The new role of a supervisor is to guide and lead employees towards growth.
If you want to develop skills as a supervisor, consider participating in Supervision Training Course by pdtraining in Dunedin and other cities in New Zealand.
Supervising employees is a job with immense responsibility because it influences the way employees work and feel about their work. Research has shown that employees leave a job not because of their pay, but because of a poor work environment. They grow dissatisfied with their job because they feel they are not valued. Monetary gains are not as important a consideration as a healthy work environment with good interpersonal relationships. To build such an environment, supervisors need to develop leadership and mentoring skills.
What Do Employees Want?
Employees want a safe and peaceful environment to work in. It is a known fact that if a person is forced to live in a hostile or negative environment for forty hours a week, it will adversely impact their mental and physical health. It is the responsibility of a supervisor to ensure that bullying, gossiping, insulting behaviour, and discrimination at the workplace is not tolerated. Providing a safe workplace is the very basic need of every employee that must be fulfilled. After that, a supervisor may develop the work environment to make it conducive for learning and growth.
Developing a Supportive and Fun Work Environment
A fun workplace with good interpersonal relationships keeps the employees engaged, productive and satisfied with their jobs. Instead of working on each employee, supervisors can create a dynamic work environment where each employee becomes motivated to do better. For that, supervisors need to develop these qualities:
- Guiding instead of correcting
- Praising in public, criticising in private
- Keeping the highest expectations from employees
- Motivating them towards excellence
- Building team spirit
- Providing support
- Instilling independence
- Making work fun
- Sharing goals, expectations and disappointments
- Rewarding employees
It is important for supervisors to understand that every person wants to become better than before. It may be in terms of personality, excellence in work, economic well-being, etc. To achieve that goal, an employee will be willing to put in hard work. Supervisors need to identify what motivates an employee to do better, and provide them the tools and the motivation to achieve that goal.
Even though the different goals (personality development, professional development, and economic success) look diverse, they are interconnected. An employee that does well professionally will see improvement in his or her personality and economic status. In the same way, for economic success, an employee will need to do better at job and enhance social skills. Supervisors only need to identify the goals of their employees and develop ways through which they can achieve it.
Leadership and Mentoring Role
Employees expect to be guided, especially when important decisions are to be made. The role of a supervisor must, therefore, include mentoring rather than correcting. Supervision must not be passive. It must not limit itself to ensuring that work is done smoothly as per the company guidelines. It must challenge, involve, motivate and bring newness to how work is done, and how employees interact with each other. A supervisor has tremendous control over his or her employees and if they use it well, they can build a highly productive and happy workforce.
Pdtraining delivers 1000’s of professional development courses each year in Wellington, Auckland, Napier, Christchurch, Hamilton, Dunedin and Tauranga, so you can be assured your training will be delivered by a qualified and experienced trainer.
All public Supervision Training courses include am/pm tea, lunch, printed courseware and a certificate of completion. Customised courses are available upon request so please contact pdtraining on 1300 121 400 to learn more.