make the group open so that anyone can join and see posts.
  4. Toggle off chat. Cross-functional groups often have many members and chats can get noisy.
  5. Invite members one-by-one or by setting automatic group membership rules.
  6. Give your group a description, outlining how you'll be using the group and whether you'd like people to share feedback and ask questions as posts.
Encourage your direct reports to post in the group when they have work to share. You can @mention people in comments if you want to make sure they receive a notification.
Recognize your team

Recognize your team

It's important to show your direct reports that you value their hard work and dedication. Recognition can help you shape your team culture, incentivize productivity and build up morale. When done openly with the whole organization, recognition can also increase the visibility of team members and help you showcase team achievements.
You can recognize team members by using the Send Thanks button on their profile. It's a great way to send a quick but impactful message. If you're thanking someone on another team, you can even toggle on to notify their manager.
Prioritize balance & wellbeing

Prioritize balance & wellbeing

Help your team set healthy boundaries around their work hours with tools like Do Not Disturb and Status.
Do Not Disturb allows you to silence notifications during focus times or after work hours. You can turn it on as needed or set a schedule for it to turn on automatically. When Do Not Disturb is enabled, a crescent moon will appear next to your profile photo and any coworker who messages you via Workplace Chat will receive an automated message informing them of the fact that you have Do Not Disturb on and weren't notified of their message.
You can set a status in Workplace to let your coworkers know when you're off sick, traveling, working from home or more. Your status will be displayed on your Workplace profile and in Workplace Chat.
Other helpful resources

Other Helpful Resources