Do you Know a Sue? A Dive into Supervisor Effectiveness
Sue has been with our company for many years. When she was a machine operator running machine line #25, she demonstrated daily excellence in her work. Her machine was always very clean and well organized. The quality of her work was top-notch, and her productivity was very high. Sue was an energetic operator and friendly to everyone.
One day Sue noticed a job posting for a supervisor position within her department. Her department supervisor was retiring soon, and so our company needed to backfill the supervisor position. Sue applied and got the job. At the time she applied, she perceived the role as being pretty easy. Sue was confident she could supervise people. However, she was nervous about some aspects of the role. Overall, she was super-stoked about the promotional opportunity!
As it turned out, Sue was the only applicant, so the selection process was easy. After going through an interview process, she was awarded the job. Six weeks later and with an encouraging word from her manager, she was officially a supervisor! In talking to Sue five years after her promotion, here’s what I learned from her:
Sue on Transitioning: “I was initially nervous about the computer type responsibilities but after I spent a week training on all of these computer tasks such as attendance, payroll, workorders and MRP, it turned out that learning this stuff was pretty easy. That was all the training I needed to be a supervisor and once I learned that, I was good to go”
Sue on Teamwork: “When I started in the supervisor position, I was really excited to improve all of the things that bothered me when I was an operator on the production floor. So, after learning all that computer stuff, I decided to call that dreaded maintenance supervisor, Bob. You see, I always felt that the maintenance department didn’t do a good job of keeping up with the needed repairs in my department. So, l called Bob one day and told him how I felt about the long list of maintenance issues that have been dragging-on for way too long.” Sue continued, “I told him that he better fix these issues immediately! My gosh, he could get his team to work Saturday if needed! Bob tried to make excuses telling me about the company-imposed overtime restrictions and the workorder priority system, But I wasn’t going to hear any of it. Bottomline is that Bob’s got to do his job better! To this day, every time I see anyone from his lazy maintenance department, I watch them like a hawk!”
Sue on Communication: “Oh, I communicate well to the people who need to know stuff. I tell my good operators everything they need to know when we take morning break together. Early-on I decided to put a stop to those silly daily team huddles. The previous supervisor ran those meetings. The huddles were okay I guess, but the time is really better spent working on the floor. I’m not good at running meetings anyway. I’d rather be running a machine or something, rather than looking silly talking in front of a group of employees."
Sue on Training: “I think training is important. I always appreciated the technical training that I was provided when I was an operator. But I didn’t need supervisor training. I guess leadership just comes naturally to me. I just lead people the way I would like to be led. I expect my people to just get to work on time and do their job. It’s just that simple. When something goes wrong, I just roll up my sleeves and fix it. When it comes to these people, they just don’t get it. Sure I have a couple of good operators, but ugh, many of them I just need to push aside and do their job for them. Training just isn’t going to help some people. You know what I mean?”
Sue on Performance Management: “Well I do have some good employees. They know who they are. I have slackers too. They know who they are because I complain about them all the time. I mean they don’t hear me complaining, but they know who they are! I don’t have time to manage every little thing my people do in the department. There have been some ongoing quality issues but the way I see it, HR just needs to fire some people. Simple as that.”
Sue on Continuous Improvement: “We tried that lean thing before. Albert was in charge of it. People started throwing away things that we needed so they stopped the whole lean program as fast as it started. All I know is that lean doesn’t work. How we’re doing things now works."
Sue on Results: “I don’t know. I get some reports. I don’t have time to look at them though and that’s just fine because the reports don’t make sense anyway. They say we’re not hitting budget this year, but as far as I’m concerned, that’s just an accounting thing. I just do my job."
Do You Know a Sue?
I’ve known many “Sues” and "Sals" too in the Supervisor ranks within factories. They are in almost every manufacturing plant across the country. Often operators are promoted to supervisors and not afforded any leadership training. These new supervisors learn to get by in their roles via a trial-and-error process. After that initial learning phase, they just like to stay in their comfort zones. Eventually they find a personalized style to coordinate the activities in their department. I use the word “coordinate” here instead of the word “lead” because I find that the Sues and Sals of the manufacturing world never learn to actually lead. At their best, they become solid department coordinators, but never really acceptable leaders.
Common themes from an operator promoted into an untrained supervisor include: blaming other departments, fear of public speaking, doing the work of their employees, pushing back against employee training classes, conflict avoidance, resistance to change and fear of accountability.
Once a new supervisor becomes intrenched in their ways and they find an effective survival method, they have difficulty changing without being enrolled into a formal training with an accountability structure. That is why It is so important for a manufacturing company to provide a structured leadership training program for all their frontline shopfloor leaders.
If you are in a manufacturing management position, I am sure that you recognize this supervisor pattern. Just know that there is an effective, flexible and affordable solution to this problem! Simply provide a well structured and progressive training program for your supervisors. For example, Tools for the Trenches (T4T) provides four-levels of courses that are designed specifically for manufacturing supervisors.
These courses are called “Concepts in Manufacturing Leadership (CML)” and they effectively advance supervisors through four-levels of skill: Foundational, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert levels of leadership. CML is a cost-effective online certification program and T4T is the only provider of such training. CML is designed specifically for manufacturing frontline leaders. If you have some supervisors who perform more like coordinators rather than leaders, then you will want to check out this T4T Course Catalog and see what all the excitement is about!
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