Here is a term paper on the ‘Supervision of Employees’ for class 9, 10, 11 and 12. Find paragraphs, long and short term papers on the ‘Supervision of Employees’ especially written for school and college students.
Supervision of Employees
Term Paper Contents:
- Term Paper on the Meaning of Supervision
- Term Paper on the Phases of Supervision
- Term Paper on the Methods of Supervision
- Term Paper on the Qualities of Good Supervisors
- Term Paper on the Training of Supervisors
- Term Paper on the Human Relations of Supervision
1. Term Paper on the Meaning of Supervision:
Supervision means to “oversee or superintend”. It has been defined as the authoritative direction and superintending the work of others. However, some writers feel that this is too authoritarian a definition of supervision.
Supervision is something more than the use of authority; it has educative aspect too. The different aspects of supervision have been explained by Margaret Williamson in a graphic story. Some new group workers were asked what came to their mind when they heard the term ‘supervision’?
The workers replied somewhat as follows:
“Being safeguarded from making mistakes. Being helped by a person who understands. Satisfaction in having a point of reference. Being made to feel inadequate and inferior because of the authority and power of the person over me. Being pushed around.”
She defines supervision “as a process by which workers are helped by a designated staff member to learn according to their needs, to make the best use of their knowledge and skills and to improve their abilities so that they do their jobs more effectively and with increasing satisfaction to themselves and the agency.” She has more a humanistic rather than technical approach to the meaning of supervision.
Supervision should be distinguished from inspection and investigation though the latter are the tools of the former. Inspection is to check compliance with instructions and investigation is to deter or detect wrong doing. Hence, both are negative in character. But supervision is more positive in character; it is consultative and advisory in nature. In fact, it has many ingredients.
In the words of Halsey, it is “selecting the right person for each job, arousing in each person an interest in his work and teaching him how to do it; measuring and rating performance to be sure that teaching has been fully effective, administering correction where this found necessary and transferring to more suitable work or dismissing those for whom this proves ineffective; commending whenever praise is merited and rewarding for good work; and, finally, fitting each person harmoniously into the working group—all done fairly, patiently and tactfully so that each person is caused to do his work skillfully, accurately, intelligently, enthusiastically and completely.”
Thus supervision is a broader concept. It is more positive than negative. It implies consultation, advice and guidance. The employees turn to their supervisor for guidance and advice whenever they face problems in doing their job.
2. Term Paper on the Phases of Supervision:
There are three phases of a supervisor’s job:
(1) Substantive or technical.
(2) Institutional, and
(3) Personal.
(1) Substantive Aspect:
A supervisor must know the technique and the ‘know-how’ of his work because he has to plan the work, assign duties to others and set standards of performance.
(2) Institutional Aspect:
A supervisor has to run the agency or unit under his charge according to the established rules and procedures and within the framework of policy. He should ensure that the work is well done and on time. He has the responsibility to see that all employees are regular and punctual in their duties and that there is proper conservation of equipment and supplies.
(3) Personal Aspect:
Authority alone cannot get work out of others; hence, it is the job of the supervisor to create interest and enthusiasm among the workers. Real authority must flow from within. As Miss Follett has put it “Authority should arise within the unifying process.
As every living process is subject to its own authority evolved by, or involved in, the process itself, so social control is generated by the process itself Or rather, the activity or self-creating coherence is the controlling authority.” So that such an authority may arise from within an organization, a supervisor must be humane, sympathetic, considerate and master of the art of human relations.
H. Nissen gives a list of eleven principal duties of a supervisor which are as under:
(i) To understand the duties and responsibilities of his own position,
(ii) To plan the execution of the work,
(iii) To divide the work among the subordinates and to direct and assist them in doing it,
(iv) To improve work methods and procedures,
(v) To improve his own knowledge as technical expert and leader,
(vi) To train the subordinates,
(vii) To evaluate the performance of the employees,
(viii) To correct mistakes, solve problems of employees, and develop discipline among them,
(ix) To keep subordinates informed about policies and procedures of the organization and about the changes made therein,
(x) To cooperate with colleagues and seek their advice and assistance whenever needed, and
(xi) To deal with employees’ suggestions and complaints.
