Often times as we meet with clients the subject comes up on supervisors and their impact on business.  Owners are constantly asking how to lower cost and improve overall success through the use of added tools and support structures for their employees.  The reality we often face is a company can provide the best tools and support available but if key supervision is unwilling or unfamiliar with the best way to utilize these tools, they provide little to no impact.  Supervisors are faced with many complex and demanding challenges, even with good tools and a strong support base, how a supervisor chooses to handle these challenges has a direct impact on a company’s success.

We often promote the idea of investing in your supervisors.  This sounds simple and many clients often believe this is something they already do very well.  The area we want to focus on is not whether a company trains their supervisors on business functions and procedures but more on how to interact with all aspects of the business model and even more importantly how to integrate these items with front line employees.  An effective supervisor can make a manager’s and owners job extremely easy or incredibly hard, all based on how they are perceived by the team members they direct.  We want to help our clients improve their most valuable and impactful tools to success, their supervisors.  Investing your time and energy in this area has consistently shown successful returns.  Take the time to do a quick evaluation by reviewing the following key traits every successful supervisor should display, this will be a good starting point to evaluating performance.

·       They deliver on their word and do what they say will do.

·       They are timely and punctual.

·       They are humble with a willingness to learn and grow.   

·       They have the ability to listen, not just make demands.

·       They are active in the process, not simply a “desk jockey”.

·       They empathize with their employees and their concerns.

·       They have the willingness and ability to communicate often and clearly.