6 Pointers for Running an Effective Supervisor Training Program

In consulting with a client recently on improving customer service, the client was concerned that the company’s service didn’t meet its expectations and goals. As we performed the assignment, the most serious problem to surface was that the supervisors were relatively inexperienced and hadn’t managed people very long. The supervisory team included anyone from a first-time supervisor to someone with one year’s experience. Adding to the problem, this call center flexes from 100 seats to 190 seats for six months of the year.

You can ask the obvious question: Why doesn’t this company hire and retain experienced supervisors? But there’s a deeper issue at hand for many businesses. Specifically, how do they train and develop first-line managers in the direct industry? So I posed this question, “How do you train your first-line supervisors to manage your call center and warehouse associates?”

Beyond certain supervisor training topics, such as listening skills, conflict management and resolution, among others, the most important step is to invest in developing a management training program for less experienced supervisors, even if they have prior experience elsewhere.

What company goals and skills in managing others do you want supervisors to be responsible for and hopefully excel at? Here are a few universal questions and goals to consider.

1. Customer is king. What are your standards and expectations for providing the appropriate customer service at a cost you can afford? What are the service level metrics, whether call center or warehouse, you will monitor and expect them to achieve?

2. Shared values. At the very least, it’s getting the supervisor to buy into the mission statement — formal or informal — and what management wants to achieve for the stakeholders. While this can be overdone, what basics do you need to impart to the stakeholders so they understand the big picture and how they fit in? How will you achieve this?

3. Achieve productivity. How will you monitor team members and individual production? What are your expectations for them as they manage their teams? How do you overcome the negative connotation associated with productivity improvement?

4. Take initiative within the authority you give them. How much do you empower them to take care of the customer, taking all but key decisions to management?

5. Coaching. In larger environments, coaching is done at the manager level. But in smaller organizations, where there may not be the availability of management time, first-line supervisors are often expected to possess some, if not all, of these skills. What’s your system for coaching workers?

6. All the other stuff. There are a plethora of topics that supervisors need to be well-versed in. Everything from Equal Opportunity, OSHA, EPA and hazardous chemicals, and so on. What does your company need to develop and keep up-to-date here?

Whatever your objectives are for teaching people how to effectively manage others, design an internal management training program to help achieve these results. But most importantly, draw on the strengths of middle and top management to teach segments (topics) at which they excel. With the continual change the industry and businesses in general face today, constant updating of material and longer-term supervision is an ongoing process.

Curt Barry is president of F. Curtis Barry & Co., a consultancy specializing in operations and fulfillment, systems, benchmarking, and inventory management. You can reach him at (804) 740-8743 or cbarry@fcbco.com.