This paper contains interviews of two people from different backgrounds and different organizations. The interview intends to get vital information from the interviewees. Having in mind that an interview is between two people, there will be two different interviews in two different settings. One interview will be at a restaurant and the other one will be at an industry. In the first interview, john will be the interviewee and he is a supervisor in envy restaurant while the second interview will be in Gregory motor garage where Michael will answer several questions concerning his role as a supervisor.
First interview
Position held and number of directly supervised people
John is a supervisor at envy restaurant, which is a popular restaurant in the United States of America. A supervisor ensures that things run smoothly in any organization and without a supervisor, there is no order. It is the work of john to ensure that he goes round the restaurant everyday to make sure that things go well. It is not easy to be a supervisor, john says. This is because the manager blames everything on you incase there is no order. Supervisor’s role is the same as the managers role only that the manager manages from the office and the supervisor has to be in the field at all times.
Being a normal employee, he has to deal with so many people who work in the restaurant. These people could be above or below him by rank but he has to make sure that they do what they should do. According to john, he supervises over one hundred and fifty employees and he has no assistant. Having no assistant makes him work everyday and whenever he fails to attend job, things do not go very well especially in areas where he has to push employees to work. He makes sure that every room is clean meaning he has to go in all rooms to make certain. It is his role to know who attends and who fails to attend job so that there is even distribution of work.
Kind of training john received prior to becoming a supervisor
A supervisor deals directly with the employees and like john, he has to relate well with them so that both parties work well together and in harmony. John says that before he became a supervisor, he had to take public relations course, which took him around two years. After that, he went for management classes so that he could comfortably manage people like human beings and not animals. It is after the two courses, John learnt how to deal with people and how to be a good supervisor and the integrated qualities helped him get the job at the hotel as a supervisor.
Three most important qualities of a supervisor and why
According to john, a supervisor must be firm but fair. This is because when a supervisor is not firm, employees will take advantage and misuse the trait of being soft. This will lead them to being unenthusiastic in their duties and poor working habits like cleaning in the evening instead of morning and attending work late. Being fair on the other hand ensures that there is even distribution of work. This is a necessary ingredient in supervision and without the supervisor is not complete.
The second quality is respect. John says that for him to get respect from others, he has to respect himself first and in so doing respect others. Respect is not only a good quality of a supervisor but of anybody working with human beings. This is because as a supervisor, there are many things he tells people to do off their duties and without respect, the employees cannot do them.
The third quality is humility. He does not boss around those he works with because incase of anything while in the line of duty, employees are the closest people to him and it is from them that he gets help. Being humble makes one earn respect from others according to John, it costs one nothing to be humble.
Two things John wishes he knew before becoming a supervisor
John wishes he knew how to wash clothes because he finds It difficult to tell those in the laundry how to wash beddings because he can hardly demonstrate to them how to do it. He says that being a supervisor requires him to know everything he supervises. He also wishes he knew how to handle difficult people because he comes across difficult employees every day in his line of duty. This he says has given him a difficult time in the restaurant and he ends up quarrelling with such employees, something he hates getting into.
John recalls a situation when he quarreled with an employee and almost got into a fight. He had to cool down and many employees assumed that he feared being beaten but to him that did not matter. He called the employee in secret and they settled the issue without even getting to higher administration. The employee thought he had lost his job and on realizing his calm attitude, he learnt how to respect him. He says this was a difficult supervisory situation and he would to have another one of the kind.
Second interview
Position held and number of directly supervised people
Gregory motor company has over three hundred people and Michael being the supervisor, he has to supervise them everyday. This he says is not easy, as he gets no free time to interact with other members of staff like him. Michael plays a big role as a supervisor in ensuring that all the vehicles brought for repair get immediate attention. He has to know the mechanics he supervises so that the best customers get the best mechanics although he works towards making them good as a group. Without him, Gregory motors would always be in kales as he adds that the most difficult moments in his life is working with mechanics who do not see the need for cleanliness and the same time the garage has to be clean at all times.
Kind of training Michael received prior to becoming a supervisor
Michael had a passion to work in a motor company from when he was small. He always wanted to do any course related to motor industry. This means he had to take classes in civil and mechanical engineering. He did so and when he went for the interview, the only position left was for a supervisor but luckily, the motor company was willing to take him through the necessary courses to become a supervisor.
He did public relations and administration, which he says, was challenging, as he had never dreamt of becoming a supervisor. He completed and got the role of a supervisor. During training, he learnt how to relate with people and how to work with people. He also learned how to administer in a company and having lived with people in colleges, he had an idea of how to treat people in a human way.
Three most important qualities of a supervisor and why
According to Michael, the first quality is not to show favoritism. This could be in actions or any other way to people and the organization. The reason the quality is important is because it is a good advise and in this, he does not see any employee as greater than the rest. He treats the employees equally and distributes work in a fair way.
The second quality is not being afraid to address any situation that does not meet the requirements, goals and rules of the company. This is because every employee will tend to understand what the company expects. The third quality according to Michael is setting a good example in the given position. If he for example fails to attend job for no reason, other employees will follow his bad example but if he always does good things, other employees will follow him and this will reflect in Gregory motor company.
Two things Michael wishes he knew before becoming a supervisor
Michael wishes he knew two things before becoming a supervisor. He wishes he knew the difference between an employer and an employee and two the best way to manage time. He always finds himself either too early or very late both in the morning and evening and whenever an employee gets late, he gets no reason to punish, as he is also a victim.
In his supervisory duties, Michael recalls when he got involved with a late employee and the management told him to take action on him but having in mind that he is also a poor performer when it comes to time, he told the employee to get time management skills and that him help him even in the future. He did something that the management did not understand but the employee never came to work late from that day.
In the two interviews, it is almost clear that being a supervisor is the same regardless of where one is. The interviews relate closely to task oriented behaviors of the leaders as well as the people oriented behaviors. In both interviews, the two supervisors have at one time made democratic decisions. This concurs with the decision-making concepts in the textbooks. The chapter on leadership is however helpful to everybody who intends to supervise, as it is universal.
The two interviews conclude that organizational behavior is applicable from anywhere. The same way john supervised is the same way Michael supervised and the only change is the location as john works in a restaurant therefore dealing with cooks, housekeepers and customers. Michael on the other hand works in a garage therefore dealing with drivers, mechanics and customers. If john was given the role of Michael and vise versa, there would be no difference or challenges in terms of the organizational behavior.
