How to be a Good Supervisor

I have been a supervisor for roughly five to six years. My first year was one of the roughest years I have ever had in my life. Supervising people, regardless of their gender, age, race, whatever is always difficult. If you supervise one employee or one hundred, you have to learn and adjust to each personality. I tried to handle everyone the same way, all at once, across the board. I was wrong. Below are some of my own, personal experiences. As well as tips on being a good boss.

I am going to share some of my experiences of being a new boss. Some of these are recent experiences too. No matter how many years of experience you have, you can never be prepared for any situation.

This first one was when I first took over the shift I was working on. I was in charge of three people and was considered to be a 'working supervisor'. An employee decided to take a break in an unauthorized area and disrupted the work of another employee. When this employee finished their break, I dressed this person down in front of the other staff members. Bad idea. What did I do wrong? I disciplined this person in front of others, instead of doing it in private. Soon after that, another employee took a break in the same unauthorized area and disrupted the work of an employee. The first employee I disciplined was upset I didn't do the same to this other one right away. I had actually planned to wait until the employee finished their break. I didn't, I listened to the employee and stopped it right away. That started another problem in itself. Anyways, this event haunted me for years. The first employee always went back to that incident on why she didn't like working with me. It caused bad blood for years. I humiliated her in front of others, and I didn't establish taking breaks in an unauthorized area was wrong for my entire staff.

This next incident was just a poor choice of words. By this time I was in charge of over 10 staff members. I was holding a staff meeting and ended up talking about a new computer system. I was discussing it and stated that newer employees wouldn't have a problem catching on, since they don't know how the other system works and wouldn't confuse the two. But our older employees may have an issue since they are used to the existing system. One of my employees who was older in age took offense, assuming i meant I was referring to her age. It wasn't the case, I just made a poor choice of words. But it proves that your staff will listen to each word you say and take it to heart. That almost turned into an official complaint, but luckily it didn't.

Another problem when I took over an entire office was that I was nit-picky from the start. If someone didn't initial something, or didn't put a paper in the right place, etc. I would ding them on it. They wouldn't be written up, but I would bring it up to them. In time all of my staff resented me and felt like they had to be perfect in order not to get in trouble. It took a good year for me to drop that habit, but it took another year for staff to realize I didn't do that anymore.

Jokes. Oh my gosh did I make a bad mistake trying to make jokes. We hired a new employee, who lasted about four days, who I made a casual joke to. I was introducing her to someone else, and we were talking about our staffing issues. I said something along the lines of, "At this point we were taking anyone we could get, so we got you." It was a joke, just to meant to imply we were taking anyone who wanted the job since the spots were hard to fill. Well, the employee who I introduced the new employee to complained on me. She said the new employee could have taken offense to it, etc. Funny thing was is that she didn't. But my boss still had to talk to me about it. A few times my jokes were taken out of context. So I cut them off. In time people were complaining I wasn't talkative and casual enough, and just talking about work. I couldn't win. In time though I found a balance between it all.

Another problem that was entirely my fault is that I failed to communicate to my staff. My boss authorized everyone to work overtime again. I didn't mention it to some of my employees. In fact, I totally forgot. But some knew about it and were working overtime. Another employee found out about it and became upset because she thought the employees working overtime were receiving preferential treatment. That made me realize that I needed to communicate as soon as possible if I receive new information relevant to my entire staff.

