Are you struggling with your floor team?

I have read from many supervisors, particularly those that are new to the role, about their numerous challenges with leading hourly employees, especially on issues ranging from commitment to the job, absenteeism and work refusals. Often, it becomes difficult and almost impossible to cascade the vision of the organization and the passion of the supervisor down to the floor workers due to these challenges. These issues are similar in every industry, but with experience and good leadership skills, supervisors can lead a productive team that can deliver amazing results.

Below are 10 tips that you can employ to create (lateral) collaboration and (vertical) alignment on the shop floor.

1. Understand the process flow

As the saying goes, you can’t teach what you do not know. Too many team leaders struggle with a good overview of the process of their organization. They are engrossed in the chaos of barking orders and monitoring inventory that they fail to study the big picture of the business. Supervisors, on assuming duties should endeavor to go beyond their immediate unit or department to get a complete cycle understanding of the organizations business. This puts one in a good position to communicate impact and consequences of workers action or inaction. When you break things down for your team, they appreciate their effort in the company’s mission. I had a material handler in my team who sees every equipment downtime as free coffee time as he gets paid regardless- I spent a few minutes breaking down the magnitude of loss in terms of manhour and output and ended the conversation on the long-term effect on his wages. Weeks after, he called me to tell me how that discussion changed his mind set about equipment downtime.

2. Know your numbers.

Gone are the days of rote supervision. it is now serious business. To excel, team leaders should be familiar and communicate with data, time and motion studies. It is important to decouple team’s KPI, make it visible and emphasize the dependencies in the system. Today supervisors must be able to analyze and be knowledgeable in lean management and continuous improvements, reliability and supply chain. Keeping record of changes in input vs output, usage of materials vs waste with a view to improve the process or make recommendations will set you and the team in general for success.

3. Be organized

As a new team leader (or supervisor), you are subjected to initial scrutiny by your team. Irrespective of the team size, a lot is at stake, everyone is watching. you are also being watched to assess:

i. Your knowledge

ii. Your Integrity and passion

iii. Safety consciousness

iv. Attention to details-How organized you are in terms of time management, people management and decision making?

And don’t get me wrong, you cannot be obsessed about proving yourself, you may not even have met your predecessor, but it is important to keep in mind that you cannot preach what you don’t practice- and even if it is a new role, exhibit a willingness to learn, maintain punctuality and be free to ask questions.

4.Communicate effectively and give prompt feedbacks

Regular communication has been known to be effective in leading teams. Hourly employees, especially those who have put in considerable number of years, want to know that they are part of the business. They have inputs and recommendations; they want to know what the company is doing. As much as there are management information that are deemed classified, they have an interest in where the company is headed. Team leaders should always remember to communicate updates as regards shift changes, availability of hours and progress made the company. Supervisors hence needs to develop good communication skills and should be able to explain technical or complex information in simple terms.

5. Acknowledge excellence

It is a human nature to respond positively when we are commended, but it is becoming a commonplace for comments such as “Work for your pay” from team leaders. Supervisors should embrace motivational words or shout-outs.-Good job! Nice work! etc.Apart from a few bad eggs that may be present in a team, most frontline workers want to be proactive. They want to make a difference. Commend every effort geared towards continuous improvement or doing things right. If your company policy allows, reward with a coffee card or a group pizza, Only do this with discretion within company policy. Maintain a positive attitude and make your shift fun!

6.Performance assurance, not control

A Supervisor’s day is busy and can turn out to be a monotonous and predictable process, especially after logging in several years with a “performing” team, hence team leaders are often tempted to perform the start-up and close-off ritual with an expectation that the team would deliver. As much as targets may be met, team members may catch in on this to be complacent in their duties. Exceptional leaders monitor their team constantly, performing task observations, taking notes and data, identifying bottlenecks and constraint points. Remember your total output is dependent on your weakest link.

7.Maintain confidentiality-avoid unhealthy conversations

It is natural for team leaders to have a favorable disposition to some employees because of their work ethic, attention to detail or excellent delivery with task assigned. However they should not be tempted to go down the road of gossip or badmouthing other supposedly “bad” employees. Every conversation (reward or discipline) should be held behind closed door and solely with the part(y)ies concerned.

8. Empathize but don’t condone laziness

New supervisors often fall into the trap of being “too nice” or “helping the team” that they end up running errands for the team rather than leading thereby losing their voice in the process. When workers complain about the magnitude of workload or work conditions- Ensure you provide necessary tools required. Ensure that no labour standard or safety procedure is compromised, the best you can do is empathize but do not compromise the organization expectations. Always demand results from your team.

9. Exercise discretion when judging employee errors

It is ironical that most companies complain of lack of continuous improvement among frontline workers despite hitting the sledgehammer hard on errors due to proactiveness or when a worker takes continuous improvement a bit too far. When workers err on the side of improvement, team leaders should exercise discipline with caution so as not to send a wrong signal to the team,

10. Prioritize Safety

There is no gainsaying in the fact that Safety in the workplace is an overall prerogative for any employer, management or leader not only because of the obvious financial implication due to litigation and loss time due to injury, An unsafe workplace is like bad news that spreads like wildfire-One critical injury is all it takes to deter several potential good workers that might be useful for an organization. As a Supervisor, never be too busy to ignore the slightest hazard, unsafe act or unsafe condition. If it’s worth shutting down operations to fix a safety hazard, do it and record the incident! Prioritize Safety, you can always make much more product, but you can never make one finger.

This is, however, not a list of do’s and don’ts, they are totally my opinion and sometimes, duties get in the way but remember, it is not how much you can do in your day, it is how much value that your ‘much’ brings to the business. Keep winning as you lead!

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