How to Develop Better Supervisors

If you are looking to advance your company to the next level, you will need supervisors and managers who are in line with the goals of your company and are passionate about getting there. But in the real world, you will most likely have supervisors in your organization who are in-efficient,  cold, and detached. Such supervisors will impede the growth of your organization. So the question is, is it possible to develop better supervisors, and if so, how?

Talk to your supervisors, personally

It is easy to make the mistake of assuming that the supervisors are in line with your goals and vision for the organization and that you don’t need to personally remind them of that. It is absolutely necessary that your supervisors feel that they have an important role to play in the growth and expansion of your company. Instead of it just being your vision, make it theirs. Ensure that they have all the support and training needed to get them aligned with your thought process. When your supervisors are invested into the organization, they will begin to deliver.

Make sure that your supervisors are actually supervising

In most organizations, supervisors and top level managers spend most of their time doing other activities like administrative tasks, other projects, employee training, and sometimes even get involved in production, rather than “actively supervising” the team. Your supervisors must supervise. Its as simple as that. When your supervisors are spending at least 70% of their time in active supervision, your organization will grow on the fast track.

What is active supervision anyways? It is the supervisor walking on the floor, being available to make minute by minute decisions on the work allotted to the employees, any quality issues in production and so forth.

Sublet work. Appoint Team Leaders

A Supervisor cannot handle everything himself/herself. They need to have time on hand to take care of higher value activities. The lower level managerial activities can be assigned to an employee as a team leader. This approach is great because it helps the supervisors dedicate time to solving organizational problems, rather than being merely focused on the day to day operational activities.

Make sure that their performance is properly captured

As part of the development process, make sure that you measure the performance of your supervisors, so that you can have developmental discussions with them and improve on problem areas. The way to go about this is to create a dashboard, and monitor select KPIs (key performance indicators). This will allow you to make quick and easy decisions regarding the development of the supervisors.

Get your supervisors to conduct team meetings. Regularly.

If your supervisors are interacting with the employees on a daily basis, it builds a bond between them, and goes a long way in developing a better supervisors. Make sure that your supervisors hold daily team meetings, where the objectives and goals for the day as well as for the long-term are discussed with them. Remember that business is a collaborative process and that means team work.