The Role of Todays Supervisors - Literature review Example

Today’s supervisors

A supervisor is a person who has the mandate of managing a particular group of employees. The employees report to the supervisor and his role includes overseeing organizations activities to ensure goals are met, and making sure employees perform their duties according to the organizations standards. A supervisor also ensures that every arising issue in the organization is dealt with to overcome any obstacles, which hinder the business goals from being met. A supervisor may possess either technical human relation or conceptual skills, which are critical in their daily operations. A supervisor also needs to be a critical decision maker in order to provide solution and make changes in the organization, which will lead to fulfillment of the business goals (Bradley et al, 14). This paper focuses on supervision as one of the roles in management and the factors, which affect today’s supervisors.

Today’s supervisors require to poses certain critical skill, which are instrumental in the supervisor’s role. Supervisors are usually employees who have been promoted after gaining certain expertise in diverse business fields. An insight into the essential skills required for today’s supervisors is an important lesson for any business of any size. Knowledge about today’s supervisors is instrumental in helping to improve the skills used in management in today’s work environment. It is also instrumental in guiding supervisors in understanding the techniques, which are required.

Supervisors are a significant factor when in an organization’s operations since they help in building morale of employee; therefore, today’s supervisors therefore need to be accountable of their responsibilities as leaders and managers. Supervisors also need to learn how to deal with other employees through having extensive organizational and communication skills. This is necessary as they are usually in daily contact with them.

Diversity in workforce facing supervisors

The day-to-day activities of supervisors require them to relate with different types of human personnel in the organizations. This requires the supervisors to be equipped with managerial skills, which are flexible depending on the type of employees, which they deal with. Some of the elements in diversity may work for the benefit of the supervisor depending on various circumstances. However, diversity may also play as a significant challenge since people from different backgrounds would have different approach in handling organizational tasks. Diversity in workforce can depend on the ethnicity, origin, gender or age of staff members. Sometimes the organization may have more number of female employees as compared to male employees (Wheeless, et al., 10).

This kind of gender diversity may be a significant factor in the supervisor’s daily job. Sometimes different organizations may have employees from different origin whose values and culture may be a significant factor to consider. This may affect the work ethics in the business since different people may have diverse preferences which therefore means supervisors may need to know how to handle them differently (Afzalur, et al., 7). For instance, in some cases female employees may find it weird to undertake certain tasks while certain communities may also find it offensive if treated in a certain manner.

Management styles of today’s supervisors

There are several techniques, which are critical in a supervisor’s assignment, which are also important in managing organizations activities. The current job environment may force supervisors to adapt skills, which originate from experiences under previous supervisors. However, this can only work if they apply ideas learnt from successful leaders (Afzalur et al, 24). The new techniques being used are more of motivational and involve giving more guidance rather than commands. This can be described to involve more of teamwork rather than the situations where the supervisors use bureaucracy and authority in trying to compel individuals to work.

In today’s job environment the role of a supervisor requires these essential skills in order to plan, organize and manage the activities of an organizations duties when dealing with employees. One of the important managerial styles used by supervisors includes delegation of duties to the members of staff. This is a form of permissive managerial style where the supervisors tend to delegate duties and involve the employees in the decision making process. The delegation of job assignments is crucial in ensuring that various assignments are carried out until completion. It utilizes division of labor so that the various work projects can reap the benefits of division of labor. This allows the employees to work on jobs, which march their specialty in order to ensure the best quality work is presented. This style is also significant in building the skills of the employees by letting employees master various skills due to the amount of time they spend of specific type of assignments.

Another important style, which managers use is the affiliative management style. This form ensures motivation of staff by giving them credit when assignments are done and presented in a quality manner. It additionally avoids conflicts and ensures that all conflicts are resolved amicably. Further different level of input from the employees should be rewarded according to their significance in order to ensure that the members of staff appreciate their role in and organization. This helps in motivating the different employees to be more dedicated to their assignment, which plays an important role in their effectiveness during future assignments. This style is a great tool in supervision and management especially in ensuring fairness.

