Management first-line supervisors

Management and Employee Cooperation. Before beginning to collect data, the cooperation of the managers involved, including the first line supervisor, and of the workers should be secured. Management needs to be informed so that they can be confident that surveillance activities will not upset production or lead to injuries. Workers need to know what the valuation means to them and how the results are to be reported. Everyone needs to know how the measurement is to be conducted so that the actual measurement causes as Htde dismption as possible. 

The personnel responsible for the collection and analysis of incident data vary in different organizations. One common practice is to assign the responsibility to an investigation team which includes the first line supervisor, a safety specialist and a plant worker or staff representative. Depending on the severity of an incident, other management or corporate level investigation teams may become involved. 

This group includes operators, mechanics, first line supervisors, auxiliary staff groups such as technicians and engineers, and middle-level management. They should be trained on how to differentiate an incident from a nonincident and what to do once an incident is identified. 

In defining hazardous work practices, there are a number of sources of information that should be examined. Injury and accident reports such as the OSHA 301 Form provide information about the circumstances surrounding an injury. Often employee or management behaviors that contributed to the injury can be identified. Employees are a good source of information about workplace hazards. They can be asked to identify critical behaviors that may be important as hazard sources or hazard controls. First-line supervisors are also a good source of information because they are constantly... 

The first-line supervisors or team leaders should be educated, trained, and motivated to make safety, health, and loss prevention part of their everyday activities. First-line supervisors and team leaders must be provided the tools with which they can effectively manage the safety, health, and loss prevention function just as they manage production, quality, and the other job requirements. Necessary to acquire the appropriate buy-in are the commitment and motivation of upper-level management combined with the necessary education and training (i.e., the tools ) for supervisors or team leaders to manage safety and loss prevention effectively, as well as holding the supervisor or team leader accountable for the safety performance or achievement of the goals or objectives. 

Safety must be a part of every organizational element. Line elements must complete work safely. All workers need training for safe procedures. They need technical assistance of staff elements who have advance knowledge of safety. Each level of supervision or management in line elements must keep safety paramount. Otherwise, safety will lose its importance for levels below them. Safety must be part of leadership characteristics of every supervisor and manager. Some feel that first-line supervisors are the key to safe operations. They directly influence their workers and the tasks performed. 

Assume that the safety culture does not require effective incident investigation. Consider the following examples, limited to seven, of statements that could be made legitimately in investigation reports, but may be perceived as self-incriminating or accusatory of management levels above the first-line supervisor ... 

The responsibilities of an employee apply to everybody in the workplace, including the Chief Executive Officer. First-line supervisors have additional responsibilities, and senior management have extra responsibilities. Where a health and safely coordi-nator/advisor/ manager has been appointed, it is best to spell out their special resporrsi-bilities. Defining responsibilities assists all employees to know exactfy what is expected of each individual in health and safety terms. Examples of types of responsibility for each of these groups include ... 

Remember the lynchpin While driven from the top and enacted at the bottom, they absolutely must engage middle managers as active and visible champions of the change. I have suggested in a number of the eolumns in this series that first-line supervisors (and the level or two above them) are eritieal lynehpins in the organization. 

As organizations have changed from the traditional functional structure to the product or matrix structure, the role of the first-line supervisor is changing too. Since this position has the most impact on attempts to move toward participative management and empowerment of the workers, an understanding of the supervisor s role is necessary. 

Plant start-ups are best managed by having the first-line supervisor function in the leadperson role. In these situations, the technical expertise of the workers is low. Supervisors should be selected, therefore, primarily for their technical abilities. Team training should be provided, however, to all workers and managers when possible to prepare them for an eventual transition into a team organization. Some organizations have attempted start-ups with self-directed work teams, usually with disastrous results. Afunctional organization works best for start-ups. 

True self-managed team (i.e., no direct supervision) Rotating leadership across each team member Coach/mentor associated with self-managed teams Team leader appointed by team members Team leader appointed by management N Traditional supervision/first line supervisor... 

You cannot have an effective safety and health program without specifically holding the first-line supervisors accountable for themselves and their employees safety and health performance (as well as other management personnel). 

Interviews should not be limited to hourly employees. Much can be learned fiom talking with first-line supervisors. It is also helpful to query line managers about their... 

Some emphasis should be added here. Factor 1 is not management s commitment to the safety process, it is management s demonstration of commitment. Factor 3 is not the quality of the supervisor, it is the quality of the supervisory process. A supervisory process can exist with or without the existence of first-line supervisors. Self-directed work teams provide an example of a supervisory process that does not use first-line snpervisors. 

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