By Dr. Paul L. Gerhardt
It is vitally important to know that supervisory skills must and can be built through effective and proper training. What skills do the best supervisors have? This is an excellent question! Supervision may be the primary reason that turnover is so high in most organizations. The fact of the matter is, that most people quit their jobs because they have been mismanaged by their supervisor. So essentially, supervisors may be costing every organization MUCH MORE money in the long-run than one may realize.
Most supervisor's intentions are very good. The fact of the matter is, although intentions may be good, actions do speak louder than words. Too often excellent employees get promoted to the position of supervisor because they were very good at their jobs. However, when they are promoted to supervising of the employees doing the job they once did, they find themselves struggling in conflict with their employees or dealing with apathy and/or unmotivated workers.
The reason that turnover is so high in many organizations is very often due to the skills and quality of supervision. Supervision is an indispensable part of management. However, in most organizations, leaders do not realize that just because employees may be very good at doing their jobs, it takes a different type of skill to supervise employees. Seriously, it takes special training to gain the skills necessary to lead employees properly. Supervision truly is an essential part of what it takes to keep an organization strong and healthy. Having good people with poor supervisory skills can be the weak link and can cause the slow painful demise of an organization.
Supervisory development is usually done internally by someone within the organization in charge of training. Type of the organization, level of employees, objectives, etc. obviously vary from one organization to another. However, the basic functionality of a supervisor is essentially to the same.
Supervisors must be leaders! Managers, supervisors and leaders all have interrelated jobs within every organization. The development of supervisory skills takes time and must not be rushed through. The long-term consequences of employing supervisors with poor supervisory training can be extremely expensive! This is because supervisors are the people in the organization that have the largest influence over the job satisfaction levels of employees.
When employees are not happy, they lose motivation, loyalty and often can sabotage the success of their departments. The costs associated with employee theft, apathy and turnover are insurmountable. Studies show it is MUCH MORE cost-effective for supervisors to facilitate a work environment that promotes job satisfaction and motivation than to constantly pay for expenses like law suits, efficiency loss, recruiting, hiring, and training.
Some studies on supervision suggest that having well-trained supervisors is considered the most important aspect for achieving desired results within each department of every organization. Numerous studies pronounce that if supervisors’ skills and knowledge are limited to the technical aspects, the lack of other competencies will result in ineffective output by employees. In other words, a supervisor may have good knowledge on the technical aspects of the work, and the organization to guide the employees; however the lack of proper communication and other important supervisory skills can affect important organizational outcomes and success.
It is vitally important to know that a supervisor with poor interpersonal skills is more likely to ruin the performance of the subordinates, which obviously will have a dramatically adverse effect on the organization. Eventually, development of supervisory skills must become an important responsibility of every manager to acquire in order to continually be successful in lowering operating expenses and other vital accomplishments of company objectives and goals if organizations want to remain healthy and competitive.
Supervisory development is critical! By definition, supervision involves fulfillment of various needs of management and employees. The supervisor should be competent enough to perform the duties with great efficiency and effectiveness as well. Below are some of the essential basic aspects considered vital for supervisors:
- · Ability to deal with all level of employees
- · Ability to make decisions
- · Ability to solve problems efficiently and effectively
- · Adaptability and flexibility
- · Are available and seen regularly
- · Have excellent communication, both oral and written
- · Possess and have great interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence
- · Know all major responsibilities and duties of every employee
Supervision is a challenging job which supervisors should be well-versed in and able to handle each versatile function effectively and efficiently. The best supervisors EARN the trust of those they supervisor and must fully understand how important their jobs are and be seen always giving their best, being fair and being available.
Duties of supervisors: Major functions of supervisors include recruitment, delegating and directing tasks, evaluation of tasks performed, streamlining the work, etc. Additional or secondary functions involves the supervisor’s duty to allocate work, promote employees, recall the work completed unsatisfactorily, take disciplinary actions on irresponsible employees, suspend or terminate the employees with poor performance, deal effectively with grievance reviews, ensure performance appraisals and rewards for each employee is appropriate and timely, as well as other duties assigned by management from time to time.
Although supervision involves multifaceted responsibilities, the power of the supervisor can be limited by the power of a manager. However, it is the ultimate responsibility of the supervisor to motivate each employee towards accomplishing the objectives of the organization in a timely effective and efficient fashion.
Bottom-line on supervision: In organizations where supervisors are trained properly, there should be essentially no drop in the performance and efficiency of employees, even when the supervisor is away. Supervisor development should be focused on filling the gaps between the management functions as well the technical aspects. Training may seem like a waste of company funds to some. However, in the long-run it provides un-calculable returns and greater profits for the organization.
For more information please contact Dr. Paul L. Gerhardt at www.paulgerhardt.com
