Basic principles of supervision

Supervision is the art of working with a group of people over whom the supervisor exercises his authority in a way that achieves maximum effectiveness in performing the work. Supervision is achieved to the fullest in an atmosphere filled with good intentions and serious cooperation on the part of the individuals involved, including the supervisor of course. Supervising can be one of the most difficult arts because it needs to use the principles of human relations that prove true with most people more often than not in a successful and instinctive way.

Seasoned supervisors acknowledge that there are no surefire ways to work with people in general, but they know in their experience that human beings have unique characteristics and that individuality must always be taken into account when developing working relationships. Despite knowing the special characteristics of individuals, there are certain general principles that supervisors use as a guide to the art of working with people. Each principle contains some accompanying ideas that must be understood in order to evaluate the guiding principle. Below is a presentation of these principles with a discussion of each. There is no importance to presenting one principle before the other, as they are all very important.

The first principle: people must clearly understand what is expected of them.

When a newcomer starts a job, he is usually anxious to know what organization he is entering and what he is supposed to do, ie what his specific job will be. The experienced supervisor seizes on this initial interest. He knows that if he fails to get a good start for the new employee, he may take a longer period and need harder work to accomplish this later. He also knows that his employee may not exhibit the same eagerness and response to learning as he does at the start. In any case, any new employee must know the following immediately after starting work:

1. What the Authority represents, how it is organized, the method of operation, the type of work in it, something about its history, and the method of promotion it uses with its employees.

The purpose here is to convince the new employee that he has joined the best possible organization and that it includes the best people, and that he is doing the most important work with the highest degree of enlightenment and competence. People like to feel that they look great and that employees are doing something important. Pride in the commission is a motivating force for many people. Belief in the importance of the commission’s work gives their role in it a kind of privilege.

2. The specific nature of his work, his work connection with the work of his fellow employees, the type of authority he will exercise if there are any, as well as the person responsible for supervising him.

There is often a kind of lack of clarity in this set of items for many years. The new employee must review these items from time to time until the right start is achieved. In this way everything the employee does thereafter depends on his knowledge of his boss and on his clear understanding of his work and his connection to the business associated with him.

3. The place of obtaining the materials and resources that he may need, the location of his workplace and the work rules of the Authority, and these rules include the date of payment of salaries, the beginning and end of work, the rest time allocated for drinking coffee, the period of lunch and vacations and other rules in the Authority specifically.

These things may not need a statement, however they are important and we should take care of them, and the supervisor in this regard may not need to explain them personally but it is possible that some of his employees do so.

4. How to measure the amount of work done.

5. Quality standards in his work.

The fourth and fifth clauses require careful thinking. In fact, it is discouraging for an employee to discover, after working for a certain period, that the level of quality in his work is not good. It is also discouraging for the employee to learn later that his production is not what the supervisor expects, and that the quantity and quality should be To understand them in advance, and if this is not done, an argument may arise around them when the employee discovers that he does not agree with the supervisor in one or both of them.

There are other things that the supervisor must make sure that his men know about, for example, the new employee must know the security rules if his work includes secret materials or activity, and in any case these things need a discussion between the supervisor and the new employee, and it is better that this discussion be planned in a manner Methodical, and if it is not, the employee is likely to forget or overlook some things, and this will not be the fault of the new employee.

Most of what the new employee needs from this information must be in written form, and many institutions, but not all, have this information in writing, and this information includes the following:

Organization map.

The objectives of the organization and its operating policy.
Organization history.
– The method of promotions used by the interest.
General office work rules for all workers.
Job descriptions and explanations.
Performance levels in terms of quantity and quality.
A summary of the training for each job.

And the supervisor, if supported before this collection of materials and knowledge, can do a better and more complete job than if he tried to remember them all. And the organizations that know that employees are the most important asset to them prepare this data and provide it, and some organizations write the last three items of an individual nature.

The second principle: Guidance should be available to employees in the performance of their work.

