PLAR Portfolio Sample Course-based portfolio

The following document is an extract from a course-based portfolio for the TRU - OL course BUSM 111 Supervision (http://www.tru.ca/distance/courses/busm111.html ). The student has related his experiential learning to the detailed course learning outcomes in Module 1 The Supervisor's Job.

Module 1 The Supervisor's Job

Outcomes for this Module

At the end of this module you will:

1. Differentiate where a supervisor fits into an overall organization hierarchy, including his or her interaction with other management and operative employees

   I have been a supervisor for approximately eight years including a period of about 1 year spent as a mid-level manager. Supervisors are the only level of management that don’t oversee any other level of management. They are responsible for supervising operative employees only. They are the first level of management in the hierarchy of an organization and typically report to someone in mid-level management. In my experience a supervisor has a challenging role in that to the operative employees they are an advocate for the management side of the organization, however to mid to upper management they are an advocate for the operative employees of the organization.

2. Describe how the continuous management functions overlap and integrate with the sequential management functions.

   The 5 management functions (planning, organizing, staffing, leading & controlling) are always in motion and there is no clear demarcation of where one begins and the other ends. A supervisor’s time cannot be equally divided between any of the 5 functions and can be working on any one of them at any time depending on what is currently happening in their area of responsibility. Typically the planning function needs to happen before any of the other functions can be carried out practically or with any clear direction.

3. Discuss how the supervisor’s job is becoming increasingly complex and important.

   Continuous change in many different areas is the major contributor to the complexity and importance of the supervisor’s job. Technology is constantly being upgraded and introduced in the workplace. Restructuring and downsizing with greater demands from upper management for increased productivity. A supervisor needs to wear many different hats at different times to be the glue that keeps all of the conditions mentioned above in check and keep the operative employees that he or she is responsible for up to date on their training, ensuring that they have a reasonable level of job satisfaction and keep them motivated as well. This means being mentor, coach, guidance counsellor at times, referee, teacher, authority figure, trainer, disciplinarian, and co-worker to fill in the voids. The work force is becoming more diverse. There is an increasing demand to do more with less. A supervisor must keep themselves up to date on changes. Not only enough to get the general idea but to fully comprehend these changes and the effects they will have on the daily lives of the workforce that they are responsible for. They need to implement these changes and garner buy in from their direct reports while ensuring that they are fully trained at the same time.

   At my last job there was an incredible amount of downsizing that went on as well as ongoing change. I think it will provide a good example of the sort of complex challenges that supervisors face today. When I first started with this company I was hired as the Warehouse Assistant Manager. I reported to the Warehouse Manager and I had 20 direct reports. The Warehouse Manager was responsible for the Warehouse and the Refurbishing Departments. There was a Refurbishing Assistant Manager who had 6 direct reports and he was expected to perform some of the operative work as well. There was also a logistics department comprised of 2 people that reported to the Buying Team. They were responsible for booking all of the inbound and outbound freight for the warehouse. At the time that I was hired the warehouse and refurbishing departments were operating out of a space of about 40,000 square feet. I worked at this company for approximately 3 ½ years. At the end of my employment I had been in the position of the Warehouse Manager for about 1 year. The positions of both Warehouse and Refurbishing Assistant Managers had been eliminated. I had 2 direct reports working under me in the Warehouse and 2 direct reports working under me in Refurbishing. I had also assumed all of the responsibilities of the logistics department including the booking of all of the inbound and outbound freight for the warehouse and all of the retail store locations. The warehouse and refurbishing departments were then operating out of 10,000 square feet. With the significant downsizing of staff compliment and operating space these departments were expected by upper management to produce almost the same quantity of work as it did when I was first hired. The four remaining employees that worked in these departments were long term employees and had been with the company either longer than or almost as long as I had. You can imagine the challenges with training, managing change, juggling multiple responsibilities, employee stress, helping them set and achieve their own goals, trying to keep them motivated and buying in to the organizational goals to ensure that the departments were meeting their targets.

4. Explore how workplace diversity is impacting every part of a supervisor’s job.

   In the time that I have spent supervising I have worked with a very diverse range of individuals. I have worked with a wide variety of ethnic backgrounds. At the company where I held my first supervisory position there was a large population of people with a Pilipino background. Many of them had immigrated to Canada, English being their second language. Others were the first generation born in Canada. The company offered the aptitude test that it used as part of the hiring process in Tagalog. There were also several employees from Croatia and I even hired one that had just come to Canada that hadn’t learned to speak English yet. We had one of the other employees interpret for us until he began learning basic English. I have supervised many Aboriginal staff and currently supervise an employee that has come to Canada from Sri Lanka. I have supervised every age group from people that are 16 and working for the summer up to age 70. Many of the older generation view the younger generation as slackers that don’t care about anything but themselves and rarely tow the company line. They typically feel that younger staff show very little commitment and dedication to their jobs. The younger generation quite often just want to show up for work and get their pay cheques. They feel that the older generation need to live a little and not take work so seriously. I have heard a young employee tell an older employee that he must not have life since he never used his sick days. I have had the experience that it can be very challenging getting a diverse group of people to reconcile very different belief systems and be able to settle on some middle ground. Simple gestures that mean nothing to one person can be deeply offensive to another. I have had to speak to employees regarding their conduct in the work place. The younger male and female were carrying on a casual conversation in the lunch room one day using some profanity that was totally acceptable in their normal circles, however some of the people in the lunch room at the time were from an older generation and others were from a much stricter heritage where topics like that were not discussed in public or in the presence of women. The observers in the lunchroom were quite offended at the conversation that day. Even though I spoke to the parties involved and they did not continue speaking this way around the other employees it caused some dissention among the team that made a very real impact on the productivity and the morale of the group for about a week before it finally blew over and the atmosphere returned to the way that it was prior to the incident.

5. Explain how a supervisor can contribute to an organization’s competitive advantage.

   As a supervisor you typically oversee the largest group of employees in any organization. The fact that you are responsible for the group that is the lifeline of any organization means that you have the greatest effect on productivity and ensuring that the operative employees are accomplishing what the organization needs to be competitive. If the supervisors in an organization manage their people well by training them, coaching them, guiding them, treating them fairly, setting clear specific goals and monitoring their progress they are likely to ensure that their department is productive and efficient. Since the operative or operations side of an organization is typically a cost centre then greater productivity and efficiency will have a direct effect on the bottom line by ensuring the maximum output for minimum input. By keeping an operation lean and mean it minimizes the costs of the company thereby increasing its operating profit. If a supervisor has well trained and motivated staff they are likely to produce work in a more timely fashion with a finished product that is of higher quality. When a company consistently delivers a higher quality product faster and at a lower cost than its competition there is no better example of having a competitive advantage. If a supervisor is a forward thinker and does well with managing change in their department they will have the ability to respond to market fluctuations and implement new technology in a shorter time span than their competitors. This is another way that a supervisor can directly influence the ability of a company to stay one step ahead of the pack.