It was performance evaluation month. The boss called Liza (not her real name), one of his employees, into his room to discuss her evaluation. She was not expecting too much except maybe a little salary increase. It was her second year in this outsourcing company. The result of her evaluation left her speechless. She was happy to see that her salary was almost doubled. But the next announcement surprised her even more; she had just been promoted to supervisor! She felt that she was not yet ready for the position (but obviously, she liked the salary). Her boss tried to calm her by saying that nothing would change, that she should just continue what she was doing, and that she should make other staff become like her. She couldn’t forget those words. She was proud because her efforts had been recognized.
When Liza was in her first few years of being a supervisor, she grumbled to the company’s HR consultant about how her staff member brought her headache. This employee had an annoying attitude, not delivering output and not following her instructions. She was shocked with the HR consultant’s answer. The problem could be she. And that general assumption would always be “Supervisors greatly influence and affect employees’ job performance. Poor performance could be a negative effect of the supervisor’s leadership.” From then on, it was instilled in her mind that employees’ poor performance could be due to a misdirected leader. A supervisor is always responsible for his or her staff’s actions. For example:
· The supervisor has to shoulder most, if not all, of the penalties the team needs to pay as a result of the staff’s negligence.
· The supervisor receives all clients’ complaints, bad words, and fierce looks for poor service done by the staff.
· The supervisor has to explain to the boss any unmet deadline or inaccurate report.
· The supervisor feels guilty whenever team members have to cram reports and work on backlogs.
From having been a staff member who used to do her own work, monitor her own deadlines, explain herself to the boss, and account for her own actions, Liza had been promoted to supervisor and now needed to do all these things for another person. The role was new to her. “So if my staff do not perform well, there would be no one to blame except me, the supervisor,” she always tells herself.
A newly promoted supervisor could be likened to fruit that is forced to ripen and is thus bitter, sour or tasteless rather than to properly ripened fruit that tastes sweet and delicious.
Yes, supervisors could be the problem and therefore should be accountable for their subordinates’ poor performance. But this holds true only if the supervisors have been equipped to perform their role. If they had not been trained, who would be responsible for their poor performance?
It is assumed that when employees join an organization, their knowledge and abilities qualify them to perform the work. Employees are highly motivated, and they aim to achieve the company’s objective in the best way they can. Supervisors have the responsibility to draw these abilities and knowledge out of the employees and use them to attain the company’s objectives. Honing these abilities is the supervisors’ critical role.
But supervisors need management support in the form of training. Most small and mid-sized businesses (and sadly, some larger companies as well) fail to consider this need. It is common for a company to initially hire staff to multi-task. When they excel, management recognizes them as role models. When the company grows, management promotes them without giving them sufficient training or education, assuming that they would automatically obtain both with the promotion. Not realizing the impact on the supervisors, their subordinates and the organization, they pay attention to front-line training but overlook the need for supervisors’ training.
According to the University of California HR training and development department, supervisors need training in leadership, employee selection and evaluation, diversity, conflict management, communication skills, delegation, team-building, and change. Possessing these skills would boost productivity, increase retention, prevent conflict within the organization and ultimately, achieve the company’s vision and mission.
Train them, and see the change.
Roan V. Francisco is an MBA student of Ramon V. Del Rosario College of Business, De La Salle University. She wrote this essay for her elective on Strategic Human Resource Management.
The views expressed above are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official position of De La Salle University, its faculty and its administrators.
roanvfrancisco@gmail.com