“Too much to do with too less” – the challenge as well as an opportunity for a Shop Floor Supervisor!

Vulnerable resources and constraining circumstances; commitments to deliver every day and challenges to face every minute; that is where a?#ShopFloorSupervisor?finds himself today.?

His role most probably finds its roots in the erstwhile blacksmiths who dominated the metal crafting scene during the pre-industrial era. We can liken them to today’s subcontractors who own, operate, and maintain their facility, manage their finances as well as their #employees. They ran a mini business.

With the industrial revolution stepping in followed by the scientific management during 1920s and 30s, the massive scale of operation necessitated the division of his role into specialised functions to handle the new demands.

That is where the decline of his position started.

He is today assigned with the onerous task of #maximisingthroughput of every resource assigned to him, but those resources are under someone else’s control. He depends fully on them to control their vulnerabilities. Be it the vagaries of manpower, breakdown of machines, inadequacies of facilities or shortage of material; he is supposed to depend on a set of specialist functions, like HR, Quality, Maintenance, EHS, Engineering, etc., for timely support. If they fail, he fails.

Even his team of employees, wherever there is a union, have a split loyalty, often creating conflicting situations that are tough to manage. He is often the target of criticism by unions, as he is the one who drives employees to meet day-to-day targets.

With all these vulnerabilities and constraints, does his position have enough powers to #motivate his employees to deliver their best every day?

Let us look at the reality. Just compare the powers his white-collar counterparts enjoy with what he does. They have a say in hiring, setting expectations, reviewing performance, giving feedback, rewarding with increments, promotions, change of role and responsibilities and when required award punishment in the form of reduced increment rate, loss of promotion or growth opportunities, etc. But the poor #shopfloor supervisor is left to fend himself with continuing erosion of powers.

The entry of unions and collective bargaining process has pruned many of the discretions or powers the shop supervisor had. The compensation and benefits, the parameters for performance, increment and promotion have all come under negotiated settlement, thus leaving no room for supervisors to #rewardandmotivate better performance.?

Even his powers to punish people for non-performance or misbehaviour are significantly limited. He can only report such misconducts to HR through his manager. But the chances of HR initiating a disciplinary action in many cases depend, not only on the material evidence, but also on the anticipated impact on industrial relations and business. This often puts him in helpless situation at work.

All these developments have virtually brought his powers just down to – assigning workstation, allotting shift work, and distributing overtime work. Even here he is supposed to follow the prevalent practices to ward off accusations of favouritism.

It is only in those organisations where there is no union or collective bargaining process, he enjoys some semblance of powers enjoyed by white-collar counterparts, depending on the policies and practices unique to each organisation.

Among those organizations with no union, many of them have opted for practices that keep them safe from the perceived risks of unionisation and collective bargaining. For instance, many organisations are yet to have performance appraisals for #shopflooremployees. They fear opposition from employees for differentiating them on performance for remuneration, that can lead to unionisation.

Some of the organisations are content with the fact that their industrial engineering team has set clear output standards for each workstation. Every employee irrespective of his seniority or skill levels, is supposed to deliver the same standard output prescribed for that workstation. So it is not worthwhile to get into the often-resisted exercise of differential performance and rewards. ?

Now, even to get that prescribed standard output every day, we see #supervisors struggling because they do not have much on their hand either to reward or punish.

But the competition is teaching different lessons altogether for organisations. ?

Do you remember when Reliance Jio entered the telecom market, the kind of turbulence it created. Earlier we used to pay Rs.155 for just 1GB of data valid for 28 days. Reliance came out with a crashing offer of 1GB data per day for 84 days just for Rs.399. The cost of 1GB date came tumbling down to just Rs.4.75 from Rs.155. The competition that had the luxury of pricing its offerings to meet its cost and profit margins(#targetprice) till then, found itself struggling to compress its cost(#targetcost) to match the competition’s price. Many telecom companies who could not do it, went out of business, or found a partner to merge and thrive. The ones who could, survived and are growing.

Imagine what would happen if we as a company are put into similar situation? How do we bring down our cost below Rs.4.75 from Rs.155 so that we can sell our products below competition’s price? ?Very tough, isn’t it? What are the costs that we can really control and bring them down? Material and inputs costs? No. Manpower cost, not much. Then what is the cost we could really focus and bring it down? It is the conversion cost. The cost of manufacturing.

We are forced to look at the opportunities to minimise the inputs in terms of time, efforts, material, and cost, and maximise the utilisation and throughput of each and every resource. This can shred a lot of fat in the manufacturing process.

It is the man who can make a difference. If his heart is #engaged, his mind can be creative and innovative to save every second and every paisa. So, he should not be treated as a resource but as the key driver of all other resources and only he can get them to deliver their best.

The organisations have realised the cost of #disengaged or #demotivated #employees. Imagine when an employee in assembly line notices some part wrongly assembled at the previous stage. Now, what does he do? Does he bring it to the notice of his supervisor and get it rectified? Or he thinks, it is none of his business? If it goes unrectified, imagine the cost the organisation pays in terms of its image for quality and reliability.

The opportunities for error abound the workshop. It could be things like an error in the drawing or process sheet or tool we use; set up we make; process we follow; the way we inspect; and many more. He has the early signals or intuition. What does he do with those signals matters a lot for the organisation.

Every employee exercises such discretion every moment he is at work, but we may not even know. Whether those discretions are organisation positive or negative, depends on how much his heart is #engaged with the organisation. If his discretions are negative, there is a huge unnoticed and unaccounted price we pay, that makes enormous impact on customer, quality, productivity, and cost.

Realising this importance of #engagingtheheart and mind of each employee so that they stay competitive, many companies have ongoing programs on #continuousimprovements, and are trying to tap the creative potential of employees, that can significantly bring down cost of production and eliminate all kinds of wastes, while improving productivity, quality, and safety in the shop. They are keeping these initiatives out of the collective bargaining process and recognising employees with one-time-rewards for their improvements.

However, if all their programs have to yield right results, it is important that we first #engage each employee’s heart so that he is tuned to be organisation-positive in exercising his discretion. This can be done only through one person, that is the immediate supervisor who has direct impact on employee sensibilities. To do this wholeheartedly, the supervisor’s heart and mind must stay engaged first.

While these challenges are a reality for a #supervisor, they also offer him a life-time opportunity to catapult his career. He has the unique advantage of managing most of the resources required to run a business, that his white-collar counterparts do not have. If he makes best use of this unique opportunity, he can hope to acquire the individual potential to lead a business.?That is why he is called a mini business head.

This requires him to invest his time and efforts in #engaging the heart and soul of his #employee, who only can make the resources work-hard for the organisation. He should now stop looking out for the sources of power that are drying up, and instead focus within himself and his people for the immense source of energy and potential lying there and find ways to unlock them most effectively, that we will discuss in the upcoming articles.