Supervisors are your front line of defense against any employment claims, low morale, productivity issues, and a number of other workplace problems. Unfortunately, many companies fail to adequately provide supervisor training and select the wrong people for the position. When this happens, disaster can strike with a fury.
What To Do When you Promote Someone
Many companies promote their highest performing employees to supervisors Many companies promote their highest performing employees to supervisors, which is a bad starting point if the sole reason you are promoting that person. The most crucial step in choosing a supervisor is to select the right person for the job. That does not necessarily mean that the person is completely ready to fulfill all aspects of the job because as we all know, supervisor training is essential. The fact is that the best candidate is someone that is either prepared for the role or can grow into it.
How do you pick the best supervisor? Here is what you should look for:
- Are they independent? Do they make decisions by themselves (that are within the range of what is within their authority)
- Do they interact well with their coworkers? Are they relatable? Do people like them?
- Do they help others without asking? Are they constantly looking for ways to improve the team?
- Do they take responsibility for what they do wrong or do they blame others for their mistakes?
- Do they have a growth mindset? Are they looking for ways to improve themselves?
- Do they represent the culture of the organization or the direction that the organization wishes to go?
You should also seek references from any and all internal and external applicants to determine whether they would be successful and how they actually work with others. Positive remarks from coworker speaks volumes about whether a person is actually a good leader or just someone that knows how to advocate for themselves.
Retraining and Continued Maintenance
People forget. Unless you are training and preparing your supervisor on a regular basis, they will forget what they need to do, especially if it is a task that they are not used to performing. For example, sexual harassment may not be something that supervisors deal with on a regular basis. It may be the case that they have never had to deal with a complaint from a member of their team. However, they need to know how to respond when these issues occur- and they will occur. This is one of the reasons that many states have adopted special supervisor training requirements on the issue of sexual harassment. California, for example, has initiated a requirement for supervisors of one additional hour per year of training on sexual harassment on top of the one hour required for all employees that work for employers with 5 or more employees.
There are a number of topics that supervisors should receive regular training on. Some of these can be done through morning meetings, additional work hours for supervisors, or special training days.
Topics that supervisors should receive training on include:
- Basic Management skills
- How to recognize employee achievement
- Motivating your team
- How to improve employee performance
- Handling employee complaints
- Dealing with employee conflict
- Sexual Harassment
- Safety on the Job
- Disability/Light Duty Requests
- Union Organizing
- Drug Testing, Marijuana, and Opioid usage
- Employee Discipline
- All procedures and policies in the employee handbook
- Supervisors need to know about the various workplace rules at the company- and not just briefly scanning the handbook and signing the page acknowledging they have read it. They need to have a much deeper knowledge than the average employee and how the rules need to be enforced in a variety of situations. This is going to be pivotal from a prevention and preparation perspective for your business.
- Supervisors need to know the various steps that they need to take to conduct a workplace investigation (more info available here).
- Managers may need to function as the primary investigator and enforce discipline during their shift. Supervisors that work 3rd shift or on the weekends when no HR staff is available especially need to know how to respond to the various problems that may arise in the workplace. They need to know how to gather information for the investigation before it is lost or employees no longer want to talk about it. The quicker that an investigation can begin, which includes taking witness statements and determining whether to suspend an offending employee while the investigation is ongoing, the better the overall investigation will go.
Conclusion
Supervisors are the frontline in a company’s defense. A good supervisor can minimize the risk of employment claims by being proactive, applying the appropriate response to a workplace issue, and by improving the morale and quality of the team. A bad supervisor will ignore employee complaints, not respond or address complaints, and unfortunately are often the cause of an employee lawsuit.
Choosing the right supervisors and providing supervisor training is a must for any company. It is an investment that pays dividends to a company in increased productivity, positive workplace morale/performance, and preparedness to respond to employment situations.
The information provided in this blog is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, then you should speak with a lawyer about your specific issues. Every legal issue is unique. A lawyer can help you with your situation. Reading the blog, contacting me through the site, emailing me or commenting on a post does not create an attorney-client relationship between any reader and me.
The information provided is my own and does not reflect the opinion of my firm or anyone else.