Guidance is a general word, and with more precise distinction it includes the following things:

1- Current information:

It is not expected that a person will work in ignorance of what is around him, because every employee wants to know what is going on around him that may affect his work, and it is up to the supervisor to estimate new developments, things that are about to happen, and things that have already happened, and transfer them completely and immediately to all members of his group, and he can Doing this in meetings or conferences of the authority, that is, with all his employees at the same time. If he does this work with each of his employees separately, it will take longer, and coincidences are intertwined like a grapevine. Listening to information that is completely or partially unhealthy is often troublesome and even Misfortunes, and the vineyard take root in the bad practice of supervision and flourish to the highest degree when the overseers neglect to keep their men up to date with the latest information.

Major information:

In addition to knowing the developments, employees need to study the latest and the best

Technical or special information related to their work, because the latest theories, principles, materials and knowledge related to their specific branches of specialization are important to any worker, and this may seem very general to each type of work, it is possible for unskilled workers to continue without the need for this information But better letters, a better method for digging a trench, a better tool or machine for clearing floors, better tools for moving heavy things and knowing the best technique for any work, all these things help to improve people’s productivity and develop their interest in work, and it is evident in the professional fields that the woodcutter Or the engineer, or the natural scientist, or the doctor, or the lawyer, or the economist, or any specialist in any field, cannot develop without studying the new information in his field, and it may be true that the supervisor cannot personally provide them with all this knowledge, and it is better, in fact, not to try, but Responsible for ensuring that this knowledge is readily available and accessible. He is also responsible for studying his men to ascertain the strengths and weaknesses of each of them, and the supervisor is also responsible for encouraging and developing correct study, and I will discuss the last point at length in the sixth principle.

2- Methods information:

The methods differ with each type of work, and it is better for the smart supervisor to make himself a reference for each job in his unit and he must make sure that each of his employees knows the best ways to accomplish his own work that the methods or methods differ from the knowledge of the work even though they may overlap, However, there are often methods that do not relate to the special knowledge necessary to perform a particular job. For example, many specialists do not always know things such as the following:

a. How to listen.
B. speech style.
c. How to write.
Dr.. reading style.
e. How to organize work.
And the. activity scheduling method.
g. How to run a meeting.

There are many methods that we can record for each specific work, and there are some items such as the six previously mentioned items that are common to many jobs. He should only watch these methods but he should work with his men in a regular way to develop them.

3- Personality development:

This is the last of the items of guidance that is the most difficult to implement. Submitting proposals for personality development requires skillful handling of matters. Every human being has weaknesses and almost every one admits that he is not free from error. Nevertheless, if you highlight a specific error to a specific individual, this causes you trouble, and the person often denies it. The charge is sharp, although sometimes it surprises you by admitting it. A person may be lazy, slow, talkative, fickle-tempered, hot-tempered, or hasty in making decisions, or the like. weakness in his character.

The thinking superintendent will see to it that each of his men receives the useful encouragement in one way or another to overcome a fault of character that impedes the full expression of ability, and I know of no successful formula for providing such encouragement or instruction, or for the manner in which it is accepted, and success seems to depend upon (a) the person recognizing that It is wrong, (b) completely forbidding people about it, (c) developing a sincere desire to overcome it, (d) constructively helping and encouraging its elimination.

Each of these points is important, and the most difficult thing to achieve in general is a person’s recognition of his mistake. Pressing on the first point may make the lack of encouragement difficult to develop the desire to overcome the mistake, and when these steps are taken, providing assistance to overcome the mistake becomes easy and easy to accept. It is possible that this method is similar to the method of concealing the name of drugs in order to make the addict not addicted, and there is no objection, except that the method is successful in most cases, not in all of them. Nevertheless, the method as described by its owners depends on acknowledging and acknowledging weakness, and without it there is no hope for progress, and it deserves Correction method of careful study, especially in the most difficult cases.

Principle Three: Good work should always be appreciated.

Almost every seasoned supervisor would agree that this principle is sound—and tell us that this recognition should be as public as possible—that people like to feel valued and will find it more rewarding when supervisors notice and praise their efforts, but supervisors would almost unanimously say that it is possible to overdo it. The mistake is that fear of exaggeration often prevents supervisors from offering praise at all.

Yet surveys still show quite clearly that people consider appreciation for good work to be a characteristic of good supervisors, and underappreciation for good work to be a trait of bad supervision. The question now is, “What is the best way to put this principle into practice with reasonable effect?” .

