Supervisor Training: Is The Investment Worth It?

Supervisor Training: Is The Investment Worth It?

These so-called softer-skill training type courses are often undervalued and underestimated, dismissed and not paid enough attention to. It has great potential and value for any company. It is but one of many pro-active steps that a business and management team can take to improve their performance. Investment in people and employees will pay off in the short, mid and longer term. Human interaction skills do not just happen by themselves. You might be lucky enough to find a prospect or candidate that already has what it takes, but with no experience in this supervisory role and you want to increase the odds of succeeding, not failing. Training supervisors well can filter through all levels of the organization, including frontline and grass-roots.  Basic information, expectations are clearly communicated and shared with these handful of entrusted leaders and then mobilized effectively and cost-efficiently throughout the organization.

When asked what supervisors typically do, the role of the supervisor conventionally is seen as one of the more difficult ones in the business. It carries an immense amount of responsibility for the success or failure of the company, affecting bottom line and profit margins directly. Overseeing operations and people, peers, processes, can be an overwhelming burden or a pleasure-filled leadership role for the right candidate. Organizations need to find that delicate balance between these extremes to optimize and capitalize on it fully. Supervisors have to fulfill various responsibilities to many key stakeholders, like fellow employees, subordinates, other managers, work groups and the larger organization. Carrying the full brunt of the responsibility for ensuring work gets done, so no person or business assets’ security, safety or health is jeopardized. A tall order on any given day for anyone. The training will better prepare the chosen candidate for what lies ahead, reducing cost to do business over the longer term, if they start applying what was learnt and shared in and through the supervisor training program.

There is no way realistically that businesses can leave their success up to random chance or the hope that the right type of person is placed in these strategic roles throughout different levels of the organization and operations. You can now delegate the responsibility of the day-to-day running and operations to someone else, prepared for what it will ask of them and overseeing what is unfolding and happening in the workplace, supporting, managing, enforcing, leading by example. Consistency, not playing favorites, disciplining when required, intervening when necessary, those are the behaviors you will be shaping through these types of training initiatives.