Supervisor's Missing link: A Career Coach's perspective

Posted on August 15, 2019 by Kalyana RP Neriyanuri, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

Being a coach is as exciting as a program manager, if not more for me. As someone who gets a kick working with white space, uncertainty as well as meeting with people from different cultures and backgrounds, I could not have asked more in my last 8 month’s of full time coaching journey. It offered me, so far to meet with some of the best minds in the space of schools, colleges, companies, start-ups, investors, school students, parents, college students, NGOs and individuals who wants to make a difference for themselves by taking that next step for their careers and more important reaching out to someone to ask questions and willing to explore beyond their comfort zones. The rest of the article about my observations on supervisors (people managers) based on the coaching engagements that I have done so far.

I work with individuals who work in various industries like IT, Healthcare, Agriculture, Digital Marketing, Construction and NGOs. During first few session we get to explore understand each other in terms talents/strengths/abilities. We do spend time on the current work environment, challenges being faced, goals set for themselves and the support being received. One of the striking pattern that is observed across the industries are the following when it comes to supervisor support:

There is no regular 1×1 meeting setup (not even half yearly in many cases). Only appraisal conversation is when they meet.
There is no feedback given by the supervisor for months either on what they are doing well or where they need to improve.
Supervisor provides no clarity on what is the eligibility criterion for the next promotion.
There is no development plan defined for individual though they have been working in many cases for more than 5 years in an organization.
There are no objectives defined for the year. Not sure how individual is being measured.
Career discussion has not happened since more than a year.
There has been only project related updates expected from the individual whenever supervisor meets them and supervisors does not seem to make effort to know the uniqueness of individual.
There has been no justification that seems rationale when it comes to explanation of promotions that happen.
Though this list is not exhaustive, I could relate to some of these as I have been there in the position of a supervisor in my earlier avatars. One fine day during my tenure as people manager, I went back to my manager and told that I had an “Aha” moment that I am NOT a people manager with project responsibility rather I am a project manager with people responsibility. I get that surely, many supervisors are with the same thought, however the question is to what extent not being people “aware” can cost organization’s employee engagement. However, I wanted to further dwell on my observations and look at data from the research as my observations seemed from insignificant data. I came across one list of findings from a report by tinypluse.com called “THE 2019 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT REPORT”. Report is complied with 200,000+ responses from employees from 1,000+ companies across 20 industries. I guess it is a fair sample to care for.
It clearly shows that 4 out 7 findings have some control or the other with immediate supervisor. In order to really build a strong and engaged workforce it is important supervisors/manager take the charge and make the needed changes in their own behaviors and approach dis-engagement in a positive and constructive manner. Rolling out a huge set of Manager/supervisor skill development or first time manager courses for many organizations is beyond their list of current priorities.

Here are 3 things a supervisor/manager can do to improve the employee engagement.

Setup a recurring 1×1. Frequency really does not matter. Let it be on the calendar and make a sincere effort to make it happen. Also make sure you listen to the employee and let it be a non-project related discussion. Let “Empathy” play the big role.
Ask them 2 things they want to do in their careers in a given year. Make a sincere effort on how you can support them.
Ask them to call out 2 ways employee can support the organization. Make a sincere effort to take their support or connect them to the people who can take their support.
All the three does not require any blessings from the top management or leadership. All three are “low-hanging” fruits with possibly best results and improving relationship. Many times they get lost in the mammoth reception of project importance in comparison to people. As it is said, many jobs that are repetitive and does not add value will soon be replaced by robots. All the effort required by supervisor or manager is to acquire skills on “Active listening”, “interpersonal communication”, “personal effectiveness” and finally “time management”. Expectation from the employee is that their supervisor/manager who is a human being is making a effort for “being human”.