As a manager, what are the best employee relationship management strategies I can follow to show my employees that I'm a tough manager, yet I'm always ready to help them?

Best Employee relationship management strategies are as follows:

Trust your employees.

1.     Listen to your employees.

2.     Build a nice team and have team building approaches on regular basis

3.     Build up good  interpersonal relationship with everyone

4.     Make everything/ all office activities transparent to all. 

5.     No need to say that you are tough but if anybody found wrongdoing, please confront and take action accordingly as per company rules.

Encourage and discourage at the same time

Dangle a carrot

Feed them well (ideas)

Push for Spontaneity

Give them a voice

Your goal should be to help them accomplish their goals

Don’t stop pushing

be near from them

support them

didn't make hard punish in first mistake

share some decision with them

strategies for a healthy employee relationship in the organization.

• Involve your team members: They should feel important and indispensable for the organization. An individual must be assigned responsibilities according to their interests and responsibilities. Don’t impose work on them. Let them willingly accept challenges. They must enjoy whatever they do otherwise they would end up fighting with their superiors and fellow workers.
• Encourage individuals to share their work with each other: This way people tend to talk with each other more, discuss things among themselves and thus the comfort level increases. Let them work together and take decisions on their own. A team leader should intervene only in extreme cases of conflicts and severe misunderstandings.
• Assign them targets and ask all your team members to contribute equally and achieve the target within the desired time frame. Motivate them to work in groups. This way employees have no other choice than to trust their fellow workers and take each other’s help as well. An employee must have the liberty to express his ideas and all of them should sit together to decide on something which would be beneficial to all.
• One should try his level best that all the employees must have their lunch together at the same time. Half an hour to fourty five minutes must be dedicated to lunch and one should not discuss work during lunch time. There are other topics as well. Discuss movies, sports, shopping or any other thing under the sun. There will be no harm if the employees go out together once in a while for get togethers, picnics or shopping. Ask them to bring their family members as well.
• Encourage effective communication among the team members. It has been observed that poor communication leads to confusions and misunderstandings. The communication has to be precise and relevant. One should not play with words and be very specific about his expectations from his fellow workers as well as the organization. If you are not very happy with your colleague’s proposal, don’t keep things to yourself. Voice your opinion and do express your displeasure. It will definitely prevent a conflict among employees later and improve the relations among them. Be straightforward. Don’t pretend things just to please your boss. If you find anything unacceptable, discuss with your superior but in a polite way.
• Written modes of communication must be promoted among the employees for better transparency. Verbal communication is not as reliable as written communication. The agendas, minutes of the meeting, important issues must be circulated among all through emails. Make sure that all the related employees are in the loop. Don’t communicate individually with any of the employees as the other one might feel neglected and left out.
• Morning meeting is another effective way to improve the relation among the employees. Let everyone come together on a common platform and discuss whatever issues they have. The meetings must not be too formal. Allow the team members to bring their cups of coffee. Start your day with a positive mind. Greet everyone with a warm smile. Exchange greetings and compliments. If any of your team member is not in a pleasant mood, do take the initiative and ask what is wrong with him. Try your level best to provide him a solution.
• Organize birthday parties, Christmas parties, New Year parties etc. at the workplace. These small initiatives actually go a long way in strengthening the bond among the employees. Ask all of them to decorate the office, their work stations and make all the necessary arrangements themselves. You will actually be surprised to find out that everyone would be ready with some thing or the other. Employees would actually take the initiative and organize things on their own. Let them enjoy with each other and have fun.

proactive involvement in management

coaching 

group discussion 

Determining Employee needs

measuring and monitoring result 

use legitimate power

Any action taken by an employer, or by a designate on behalf of an employer, that affects the relationship between management and non-management employees.

Few suggestions.

STOP TRYING TO CONTROL EMPLOYEES

TRUST YOUR EMPLOYEES TO DO THEIR JOBS PROPERLY

HOLD THEM ACCOUNTABLE WHEN THEY SCREW UP

BE RESPECTFUL

3 keys to building trust between managers and employees

Limit Lecturing

Listen to Learn

Work Smarter

leader must be positive & creative.

to share the trust culture inside employees team.

Encourage the new ideas & intelligent minds.

to let them sharing administration to put the goals.

Create a forum of openness and honesty. Employees can, in return, contribute to this setting by being forthcoming about their lives outside of work. Openness and communication is even more important for situations sensitive to the company, or that require an otherwise serious approach. 

Give your team honest and frank feedback, whether this is  about projects, employee appraisals, or constructive criticism

Gratitude should exist on both sides of the relationship, but it is probably a larger responsibility of the employer to recognize and appreciate exceptional effort from their employees.

Thanks

Totally agree with Mr. Fazlur answer

The best employee relationship management strategies is :

Listen to your employee ideas, grievances.

Encourage and support them when they come with new ideas, at the same time they should have the fear (out of respect) for any wrong doing.  

Should have a good communication with your employee.

Whatever discussed within the department by anybody should be transparent to all employee.

Create a team building approach within your employee.

Finally at the end of the day your goal is to achieve them their goal  

1. Apply Transparency in communication with employees
2. Assign clear Roles & Responsibilities 
3. Motivate Employees
4. Foster Equal Opportunities Environment 
5. Develop an employees accountability framework