The level of modern trade is significantly different from past relationships between sellers and buyers. At the moment, many professions with unusual names for domestic consumers have appeared on the labor market and in the global economy. In this regard, one can often hear the question: who is the supervisor and what is he doing?
This is what the western profession is called, which has become part of the modern economic sector. In general, it provides leadership over a group of employees. Basically, specialists in this profession coordinate the work of promoters, managers and sales representatives. To understand in more detail what a supervisor means (who is doing what), it is worth considering the job description of this employee.
General Provisions
The employee hired for this position is a low- or mid-level manager. His employment directly depends on the head of the sales department and the main management of the company. After the supervisor receives this position, he is directly subordinate to these leaders and gets the opportunity to give orders to his subordinates. In the absence of any of the subordinates, this employee should take their place, but only a person appointed by the director can take his post.
To obtain this place in the company, the applicant must receive a higher professional education. Employers rarely pay attention to experience. But if an employee has only secondary specialized education and a certificate of completion of courses on working with subordinates, then his seniority in a managerial position should be at least one year. In his work, he must rely on legal and regulatory acts, orders of management, internal rules, company charter and instructions.
Knowledge
The main purpose of conducting an interview with a supervisor is to test his knowledge and professionalism. An employee accepted for this position is required to know labor law, the basics of entrepreneurship, doing business and a market economy. Before proceeding with his functions, he must familiarize himself with the structure and staff of the company, find out the profile of its activities, specialization, and think over the path for future development. In addition, the employee must find out how the personnel policy of the organization is carried out, according to what strategy it is developing and what technological processes take place at the enterprise.
In order to fulfill his duties in a quality manner, the supervisor must know the general, labor and special psychology, sociology, rate and time spent on the labor activity of his subordinates, methods for assessing the quality of their work. Also, his knowledge should include the ethics of business communication, the methods by which personnel, organizational and managerial tasks are solved, as well as the purpose and rules of using modern computer technology to process information.
Functions
The very first thing a supervisor does is to inform his subordinates about the tasks that they have to complete. It is this employee who checks whether they are ready to start work, and distributes the total amount of work between them. He is responsible for coordinating the work and in case of unforeseen circumstances or a failure in the overall work process, he appoints a new contractor to ensure the smooth execution of tasks. If necessary, the employee organizes the interchangeability of company employees, he must determine which tasks to fulfill more priority, controls that all employees comply with the work schedule, distributes personnel, appoint shifts to ensure that the expected volumes of tasks are completed in a timely manner and at a high level.
Responsibilities
The duties of the supervisor include checking that his subordinates have all the necessary materials, technologies and information, without which they will not be able to carry out the tasks assigned to them. It must prevent downtime, control that there are no emergencies and work process stops.
The employee is obliged to eliminate and prevent conflicts between subordinates, to assess the quality of work of each subordinate individually to determine the rationality of assigning these tasks to him and whether it is possible to increase the number of his duties. Thanks to his knowledge of psychology, he tests workers for loyalty, poise and degree of trust. The duties of the supervisor include analyzing the behavior of employees when working with clients, checking professional behavior and reporting to subordinates about their mistakes and the need to correct them.
Other functions
Among the functions of this leader, it is worth highlighting the subordination of instructions to mandatory tasks, checking for readiness to perform various kinds of work, as well as monitoring the status of employees, analyzing the ability to perform work without harming the company, and if the employee is eliminated or replaced, he is obliged to notify the superior leadership.
It makes sure that the system of rewards and penalties for employees is applied in a timely and effective manner, and also conducts conversations with them, finds out the reasons for dissatisfaction with the work and helps in solving personal and corporate problems. If one of the employees is not able to cope with the tasks assigned to them, organizes special events to increase their professional skills and, if this does not help, sends the management a request to dismiss the lagging employee.
Other duties
The duties of the supervisor include determining the criteria and requirements for applicants to get a job in the company and selecting candidates for the position. He must introduce new employees to the team, provide them with everything necessary to orient themselves at the new workplace, explain the principles of personnel and labor policy of the company.
In addition, he must ensure the interconnected work of his department with other departments of the organization, keep records of the employment of his subordinates and the work they performed. The employee must document the quality of work, the timeliness of their implementation, the reasons for the violation of the service schedule for reporting to the authorities. If necessary, independently solves some of the tasks of its employees.
The rights
The job description of the supervisor assumes that this employee has the right to gain access to all personal affairs of his subordinate personnel, to participate in the development and approval of company plans, including changing company divisions. If there are changes in the production policy, he has the right to assemble a freelance meeting to explain new data to his subordinates. In addition, his rights include the ability to require management to provide his department with all the necessary materials, resources and information needed to complete the tasks.
A sales supervisor can receive any financial information in the accounting department related to his employees, as well as make suggestions on material incentives or recovery from specific workers for how well and timely they fulfill their duties and adhere to company rules.
An employee has the right to act as a mediator between his subordinates and senior management in the process of resolving production issues and conflicts. He can improve his knowledge, get acquainted with the necessary documentation, and also require that he and his subordinates be provided with optimal working conditions in accordance with the current legislation of the country.
Responsibility
The profession of a supervisor assumes that an employee, having received a job, is responsible for the quality and timeliness of his duties, and is also responsible for the work of subordinate personnel, their improper performance of their functions and all offenses. In addition, he is responsible for any violation of applicable labor, administrative and criminal laws in the course of his work. He can also be held accountable if his actions or the mistakes of his subordinates led to material damage to the company.
Supervisor Skills
A candidate for this position must have certain skills and qualities. Employees with systemic thinking are very appreciated, who can not only look at the situation from the side, but also make a forecast in which direction it will develop. It is very important to understand the structure of the business, to know the specifics of the sphere in which the company operates, as well as to have a business speech and be able to negotiate.
As for personal qualities, employers greatly value resistance to stressful situations, exactingness, the ability to observe and analyze what is happening, as well as the ability not to lose working capacity even in stressful conditions. But, most importantly, what the heads of firms look at is the leadership qualities of the applicants and their ability to organize collective work. Well, and since representatives of this profession are lower-level managers, the ability to listen to and follow instructions from the leadership is valued no less than the rest.
Conclusion
Supervisors are low-level executives, mostly subordinate to a small staff in the trade sector. It is believed that this position is the beginning of a career path in a company and opens up great prospects for a person. By occupying this place in the company, employees begin their journey to high managerial positions and hone their management, planning and promotion skills.