Tips For New Supervisors
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Introduction
When being promoted to a supervisor many questions will arise. So to help out our new supervisors we have assembled a collection of best practices from our most tenured supervisor. Included in this collection are tips about communication skills, orientation and training, improving team productivity, conducting appraisals, handling conflict and final employee relations. This guide will help lay the ground work for you to be successful and create your own best practices which will help you build a winning team.
Demonstrate Effective Communication Skills
When it comes to being able to communicate effectively one of the most important skills as a supervisor is your ability to produce quality written communications. By being able to write quality communications you will be able to set yourself apart from a large portion of the eligible work force across the nation. This is according to a study by The Conference Board released on Oct 2, 2006 stating that companies are reporting 72% of high school graduates are deficient in writing skills, they are also reporting this problem among 2-year and 4-year college graduates. By improving this communication skill you will be able to create more impactful letters, and memos and presentations. (2006)
Not only are good writing skills important for getting you point across, but it also helps you keep or maintain you professionalism. Al Boulden former sales executive of Sealy said he has seen misspelled words on documents from high-level people and this then puts them in a hole they have to dig out. (Perry 2007) You dont want to be in that hole yourself so that is why your writing skills are important.
To complement your writing skills you will want to make sure you have good verbal skills as well. Why you ask. Well that is due in part to the fact that research found in how to be a good communicator (2005) shows that 42% of employees feel that their employer is a poor communicator.(4) As a new supervisor you dont want to fall in to this category of employees feeling you are a poor communicator. There are a few tips that can help you improve your verbal communications. The first is making sure you use the correct language for the audience. You really dont want to use terms or acronyms that your listeners wont understand. (4) You can lose credibility if you speak over the head of your audience.
The second piece of advice I would give you when speaking in public is that whenever possible have your speak prepared in advance. After it is prepared it would be a good idea is to have another person review it for errors and continuity. This is again to make sure that you are speaking in the proper tone and with the proper subjects for the expected audience. In a supervisor role you always want to make sure all your communication convey the correct message.
Determining Effective Orientation and Training Methods
As a supervisor you will find that there will come a time where you will have to replace an employee or increase the size of your staff. These situations will require you to hire new employees. Which is fine we all have to do it, but once they are hired what is next? Well usually they will have same training that they receive but before they go through training it is important they understand a few things
First new hires need to understand what the company they now work for is all about. They should be given the opportunity to learn about the companys history, where they have come from and where they see the future headed. Also part of understanding the company is the mission statement which is the guiding force behind much of what is done within the organization.
With a solid knowledge of the companys goals and history it is very important for new hires to understand what is going to be expected of them from the job. This is where you will want to layout what your expectations are for the position. You will also want to address any of the concerns that the new hire may have either about the company or the job expectations.
Without an effective orientation you can find yourself sometimes training people who will not stay around because the position or company may prove to not be what they originally expected. Canadian Business provided a great example of this on November 20, 2006. (GangД© 2006)
JosД©e Dupuis was in her finance job at a Toronto-based distributor of electrical products for only five months before she called it quits.”In terms of the work and the projects that I could do, it was great,” she says. “But in terms of employee development, employee motivation and communication, it lacked severely
As you can see JosД©e found that is position was just not a good fit. If there had been a more thorough orientation about the company and its direction. Some of the concerns may have been addressed and the company would have not lost an employee and then not be searching for another who will have to be trained now too.
In regards to training that brings us to another subject effective training methods. Since the work force is constantly changing supervisors and companies find that there is always a need to train new hires. When it comes to training there are so many different ways in which to train people. Much of this varies by the needs of the company. For example at “Microsoft they still provide 60 to 70 percent of their training in a classroom environment. Then at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College they have split their trainings into bite-sized chunks that can be delivered in a lunchtime slot.”(Scott 2007)
From my experiences I find that classroom style training have been the most effective in getting new hires trained and ready to face the job. This holds especially true due to the fact that so many of the jobs now require the use of computers. In a classroom environment you can take what may have been on site training on the live production computer and move it to a virtual system. The program will run the same but you dont run the risk of having something happen to the actual production system. Thus ensuring the company will save money by not having a work stoppage do to a system error in training. So as a supervisor I am still a big advocate for classroom trainings for new hires it helps better prepare them for what they will see in the work place.
Improving Productivity for Teams
When coming in to a new team as a supervisor you will usually have some idea of the productivity of the team as it is now. The only time you would find that this is not the case is if you were to start up a new team from scratch and at that point productivity would be zero and everything