Carlo Recio has been in the maintenance crew for 8 years now. Carlo’s uncle was a national sales manager for the infant formula plant and arranged a part-time job for Carlo, who then finished vocational school and went on a full-time job from janitorial to maintenance. Carlo learns quickly and he has acquired a variety of skills in addition to his specialized training. He has also maintained a good relationship with the other employees. The maintenance supervisor suffered a heat stroke and decided to take an early retirement at 55 years.
The plant manager told Carlo that he is highly recommended by the maintenance supervisor. Carlo knows very well that the supervisor would always be called over in the wee hours of the morning or midnight to supervise emergency repairs. Some of his co-workers advised him to accept the offer but he does not know the consensus of the majority. He is also concerned with Al who relieved the supervisor several times when the latter was sick. Later on, Carlo decided to accept the position. The plant manager warned that he should exercise his authority on the job.
Carlo made a pattern of his performance based on the former supervisor. He empowered the crew to do the job on their own and is only after the end results. He is also fair in pointing out problems. On the other hand, the crew likes his supervision and has respected him as a supervisor. There are no significant events in the plant except that Carlo has noticed some horsing around the job. When he pointed out his attitude, the crew displayed certain coolness. Later on after a few weeks, he sensed resentment whenever he tried to help a crew member about a particular assignment.
He now feels a certain ill feeling about being a manager. However, he continued. It is now time to make important strategies that would be helpful for the plant. The strategies to be implemented need the cooperation of the crew. He is quite hesitant on the implementation of the strategies for he feels no one will support them. The strategies should require extra hours of work although the crew will be given overtime pay and meal allowance. It will entail a sacrifice of six weekends. He is still uncertain of their support and cooperation and these changes should be implemented two weeks from now.
Carlo Recio, an employee of the Maintenance Department of an infant formula plant was a man of industry and service. He was a hardy worker who was acknowledged by his co-workers for his skills and great personality. Aside from his specialized training in maintenance which grabs his supervisor’s attention, his character further catches the eye of his colleagues and managers. Because of his excellence at work, his former supervisor, who has taken an early retirement, recommends him for the supervisorial position.
Carlo, being the humble person that he is, takes into account first his co-workers who were fit for the job to but later on, he accepted the position whole-heartedly. As a supervisor, he did his job excellently by empowering his co-workers and getting the job done. Because of this, his colleges highly respected him as a supervisor. He did not disappoint his former supervisor by being the best that he can be. Over time, no significant events happened except for Carlo noticing workers horsing around at work. After pointing this out, his workers displayed strong attitude.
Helping his workers was also giving him a hard time because the workers showed resentment. This gave him a certain feeling of illness towards work. Carlo has devised strategies so that his workers will be more empowered with their work and so that his supervisorial position will not be a hindrance in helping out his workmates. But the only problem is, Carlo feels hopeless in implementing these because he feels like no one will ever support them.
After knowing Carlo’s situation, we can definitely see that he is losing his confidence as a supervisor; therefore making his workers a little too cool for him and can lead to disobedience if not treated upon later on. So the first thing that Carlo should develop for better employee performance is his confidence. Without his confidence as a supervisor, his workers will lose their respect for him later on and might even bully him eventually. He must bring back this confidence to set his dominance as a leader. He must also set a strong footing for this work and stand firm against all oppressions that might hinder him from doing the best that he can.
Next, Carlo must appreciate the value of teamwork more. If the group works more as a team, the closer they will be to each other, making work easier and more proficient because they will not be burdened by work but instead be happy about it because they have this connection with each other that makes working fun. On tackling with team building, Carlo must set regular meeting so that he can know what problems the team encounters at work and build an answer to this problems so that work will be constant and reliable.
Team building is a must in managerial positions because a broken-up team will only destroy work, not create it. The strategies that he was suggesting, the ones that require overtime work with overtime pay with meal allowance, will deal a large amount of good for the plant because more work can be done and workers could get better salaries from the overtime work. He needs only to implement these confidently as a supervisor so that work can be better for everybody. We now come to the conclusion for Carlo’s problem as a supervisor.
First, he must establish himself as a confident and respectful supervisor that his co-workers will look up to. Next, he should take teamwork to a higher level so that work in the plant will be more proficient and constant. Also, regular team meetings should be held to access the problems being encountered by his workers and so that actions on the problem can be implemented faster. And lastly, he must establish himself not only as a supervisor but also as a friend to all his co-workers, not only to gain their respect but also to gain their trust.