The following are some of the ways in which the supervisor can appreciate the good work done by many of his men, and these methods are arranged in an order starting with the simplest and easiest:

1- Tell him immediately that he did a good job, and it is better to do this in the presence of other employees.

2- Write to him immediately and frankly, and make sure that a copy of the letter has been attached to his file (in the federal government, in many state governments, and in many companies and agencies, a file of personnel affairs is kept for each person in the authority, and these files can be of great value as portfolios for business and private records With every employee working in the company or interest, these files generally include, even after a few years, letters of praise of the kind we describe here, and sometimes they do not include letters at all.
In this regard, let me say that telling an employee or writing to him does not cost anything, as these are the least expensive things, but they are the most important ways of appreciating good work, and the following items contain more expensive means:

3- Give him a certificate

A privilege of any type used by the Authority, if it has certificates.
4- Give him a cash reward or bonus.
5- Give him a medal or a certificate in addition to the cash rewards.
6- Give him a raise.
7- Promote him to a better job for which he is qualified.

It is clear from this or the means of appreciation must be appropriate to the degree of excellence in performance in accordance with the policies of the Authority, and the sixth item can be applied in federal interests as a result of the new law. Employees achieve a salary increase at regular intervals if their services are satisfactory, and the increase may be granted to work above average on the recommendation of the supervisor and after passing through a committee or two.

Other awards may be given in government service in addition to those previously mentioned and the same applies in many companies and other bodies.

But all of this depends mainly on the desire of the supervisors to make the principle of appreciation effective, and it is not necessary that good supervision be linked to the large number of rewards, but the reality is that the simple and easy means of informing people or writing to them regarding the completion of excellent work are essential methods of supervision.

The fourth principle: The downward work deserves constructive criticism.

The fact that good work deserves appreciation, but it seems true that substandard work should be appreciated – appropriately – and this is an area in which we all excel, and criticism seems much easier than praise, and it often seems that substandard work is easier to notice than good work, and with Therefore, any person deserves criticism for the downward work that he has done and who admits his downwardness.

Criticism must be directed in private, because the public criticism that the employee receives is magnified by the number of other people who heard it, and yet it is not sufficient for the criticism to be confined to the private sessions between the supervisor and one of his men, but the criticism must be constructive.
Rebuking the employee is one of the strongest ways to weaken the employee’s satisfaction with his work, his interest in his job, and even his self-confidence. A violent reprimand may relieve the supervisor’s feelings regarding a mistake and a downgraded work, and that may satisfy himself, but it will definitely not raise the level of production in his unit. The employee who criticizes harshly or scolds mercilessly He may continue to rage for months because of the incident, and he may not overcome it for a long time, perhaps for years. He is likely to vent his dissatisfaction by doing less than he would if he liked the job. Here, surveys among government employees and those in industry show that employees do not simply consider supervisors superior to them and unnecessarily strict in dealing with their employees. The supervisor’s goal is to make employees work at their maximum. Possible energy and when they do a downward work, his duty is to urge them to do a better job, except to vent his anger on them, and the problem is not who is responsible, but always how to develop the efforts of the employees.

Principle Five: Employees should have opportunities to demonstrate their willingness to accept greater responsibilities.

Sooner or later every post in any body will become vacant and a new clerk will have to fill it, and the method of “head-scratching” i.e., scrabbling over an unpredictably filled post is a bad one, on the contrary any business led by men of insight tries to be ready to fill any job or all jobs when they are vacant and require that the supervisors use every opportunity to exhort their men to show what they can do, and when time allows for a vacancy to be filled there will be no need for perplexity or head-scratching, for the best employees already know because they have been trained and selected, and the only problem It is the selection of the best qualified among them, and in this regard we stress, of course, that seniority alone is not the criterion for promotion. On the contrary, the best qualified should be given the opportunity for promotion, regardless of age.

Preparing employees for jobs of greater responsibility requires record keeping. When an employee has an opportunity to show what he can do, a good supervisor writes a timely note of the employee’s excellent performance and includes it in his personnel file. These opportunities include special duties in more difficult work or In other locations or offices, supervisors’ field trips or vacations provide other opportunities for employees to hold accountable and it’s all about planning in employee development. and to observe it carefully.

