Frontline supervisor development in Kansas City

Where the supervisors work

Office and administrative staff have the most supervisors in the metro, 8,860 of them, and food service is next at 7,650. Production supervisors, the foremen of the factory floor, come sixth of the seven at 4,460. These seven are not the bureau’s full list of supervisor occupations, so the real total is higher.

The promotion changes the social system

In Alan Benson, Danielle Li and Kelly Shue’s study of 38,843 salespeople, the top sellers were the likeliest to be made managers. Their teams then sold less. A sales record is easy to see. The same pattern is likely on a shop floor, where an operator’s output is posted on the shift board for everyone to read.

Yesterday’s peer now assigns work, writes down performance and decides when a problem goes up the line. The crew watches the new supervisor closely for favorites, for problems left alone, and for authority put on for show. The old job never asked them to do any of it.

What the supervisor talks about sets the priority

Dov Zohar published a field experiment with line supervisors in 2002. Crew members were interviewed repeatedly about how often their supervisor raised safety, compared with speed and schedules. Each supervisor got the results every week. The section managers above them saw the same results and used them to make safety an explicit goal.

Safety talk went up in the trial groups and stayed flat in the control groups. Minor-injury rates, earplug use and safety-climate scores changed with it, and the change held after the intervention. The intervention worked on what supervisors talked about, and the injury numbers moved with it.

Rehearse the recurring moments

Most of the job happens in five situations that come back every week. They are the start-of-shift huddle, a missed standard, a hidden problem, a conflict between experienced people, and the handoff of risk to the next crew. Each can be rehearsed before it happens.

In P×E terms a production floor is often high in threat, because mistakes hurt people or cost money fast. Its stability depends on the shift, the staffing and the season. The same supervisor can be in a different arena on nights in December than on days in May. Build the development around the arena they are in.