Supervising People Effectively

Course purpose

American work life has entered a new stage. It takes a new style of supervision to achieve results in today's rapidly changing world. This seminar candidly faces today's supervisory challenges head-on and provides the essential knowledge and skills required to improve performance. Its focus is on explaining why these skills work and how to use them. This seminar describes how to create a work environment that provides employees with what they need to be productive and excited about their job.

Target audience

• Anyone at any level with responsibility for supervising the work of others
• Staff responsible for policy and procedure formulation
• Members of self-directed work teams

Participant outcomes

Participants will gain greater confidence and effectiveness in performing their managerial duties. Through lecture, group discussion, and exercises, this workshop will provide clear, research-based knowledge of motivation and human dynamics in the workplace, as well as clarifying the role of manager or supervisor. Equipped with this knowledge, participants will gain insights into the problems they currently face and identify alternative steps that they can begin taking immediately to correct them. In addition, they will be challenged by a heightened awareness of the choices that effective managers must constantly be making. Participants will receive a specially designed manual containing a review of the seminar content, guidelines, check sheets, and questionnaires, as well as valuable additional reading material.

Organizational benefits

Your organization will benefit from having all your management personnel be able to:

• Identify issues that result from differing perceptions of subordinates and supervisors.
• Understand and make use of factors that motivate people; recognize and avoid using factors that are demotivating.
• Use effective methods of providing employee recognition.
• Establish clear, effective goals and objectives which have been agreed upon by the work group.
• Provide useful feedback to subordinates relating to goals and objectives.

Presentation options

This workshop can be presented in a 1, 2, or 3-day format. The one-day version is a dynamic, intensive presentation. Along with additional information, the multi-day format allows more time for exercises and discussion groups designed to reinforce new skills and develop real-time applications of the material to existing circumstances.

Topics covered

• Clarifying the job of supervision
  Why supervision is a profession, not just a title. The important differences between supervisory and technical skills. Clarifying the manager's role and that of subordinates.

• Achieving high performance
  Developing and managing high performance employees. Why controlling plans rather than people leads to high performance. How your expectations can limit results. Establishing the atmosphere that develops results-oriented employees.

• Gaining employee commitment
  Why we do or don't make commitments. Values, attitudes, and commitment in the workplace. How supervisors affect employee commitment. How to double commitment. Setting realistic standards.

• Setting goals and objectives
  Goals, motivation, and behavior - how they work together. The power and excitement of clear objectives. Seven elements of dynamic goals. Effectively integrating the goals of the employee with those of the organization.

• Providing powerful feedback
  Who wants to know what (and why) - using the power of information. The impact of information on behavior. Helping employees improve their own performance. Presenting data objectively. Five factors of effective feedback.

• Communicating clearly
  What to say and when to say it. How to identify and express feelings at work. Keys to tension-free dialogue with your subordinates and with your boss.

• Motivation
  What we know about why people work and how you can use that knowledge. Using the power of non-monetary motivation. Stimulating self-motivation in others. Using the motivators that employees bring to the work place.

• Using authority appropriately
  Authority, responsibility, and accountability. Understanding the uses and avoiding the abuses of power. Clarifying power issues on the job.

Praise from executives, managers, and supervisors

"Very interesting and informative. This seminar will cause 100% improvement in my supervisory work." - Vice President, Household Bank, Salinas, CA

"Dynamic seminar - kept my interest (a tough assignment!). It wasn't a cookbook approach, and I'm glad. It gave me tools to determine what is wrong with my supervision and department. I'd recommend this seminar without reservation." - Department Head, Naval Research Labs, Orlando, FL

"This seminar offered solutions, and that's what I needed. Too many seminars point out problems but offer no remedies. I came with a talented employee who had do supervisory training. It was like a Junior College degree in a day for him." - Administrator, Lenoir Memorial Hospital, Kinston, NC

"I have been to several other workshops with this title. This was by far the best." - Supervisor, Vulcan Industries, West Bend, WI

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