Training of supervisors - A study by Artur Victoria

The keystone of any employee training program is the training of supervisors. A supervisor needs to have a thorough knowledge of all the jobs performed in the shop or section over which he has control. Under normal conditions most foremen have this technical ability, for it has been the basis upon which they have been selected. When foremen fail it is because they lack appreciation of their responsibilities or lack skill in planning and laying out the work to be done, in instructing the workers, in leadership, or a combination of two or more of these qualities. leia todo o artigo

Performance of Clerical Employees - A study by Artur Victoria

While clerical employees should participate in the goal setting, the degree to which they should be permitted to set their own performance standards is necessarily limited. Yet management must depend on this group to keep the business going, to help realize profit goals, to reduce costs, and to move up into positions of responsibility in lower and middle management. Discussion of individual performance results is equally important. The manager will have to pick up and carry the ball more frequently, but should encourage the individual to participate in the discussion and freely express his viewpoint. The format for appraisal of a non-exempt salaried employee performance is necessarily less complex than the one used for exempt salaried employees. leia todo o artigo

Managing the Supervision - A study by Artur Victoria

Supervisory authority, according to a study, can be exercised at three different levels. These are:

- The second line supervisor. This description is applied to a senior foreman or works superintendent, who directs the supervisory system and links it with higher management. As second line supervisors deal with other supervisors rather than directly with the labor force, it is open to question whether on the definition given they are supervisors at all. - The first line supervisor. This is the man who has charge of the department, who gives instructions to the operatives, and is regarded by them as their boss. - The semi-supervisor, who is the leading hand, working charge hand or machine setter. Such people may have little or no formal authority, but less experienced operatives may come to them for assistance because of their knowledge and experience, while taking their formal instructions from the first line supervisor. leia todo o artigo

Managing The Discipline - A study by Artur Victoria

Questions asked of foremen attending courses and seminars over several years reveal that most of them have relatively few disciplinary problems. It does not follow that morale in their departments is always good, but on the whole they appear to have little difficulty in running their departments without serious friction. There have been few, however, who have had no disciplinary problems at all to report. Most of these problems were minor ones concerned with an isolated difficult individual, but there was the occasional more serious problem which had to be passed up the line to senior management. The following general principles are suggested in dealing with disputes and disciplinary problems: leia todo o artigo

Manager Planning and Control - A study by Artur Victoria

Although planning and control are logically distinct, it will be seen that for most practical purposes they are aspects of the same thing. It is impossible to control anything except by reference to a plan since the plan contains the standards by which performance is assessed, and from the other point of view it is useless to have a plan without a control system to ensure that it is carried out. The same document is frequently used both for planning and for control; on a progress chart for example, actual performance is set against planned performance, and on a budgetary control statement actual expenditure is set out against budgeted expenditure. The production control department in many factories is concerned not only with control procedures but with what is described above as production planning. We may therefore regard planning and control as aspects of the same management function, and shall refer to it as the control function. leia todo o artigo

Management Authority - A study by Artur Victoria

The formal lines of management authority give a misleading picture of how good management works. There must be an organization structure, but the formally defined relationships of which it is composed are no more the reality of management than the rules of football are the game itself. Organization charts are necessarily based on the definition of responsibilities, and taken by themselves give the impression that management consists of instructions handed down by superiors to subordinates. In practice good management does not work like this, it works through co-operation among members of teams. The manager is not so much an order giver as a co-coordinator of the skills of the members of his team.

He has the formal authority to overrule members of the team because in the last resort he is responsible for what is done, but if his normal approach is authoritarian he cannot be using his subordinates abilities to full advantage. There is a distinction between employee-centered and job-centered supervision. Job-centered supervision proceeds by breaking the total operation into simple components, selecting people to do them, training these people, supervising them to see that they do the work properly, and wherever possible providing a monetary incentive scheme to get the required motivation. In this system the initiative and decisions rest with management and operatives are merely required to carry out instructions. leia todo o artigo