New supervisors have a lot to learn about managing their people, and that's to say nothing of the welter of compliance challenges they face. Compassionate but untrained supervisors can quickly create surprisingly expensive liabilities.

Today's Advisor concludes the five critical factors for supervisory success. The ideas are from Jonna Contacos-Sawyer and Polly Heeter Wright. Both are with HR Consultants, Inc., of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. They shared their tips at an audio conference sponsored by BLR®.

(See yesterday's Advisor for the first three success factors.)

4. Motivate

It's important to motivate yourself and to motivate others. The more positive your attitude, the more effective a supervisor you can be, says Contacos-Sawyer.

Think about what motivates you—a thank you, a please, hearing praise about a job well done? Most likely, those things will motivate your employees, too.

Ask yourself:

  • Do you walk your talk?
  • Do you treat people fairly and consistently?
  • Are you willing to do what you are asking other people to do?

To motivate, consider:

  • Getting employees more involved
  • Providing cross-training
  • Delegating responsibilities
  • Identifying opportunities for advancement
  • Showing trust in employees

Strengths that help motivation:

  • Comfort with employee involvement
  • Delegating ability

Weaknesses that will detract from motivation:

  • Micromanagement
  • Dictatorial management

Common hurdles for new supervisors:

  • Negaholics. (Ask them to share what their intentions are and what their solution is, says Wright.)
  • Previous distrust of supervisor
Yes, you do have time to train managers and supervisors with BLR's 10-Minute HR Trainer. Try it at no cost or risk. Read more.

5. Compliance

Compliance is a very broad area and needs in-depth training, says Wright. Of course, supervisors must be trained on discrimination, harassment, and compensation. Some of the particular points her firm emphasizes include:

  • New supervisors need to know that their actions and inactions contribute to the level of liability an organization faces. Their actions (or inactions) are attributable to the organization.
  • Supervisors face potential individual liability.
  • New supervisors often make big mistakes in wage and hour issues. Typical problems involve allowing or requesting work off the clock or asking employees to make up hours in a different work week.
  • The other significant failure is not documenting performance issues on an ongoing basis. When a string of performance appraisals say "meets expectations" with no comments, it's tough to prove poor performance, says Wright.

How about your new supervisors? Fully trained and ready to deal with employment issues? Especially when new to the job, most supervisors don't know how to handle things like compensation and appraisals (or harassment, hiring, firing, FMLA, or accommodating a disability, for that matter).

It's not their fault—you didn't hire them for their HR knowledge—and you can't expect them to act appropriately right out of the box. But you can train them to do it.

Train your line managers with BLR's 10-Minute HR Trainer. There won't be time for classroom boredom. Try it at no cost. Read more.

To train supervisors and managers effectively, you need a program that's easy for you to deliver and that requires little time out of busy schedules. Also, if you're like most companies in these tight budget days, you need a program that's reasonable in cost.

We asked our editors what they recommend for training supervisors in a minimum amount of time with maximum effect. They came back with BLR's unique 10-Minute HR Trainer.

As its name implies, it trains managers and supervisors in critical HR skills in as little as 10 minutes for each topic. 10-Minute HR Trainer offers these features:

  • Trains in 50 key HR topics, including manager and supervisor responsibilities under all major employment laws and how to legally carry out managerial actions from hiring to termination. See a complete list of topics, below.
  • Uses the same teaching sequence master teachers use. Every training unit includes an overview, bullet points on key lessons, a quiz, and a handout to reinforce the lesson later.
  • Completely prewritten and self-contained. Each unit comes as a set of reproducible documents. Just make copies or turn them into overheads, and you're done. Take a look at a sample lesson.
  • Updated continually. As laws change, your training needs do as well. 10-Minute HR Trainer provides new lessons and updated information every 90 days, along with a monthly Training Forum newsletter, for as long as you are in the program.
  • Works fast. Each session is so focused that there's not a second of waste of time. Your managers are in and out almost before they can look at the clock. Yet they remember small details even months later.

We've arranged to make 10-Minute HR Trainer available to our readers for a 30-day, in-office, no-cost trial. Review it at your own pace and try some lessons with your colleagues. If it's not for you, return it at our expense. Go here and we'll set things up.

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