HSE 134 Improving Supervision (NL)

People are often promoted to the role of a supervisor because they have the ability to meet production targets and have had suitable technical training. However, that does not necessarily mean that they have completed training to enable them to become successful supervisors. This booklet aims to help people new to this role, and also refresh the skills of those who have been supervisors for some time.

Supervisors are key to managing hazards and risks in business. Businesses put ‘barriers’ in place to stop a hazard becoming an undesirable outcome, and rely on their employees at different stages to highlight any problems. A supervisor has a crucial role in this process, to make sure that employees talk to each other about hazards, and that any problems are highlighted. If there is a lack of supervision then these barriers become difficult to implement and maintain.

A supervisor should be using the following procedure:

• Plan the work in sufficient detail.
• Do the work so it is completed according to the plan.
• Review what happened, learn from problems.
• Feedback, what went right and can be done better.
• Implement improvements.
• Inform people outside the team about any learning points discovered.