And Who Will Manage Simon?

In many large companies, hefty sums are often spent disproportionately when it comes to training. Paying for executive coaching can also take large chunks out of the training budget. And meanwhile, in a survey by Adecco Group, 68% of the 16,000 managers surveyed reported suffering some level of burnout in the year leading up to the survey. According to a Gallup survey in 2015, half of Americans who left a previous job did so because of a bad manager.

I believe that the training of front-line supervisors should be the greatest priority for any ‘leadership’ budget. This is where the toughest challenges in dealing with other human beings are faced. It is where the customer usually meets the business, and it is where people are more likely to be hurt while carrying out their work.      Managers further up the hierarchy may have direct reports with quirks and irritations, occasionally they may have someone who goes off on a tangent, but it’s also likely that their direct reports have a reasonable understanding about what must be done. Specialists and professionals are likely to be qualified and have (usually) already proven themselves for some years in the workplace.

A supervisor, on the other hand, may be expected to take on people with attitudes and habits that executives find hard to believe. They will often have to shape the behavior of someone who has never signed a contract to work and may have come from an environment where role models with anything resembling a work ethic, are thin on the ground. 

For example, who will manage a boy like Simon? I can’t remember his real name, but I will never forget the interview with him about thirty-five years ago. He was a teenager who came to the company under a government scheme for unemployed youth.  Simon had lost two earlier placements because he was late for work. Every. Single. Day.

One part of our interview went something like this. 

“Why were you late every day?”

“Because my Mum and Dad had to drop me off late.”

“Why did they have to drop you off late?”  

“Because their jobs didn’t start for another half hour so they couldn’t get to their work early.”

Simon looked at me when he explained this, with an impatient expression that said, ‘Don’t you understand? How could they possibly get to work a bit early?’  

The rest of the interview didn’t get much better. At one point I did the unprofessional thing and just asked him, ‘Why are you here today, Simon? You clearly don’t want to be.’ He slumped and said that this was all a waste of f**king time and all the ‘fault’ of the guy who had made him come to our company. The ‘guy’ was an older man waiting in reception. He was working within the government scheme.  Simon told me that his parents were also annoyed with this guy for interfering and making him go to these stupid interviews.   

I had, by this time, interviewed enough school leavers or starters under 21 to know that there was usually a parent or caring person sitting in a car outside. Sometimes they waited in reception. Usually someone had ironed a shirt or helped put a CV together. There was probably an adult in their lives who would later be asking, ‘How did it go?’ with some level of interest and dare I say, hope for their future. 

But not so for Simon.  His parents, though they did hold down some employment, could not be bothered to start their day half an hour earlier for the sake of their son.  His chances of making a good start somewhere, were not great. 

The executive suite rarely needs to depend on a boy like Simon, but a supervisor somewhere will have to manage him, especially during labor shortages, and they will have to try to turn him into a cooperative, functioning employee.  That will take wisdom, patience and energy. It’s a lot to ask and then suggest that those most deserving of leadership training funds are the senior managers. 

I would be accused of being ‘old school’ (and clearly self-interested) for suggesting that it might be time to return to genuine, thoughtful investment in supervisory training. I continue to see large companies adopting cheap or indifferent on-line software packages to build people management skills. Lately I am reading excited chatter that AI will further improve on-line learning. Well, let’s hope.

If on-line courses are provided to supervisors to miraculously equip them, in their own time, for dealing with this difficult role, then I suggest that this is a case where nothing is better than something. They might be better off with the expensive, slower school of hard knocks and experience. Never mind the burn-out. Never mind the turnover.