3. Term Paper on the Methods of Supervision:
Millet suggests the following six methods or techniques of supervision:
(i) Prior Approval:
Prior approval or advance review is a very common method of supervision by the headquarters over field establishments. It means that before taking any initiative outside the framework of policy, the field establishments must get prior approval of the headquarters. In India, prior approval of the Ministry of Finance, besides the approval of the departmental heads, is needed if a project has financial implications.
This arrangement of prior approval benefits both the subordinate agencies in so far as they are in a position to get guidance from the headquarters and the headquarters in so far as it is able to exercise detailed control over the progress of projects. This also affords scope for removing misunderstandings and rectifying errors well in time.
In the words of Millett “In this way the approving level is able to obtain detailed information about the intentions of the operating unit. Management thus learns how the general plans have been interpreted and how it is proposed to carry them out. If there is some misunderstanding, it can be corrected before work is actually begun. If the general plans are inadequate to meet particular situations, modifications can be effected by approving the individual project. If instructions have not made clear the priorities and emphasis which top management wishes observed, the approval technique may be used to right the balance.”
There are, of course, disadvantages to this approval process. It is time-consuming, results in mass of paper work in the central office, interposes delays, creates diffidence on the part of operating heads and may sometimes lead to personality clashes between the operating heads and top management. In times of crisis, this system can put a premium on the efficient working of field stations.
(ii) Service Standards:
Service standards mean fixing norms for performance. The top management can lay down certain targets or standards for the operating agencies to achieve. This will not only provide guide-points to the operating agencies but shall also become a means for determining how effectively they have been doing the jobs assigned to them. In government service, these standards of performance have an added importance.
In the words of Millett “Service standards are necessary in government in order to ensure that work is done promptly and properly. In any large organisation there is likely to be a definite tendency to establish routines which becomes more important than rendering service. Only if a constant standard is set up for the performance of the work itself can the inclination to procrastination and delay be overcome.”
It may, however, be mentioned here that standards fixed must be fair, exact and concrete and must be judged objectively. In certain intellectual type of activities, these standards are somewhat difficult to determine because of the immeasurable nature of work.
(iii) Work Budget:
Budget allotments are a very powerful means of exercising supervision. Budget is not simply an array of figures; it is a tool of control over administration. Budget allotments fix the magnitude of the work to be done in a given time and the operating agencies have to work within these allotments.
The top management’s control becomes effective as these operating agencies are not given a free hand to spend money as and when they like.
“He who pays the piper calls the time” and this applies quite appropriately on the top-management, which is budgetary allotting authority.
“The advantage of this technique is that it enables top management to fix certain limits to the work to be done but leaves the decision about actual operations to the operating unit. The work-budget allotment is then a method of delegating authority and of encouraging local initiative while still retaining a central control over the magnitude of the work as a whole.”
(iv) Approval of Personnel:
No government agency is given complete freedom in the matter of recruitment of personnel except for recruitment of insignificant subordinate staff. Normally, this work is entrusted to a central personnel department commonly known as Public Service Commission. The central agency can exercise control over subordinate operating units by providing for prior approval of certain appointments made by them.
(v) Reports:
A standard practice in supervision is to require operating units to submit periodic or ad hoc reports about their activities to the central office. Such reports provide information on the basis of which the central office can evaluate the performance of the operating units. Seckler-Hudson broadens the scope of reporting so as to include the entire field of communication.
According to him, “it reaches not only upward, downward, outward, and around within a given organization, it must reach across to other agencies doing similar work, and up and out to the government wide agencies and the office of the President.” Here, however, we are concerned only with internal management reporting whose purpose is to inform management.
In the words of Millett “These reports may be narrative or statistical; they may embrace the broad scope of all major activities, or they may be confined to a few essentials; they may emphasize achievement or deficiencies in performance.” It may, however, be mentioned that a report defeats its purpose if it gets unduly lengthy. Hence voluminous reports should be avoided.
(vi) Inspection:
Inspection is one of the accepted techniques of supervision. The purpose of inspection is to see whether the field agencies are doing work according to the established rules and procedures and whether their performance is up to the expectation of the central office.
