Production Supervisor - scope of role??!!

BeBetter

Hi all, I'm hoping just to get some input on what the scope of a Production Supervisors role is as an industry norm. I know it'll depend on the size of the organisation but I am working for a medium sized multi-national so it's relevant to that kind of a position. I'll take you through my query anyway in the hope I can make myself a bit clearer!!

I'm responsible for a 4 manufacturing areas and an overall workforce of approx 100 people. There are 4 Team Leaders and a couple of admin and materials people also reporting to me. The Team Leaders manage the day to day time and attendance issues with employees and if anything escalates above that I then deal with it. The problem I'm having is that our HR department and Finance department provide very little in terms of support and I'm wondering if I'm justified in being frustrated by it or if it's just part of the job. For instance...

When an employee is long term absent should I be the one keeping in touch with them and getting updates or should our HR department step in to support?

We had an employee that was off work due to an injury at work, so out of work for a couple of months on full pay. During that time they also claimed illness benefit without declaring it. I was told that I had to ring them to tell them that they had to pay back the extra money.

Our HR department are also responsible for H&S overall, obviously I am responsible too but specifically here I'm talking about providing First Aiders etc and the wider H&S system. The H&S team (which I'm not a member of) needed more First Aiders and they asked me to seek out people that would be interested in getting trained.

These are just a few examples over a few days and I know it may seem like it's not unreasonable and if we didn't have a HR function I know the Supervisor would have to do these things but we have a team of 3 in HR and a H&S contractor. It feels at the moment like nobody here is capable of doing anything themselves, they just want to throw everything over the wall to someone else. I'm hugely busy managing an area that is expanding all the time and this constant stream of requests from departments that are supposed to be support functions to Operations is taking up a lot of my time. So what the consensus? Basically I'm at a decision point now where I need to speak up and put a stop to it or else accept that it's part of my job and make it work. So any advice would be greatly appreciated!

_Brian

BeBetter wrote: »

Hi all, I'm hoping just to get some input on what the scope of a Production Supervisors role is as an industry norm. I know it'll depend on the size of the organisation but I am working for a medium sized multi-national so it's relevant to that kind of a position. I'll take you through my query anyway in the hope I can make myself a bit clearer!!

I'm responsible for a 4 manufacturing areas and an overall workforce of approx 100 people. There are 4 Team Leaders and a couple of admin and materials people also reporting to me. The Team Leaders manage the day to day time and attendance issues with employees and if anything escalates above that I then deal with it. The problem I'm having is that our HR department and Finance department provide very little in terms of support and I'm wondering if I'm justified in being frustrated by it or if it's just part of the job. For instance...

When an employee is long term absent should I be the one keeping in touch with them and getting updates or should our HR department step in to support?

We had an employee that was off work due to an injury at work, so out of work for a couple of months on full pay. During that time they also claimed illness benefit without declaring it. I was told that I had to ring them to tell them that they had to pay back the extra money.

Our HR department are also responsible for H&S overall, obviously I am responsible too but specifically here I'm talking about providing First Aiders etc and the wider H&S system. The H&S team (which I'm not a member of) needed more First Aiders and they asked me to seek out people that would be interested in getting trained.

These are just a few examples over a few days and I know it may seem like it's not unreasonable and if we didn't have a HR function I know the Supervisor would have to do these things but we have a team of 3 in HR and a H&S contractor. It feels at the moment like nobody here is capable of doing anything themselves, they just want to throw everything over the wall to someone else. I'm hugely busy managing an area that is expanding all the time and this constant stream of requests from departments that are supposed to be support functions to Operations is taking up a lot of my time. So what the consensus? Basically I'm at a decision point now where I need to speak up and put a stop to it or else accept that it's part of my job and make it work. So any advice would be greatly appreciated!

There's no definite answer because "supervisor" roles vary soooo much depending on the company and indeed individual..
I've worked in places like that where the supervisor is the doormat for every department and every problem ultimately lands at your door, if the company has been like that for a while and your the only one feeling the pinch then my advice is get out, you'll spend s long battling back that its not worth it...


My advice is what I would give to all employees..
Do you have defined metrics to meet for your success, all your actions should be based around these.. doing stuff that doesnt feed into your own success will go unnoticed and unrewarded which is worse..
Do you have a set or R&R's, are you going wildly outside these.. If so you may need push back and focus more on your core job.