I recently met Julie Allemagne while I was counseling at SCORE. As with my philosophy of helping others I have invited Julie to blog on The Business Source LLC blog. She’s an expert in Human Resources. Enjoy her post.
John
How to drive your supervisors crazy in 10 Easy Steps!
#10. Do not clearly define a supervisor’s project role-Are they the project lead? An advisor to the project, with no tasks to accomplish? If your supervisors don’t understand what role they play on a project or within an organization, they will fail to understand how they can best support the organizational goals.
#9. Assign several bosses for each functional role a supervisor plays-There is nothing worse than wasting time by having to report progress to more than one boss, or to obtain the green light in order to move on the next phase of a project. It’s ineffective, inefficient, and generally causes morale issues within your organization.
#8. Do not clearly state the purpose and goals for the organization- What are the expected outcomes associated with each role in the organization? Spell them out using specific, measurable goals. Assign responsibilities and deadlines as well.
#7. Make sure that the breadth and scope of your supervisors’ responsibility is unattainable. No matter how hard they work, how many Little League games they miss, how many hours they put in at the office, they will drop the ball somewhere. This is a quick way to bring down your supervisors and to cause your best employees (at all levels) to leave your organization. As priorities change, insure that you survey your supervisors in order to redistribute the workload accordingly.
#6. Change priorities weekly- Leaders in organizations have difficulty understanding the impact of their changing priorities. Employees, including managers and supervisors, need to feel that they are part of the organization’s progress, and that they can focus on priorities successfully. Especially in today’s business climate, employees at all levels need reassurance that some priorities will continue on a long term basis.
#5. Keep them busy until you figure things out– When organizations don’t exactly know the path they will take, they develop “busy work” projects for their supervisors to complete. This can be an effective way to gather intelligence on a complex issue, or to gain understanding about employees’ attitude on current issues, but when this method becomes “the norm”, it can be damaging to morale.
#4 Set up your organization in a “team” format because your competitors are doing it– Many organizations have adopted team structures because they have been told that this is a good thing. If you are going to adopt a team structure, define the purpose of the team, and be sure that the team can be successful within an appropriate scope. If you and your supervisors don’t fully understand and believe in team structures, adopting teams will frustrate your employees and may become counterproductive.
#3. Do not hold people accountable– Supervisors who have to manage around poor performers quickly become frustrated. Define your policies. Apply your policies each and every time. Organizations get into trouble when exceptions are made because of a favored employee status. Employee populations have a very strong BS detector and can see these actions much faster than leadership would ever realize.
#2. Do not teach your supervisors basic organizational skills-A CEO once told me that “if someone has made it to this level, they should know how to prepare a budget and read financial statements”. This type of thinking couldn’t be further from the truth. Even if you have highly skilled supervisors in an organization, chances are that they are not familiar with YOUR budget process, financial statements, or other organizational processes. Make time to train your supervisors so that your organizational and employee learning continues.
#1 ½ Make sure that 50-75% of supervisory time is spent in meetings! – Meetings take time and energy away from the real priorities of the organization. Have “stand up” meetings, which are focused, problem solving and within the scope of responsibilities for the employees attending them.
#1. Make sure that your meetings are redundant, include as many people as possible, have no stated purpose, and make no progress! Find more appropriate ways to communicate with employees and enlist creative ways to engage them in understanding the organization’s goals.
Julie Allemagne is the owner of Root Solutions, LLC. We partner with small to medium companies to hire and retain the right employees, increase profits, increase sales and profits. Using a variety of tools and a systematic approach, we will work with your organization to meet your business objectives. www.myrootsolutions.com 608.426.0380