Below are some tips on how to be a better boss:

• Communicate! Always communicate with your staff. The longer you delay information, either to everyone or to one person, the more difficult it will be for your staff to prepare for changes and listen to you as a leader.
• Do not assume anything. Just because someone made an error or mistake once, don't assume they will always do it again. The same goes on the flip side. Just because someone always does good doesn't mean they will always do good. I have had employees go from good to bad, and bad to good.
• An employees problems may not just be work. Employees can have problems outside of their work that could affect their work greatly. It takes communication and talking to your staff member one-on-one to learn what that problem is, and supporting them in getting better.
• Forgive the mistakes! Just because an employee makes a mistake, you shouldn't note it down in an evaluation or immediately write them up for it. Mistakes happen. I have made mistakes. It's how we learn and grown in our positions. Forgive and forget. On the other hand...
• Don't ignore multiple mistakes. If an employee continues to have a problem with a job task, ensure you keep track of those mistakes. Work with the employee though to fix the problem. Don't write them up or downgrade them on an evaluation without giving them a chance to improve. That's unfair.
• Watch your tone and attitude. If you walk in the office in a bad mood, everyone will catch that same bad mood. If you are flippant about a decision made by the higher-ups, your staff will be as well. Your staff will look to you so see how to act and what is appropriate. It's rough to try to be happy and uplifting all of the time, but that's part of the job.
• Encourage your staff. If you see a job promotion they would be good for, encourage them to take it! Always train your staff to take over your job. To help them grow. You won't always be there, and they could be. You should always train them to grow beyond the position they are in now. Not only is it good for the office, but it will make you look good if you want a promotion.
• Visit with your staff. Go walk around to the various offices or workstations where your staff work. Ask what is going on, small talk with them, etc. I spend maybe a hour a day doing that. They think I am being nosey, but I am simply getting to know them. They grow to expect it and like it.
• Ask for feedback. Let your staff give feedback on decisions made in the office. They do the job - you don't. If you come out with a policy, let you staff review it. They may have a better way of doing things. It doesn't matter how the task is done, as long as it is done in the end. Have that open door policy.
• Sick leave. The ever difficult sick leave. I still have the problem of assuming someone is lying when they call in sick. It's hard not to think that once you learn how the person is. You can't do that. It makes your staff feel guilty when they get sick and feel like they have to come in. That's not fair to them. Plus they may call in sick when they aren't sick just to make you upset and annoyed, just to get under your skin. And maybe because they don't want to work with you in the first place. Just be understanding. However, if you see a pattern of excessive sick leave abuse, you can investigate it. But never pry into why someone is sick. You can't by law. Talk to them and ask if there is anything you can do to help. Say that you noticed they have been sick a lot and you want to see if you can help them resolve any issues. Trust me, it's worked before.
• Be consistent. Don't discipline someone for something, but fail to discipline someone else for the exact same thing. The same with your decisions. Don't be all over the board when it comes to the decisions you make. If you are consistent, then your staff will know what you expect from them. They will be better employees and respect you a lot more.
• Don't be nit-picky. Don't sweat the small stuff. There is no point except that you will be suffocating your employees and giving them an excuse to leave the job. Once they see you don't care about the small stuff, they won't make mistakes. They will be more relaxed. The more they stress about something the bigger the chance they will make a mistake.
• Provide feedback. Don't wait until a yearly evaluation to tell an employee how they are doing. Give them feedback all year long. You don't have to give them a full report. But you can at least say they are doing great in an area or need more work in another area. It helps and words of advice will go a long way.
• Use your new employees. All new employees will come in not knowing a thing about your operation. As they learn the various job tasks, ask them what could be improved. Ask them what they see is being done wrong and ask suggestions on how to fix it. Some may be nervous to do so, but some may be honest about their responses. Use them as valuable tools. Let them see as much of the job as possible so that you can get fresh and new ideas from them.
• Use your experienced employees. Just because someone doesn't have a leadership title doesn't mean they can't have a leadership role. You can set someone up as a trainer, or as a shift leader, or anything to give them more responsibility. Some will feel proud of receiving additional duties even if they don't get a pay increase. Plus you could be grooming them to fill the role of a supervisor one day.
• Learn personalities. Everyone is different. Just because you can be direct with one employee doesn't mean you can be direct with another employee. It doesn't work that way. Learn how someone reacts to any given situation, and adjust what you say and do according to that. I used to react the same way each time I talked to someone. I made people cry and I made people yell. I adjusted myself to the person and helped them come to terms to any situation.