Managers need to create platforms, which encourage the members of staff to contribute and come up with ideas. This sort of flexibility is critical in creating empowerment, and the results are better than a manager who dictates how every task is to be carried out. Today’s supervisors are also keen in treating employees fairly in order to exercise equity. This is in order to prevent any conflicts, which may emerge when employees feel dissatisfied as a result of biased decisions made by employers. Supervisors need to be keen when assignments and task are done according to their expectations in order to give positive feedback. This needs to be on regular bass to overcome the culture of pessimistic managers, which involves continuous criticism, which discourages the workers morale. The supervisors need to also be ken listeners and pay attention to all the employees regardless of their roles in organizations (Baakman, 12).

Supervisors need to be respectful when communicating with the employees whom they have been assigned to guide. This may involve developing positive attitude, which shows the employees that their presence is well acknowledged. There are situations where the manager who undertake supervisory roles maybe unapproachable due to poor relations with the other employees. This creates a bad impression and discourages the employee’s determination in exercising communication even when it involves important tasks. It is therefore important that supervisors should ensure that they encourage dialogue.

Ethics in today s workplace

Ethical behavior is an element that had for long been disregarded in work environments though this is not the case today. There have been many scenarios where cases have been reported of unethical behavior in workplaces, due to employees who felt uncomfortable under certain circumstances. These situations could damage the reputation of an organization and should therefore be avoided. In order to understand the ethics in workplace we need to analyze what comprises of the ethical behavior in business environment. Ethics in work environment can be applied by supervisors being concerned about others interests. This may involve employee’s customers and even minority members of the society (Lowenkamp et al. 4)

. Ethical behavior in the workforce involves regarding fellow employees to important members in organizations and showing respect. This is a critical characteristic for supervisors in order to create good relations in the work environment. In supervision, ethical behavior may involve having focus on the organizations goals rather than putting too much emphasis on rules and regulations, which may make the workforce, feel restricted. Ethical supervisors are also honest and practice fairness in their goal to ensure that assignments are of the required quality. Maintaining these ethical values in the business environment maybe a challenging task. This is due the pressure; which supervisors face in their daily duties.

There are various ethical principles, which are instrumental in giving guidance to today’s supervisors in their fulfillment of their ethical obligations. This comprises of mission principle, which reminds supervisors about their obligation to fulfill the organizations goals. Another guideline is the consistency principle. This demands that the supervisors exercise objective standards in directing, giving assignments and treating the employees (Beddoe, 26). Ethics in workplace also consists of the proactive principle when exercising supervision. This involves taking more steps in order to find ways, which will increase the chances of success. Ethics in workplace also involves the holism principle, which emphasizes on always being aware of the factors affecting the business.

Ethics in workplace is important when undertaking supervision duties to provide a link between the desires of the company’s clients and workers. Every organization has various ethical values, which it upholds. These are usually a part of the business and can be seen in all the levels of the management hierarchy. Ethical supervisors are able to encourage flow of important information among the staff, and maintain the worker’s morale (Malfroy, 17). They are also able to avoid the practice of blame game, which shows lack of responsibility.

Ethics in workplace also requires practicing transparency as one of the critical virtues in job environment. Transparency is crucial since it could affect how customers may make decision. It involves conducting fair and honest communication, even when the message may not be what people may want to hear (Baakman, 15). Ethics in supervision can be applied by giving an explanation to the workers about the goals and mission of the company without changing the information. Ethical supervisors also understand that creating good personal relations with employees is instrumental in creating positive reputation. Ethics in supervision also consists of problem solving which involves overcoming problems and situations, which negatively influence the job performance.

Conclusion

Supervision in an organization is very vital in gauging employee performance. Today’s supervisors need to ensure that communication within the organization is smooth a need to ensure that employees are constantly motivated. Further findings have highlighted that Ethics are very important and therefore every supervisor would be required to ensure that employees consistently abide to the organizational ethical policies.