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Help, They Made Me a Supervisor—Part 2—What to Do

Help, no kidding. New supervisors are in for a great ride, but if you don’t train them well—and fast—they’re going to crash and burn. Here are tips and news about a new audio conference especially for new supervisors.


Yesterday we posed 9 problem areas for new supervisors and promised that today, we’d offer some help on what to do about them. Here’s what we recommend:

Train, Train, Train

First, schedule training for new supervisors at the earliest possible moment. Experts suggest training in several tiers. For example, the first day spend an hour with a few basics. Then layer more training during the next few weeks, with more detail each time. Tailor the sessions to the new supervisor’s workload. If he or she is responsible for hiring, for example, focus on that.

Delay Action

Emphasize that few questions supervisors face demand immediate answers. It’s perfectly acceptable to say “I’ll check on that,” then go to HR or your boss or mentor for advice.

Give Simple Guidelines

Tell them that during this initial period, before you’ve completed training, do not hire, do not fire, do not discipline, don’t approve leave, don’t take any significant personnel action on your own. Come to HR or discuss the case with your boss first.

Focus on the Job

To avoid legal traps such as discrimination in interviewing or treatment once hired, the best advice is to focus on the job. For applicants, that means talking about the job and whether the candidate is prepared to do it, not personal factors. For employees, it means explaining expectations, and how they are doing against them, without personal comments.

Supervisor Boot Camp

Let’s say you’ve just promoted a brand-new frontline supervisor. Once the “Congratulations!” cake has disappeared from the break room, the real work begins because it’s your job to help turn that raw recruit into a functioning manager.
How can you do it? How can you teach new supervisors to give directions, instead of following them? To succeed in coaching, motivating, and even disciplining employees who were once their peers (and still their friends)? To focus on the bigger management picture, rather than simply doing their work and going home at night? What legal mistakes could they make that will cost you big bucks and lots of embarrassment?

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