And testing employees before the job is completely vacant is one way to avoid filling the job badly, and this is not, of course, a positive guarantee, as employees change, but it helps to a large extent in reducing the number of transfers or bad promotions, and the position of employees who were not selected in jobs is considered a manifestation of bad management wise. And the supervisor who thinks he has the unmistakable ability to select qualified employees may face some surprises.

To this extent, the opinion represents the point of view of the authority and the supervisor. As for the point of view of the concerned employees (and all of us in the bodies are concerned), the opportunity for promotion is one of the things they work for. Freshly graduated students from colleges always support knowing the type of promotion in the interest and their opportunities in it. There is no point in telling them when you were your age that you were happy just to get a job, because this is the field of opportunity, “because the young man who plans his path must know the place he will occupy in five or ten years.”
Moreover, the employee who successfully carries out the burdens of a job knows, like his supervisor and his interest, that he deserves the opportunity to be promoted to a job with greater responsibility, as he wants and deserves more responsibility, a higher salary, and a higher status.

And the supervisor is required, from the point of view of the authority and the employees, to take advantage of the opportunity or to spoil it to promote his men, and let me mention in this interrogative sentence that the supervisor who knows the development of his men can find his promotion much faster.

Principle Six: Employees should encourage their own development.

It has been common in America for several years to accept the wrong idea that when a person graduates from school, he becomes “educated.” Whether the person graduated from a middle school, high school, an institute, or a university, this is not in doubt.

There is not much difference except in the degree, so your certificate becomes like your passport, although it is known that college diplomas will lead you to more places than higher school diplomas, and these diplomas have become considered certificates – separation – separation from every education higher than them.

These ideas made Robert Blakely describe American education as final in nature, as he believes that “you are considered educated if you continue to educate yourself.” He uttered this phrase to a college graduating class, and educators, scholars, businessmen, professional leaders, and intellectuals everywhere agree with enthusiasm.

A person can receive intensive training in many subjects for eight years, twelve years, sixteen years, or more years. Artificial or borrowed, and it is not necessarily realistic and not necessarily his own problems, and when he leaves school, a person begins to face various problems that he did not study or discuss in school, and the more educated the person is, the better qualified he is to solve new problems successfully. For the majority of Americans, education brings back images of the school building and classrooms, and people talk about education as if it were a good that could be had if we went to the right place, and, as Pla said, so that this kind of atonement helps us say to each other, “I got my education from Budnik, from Where did you get your education?”

In fact, education never ends before our lives end, and there is nothing to replace it. Either you continue with education and our ability to solve new problems, or we stagnate, there is no middle way.

A person can develop his mind in many ways: by reading and by discussing, especially with people more qualified than him, and by expressing himself in writing and other methods. And motivating people requires great skill and thinking, and some teachers are unable to do this, at least with all their students. Despite this, we suggest that supervisors try to find where trained and experienced teachers failed, and those who succeed will find that they work with a group of people who will spend and spread their work imagination and insight.
Principle 7: Employees must work in safe, hygienic conditions.

This principle is the last of the seven principles, and it is often overlooked by supervisors. It is agreed that it is the responsibility of supervision where people use machines and automatic devices. There is also recognition of responsibility where people are involved in heavy physical work. Rarely do we find supervisors aware of the necessary security and safety procedures in any normal work office. .

In any office, there are many potential dangers, such as walking on electrical wires or open study drawers at the bottom of cupboards, standing in front of a door that may suddenly open, hitting arms, hands, or legs from the edge of furniture or the veins of wood, trying to move heavy furniture, or falling on waxed floors. Or damaged electrical connections. All of these are simple situations that could lead to serious accidents. In addition to these things, there are risks of ventilation, lighting and other problems in a closed workplace, which are likely to be of great importance. There are technical levels for all of these risks that can be easily obtained from the Council. National Industrial Security, and there are risks to health as well, for example the conscientious employee who comes to the office suffering from a severe infectious cold, and these things also need the attention of the supervisor