We feel vulnerable to lawsuits because our brand-new supervisors and managers haven’t been trained. What guidelines do you give for the first few weeks?
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Here’s what you had to say:
- Create a Supervisor Survival Guide that has no more than one half-page for each policy or guideline you expect them to enforce or follow. Include under each policy or guideline a person they can call for in-depth information. This worked for us when we had managers all over the country. We always had at least one new person and the survival guide helped them through those first crucial weeks and gave them the support network they needed. — K.B.
- We have a standard training program that all new supervisors go through. We run the introductory phase of it no more often than once a month, however, so we need some basic instruction to get people through their first few weeks. This is given by the HR department and consists of a one-hour briefing. We talk about the responsibilities of a supervisor and discuss situations in which new supervisors should seek assistance and where to go to get it. If they have a question about benefits or overtime, they go to HR. — S.D.
- We have set up a mentoring program for new supervisors. They meet with their mentor, who is an experienced supervisor or manager, at least once a week and more often if specific issues need immediate attention. We have found that the new supervisors feel freer to seek counsel from their mentor than from their direct boss. Going to the boss is perceived as weak. Of course, you have to monitor this to be sure the boss doesn’t feel left out of the loop and not part of the decision process. — A.J.