It is not a fault-finding process as we might think. It is meant “to acquire information. It helps to clarify management purposes and intentions. It helps acquaint top management with the operating problems facing subordinate levels of management. It helps build personal relationships of mutual acquaintance and confidence.”
Inspections are generally conducted through three agencies:
(a) By the superiors of the work of subordinates. This is almost in-built in the hierarchical structure.
(b) By the headquarters’ inspection staff specially deputed for the purpose of inspection.
(c) By a separate outside Inspection Agency or Department as Inspectorate of Government Office in U.P.
What should constitute an inspection team?
What should be the periodical interval between first and second inspection?
Whether inspection should be scheduled or unscheduled?
Whether it should be conducted by administrative or technical staff or by both?
These are the questions which are highly debatable and only experience must answer.
4. Term Paper on the Qualities of Good Supervisors:
Everybody cannot be a good supervisor. Besides the fact that he should be fully equipped with the knowledge of rules and regulations of his agency, he must possess certain qualities required of a good supervisor.
Prof J.M. Pfiffner lists eight such qualities:
(1) Command of job content—expert knowledge of the work to be supervised.
(2) Personal qualifications—co-operative spirit, evenness of temper, honesty, ability to attract, to motivate, to enthuse and unite others.
(3) Teaching ability—ability to communicate with the workers and to make them understand management point of view.
(4) General outlook—he must love his job and inspire others.
(5) Courage and fortitude—ability to undertake responsibility and act decisively.
(6) Ethical and moral considerations—freedom from vices having social disapproval.
(7) Administrative technology—capacity to organize, coordinate and direct.
(8) Curiosity and intellectual ability—mental alertness and flexibility, responsiveness to new ideas and practices.
According to Halsey, these qualities are:
1. Thoroughness:
A supervisor should collect all the detailed information relevant to the issue.
2. Fairness:
He must be fair, considerate and truthful towards workers.
3. Initiative:
He must combine in himself courage, self-confidence and decisiveness.
4. Tact:
It is “the ability to win the loyalty and support of others by saying and doing those which give them a feeling that they are playing an important part in whatever is being done.”
5. Enthusiasm:
It is “an intense and eager interest in and devotion to a cause, a pursuit, or an ideal.”
6. Emotional Control:
It is channelization of emotions in the right direction. An effective supervisor must provide sound leadership. His supervision should neither be too close as to defeat initiative nor too little as to lead to inefficiency. It should be employee oriented in style and produce group cohesiveness. An important problem which arises in regard to good supervisors is about their selection.
5. Term Paper on the Training of Supervisors:
Training of supervisors has been a debatable subject. There are persons who believe that supervisors are born; they are not made. Hence supervisory skill is not teachable. But there are others who believe that supervision is a technical skill which can be acquired and developed by proper training.
In the words of Halsey, “It .has be
en demonstrated time and again that almost any person of normal intelligence and sincere desire to be of service to people, can acquire considerable skill in the art of supervising people, if he will study its principles and methods and apply them thoughtfully, conscientiously, and persistently.
The personality of the successful supervisor of people is made up of a number of qualities and these qualities are made effective through the use of certain definite techniques.
I believe, too that the qualities necessary to success in supervising people can be developed and that the required techniques can be taught and skill in their use made permanent by practice. I believe that because I have seen it done by both old and new supervisors, and seen their departments improve as they became better supervisors.
During the World War II, large-scale training of supervisors was undertaken in the U.S.A. in the three essentials of supervisor work through the so-called ‘J’ programme consisting of Job Instruction Training, Job Methods Training and Job Relations Training. Among the new training programmes, ‘work simplification’ is getting very popular both in private and business organizations.
On the job training programmer through refresher courses, seminars and conferences should be started on a massive scale in India to make our supervising staff better equipped with the techniques of good supervision.
6. Term Paper on the Human Relations of Supervision:
The quality and performance of supervision in an administrative agency depends on a large extent upon the personal relations of supervisors to employees. The days of authoritarian leadership are over and the term ‘command’ has to be replaced by the term ‘persuasion’.
As Mr. Henry Reining has put, “the days of the straw boss who shouted his orders and cracked his whip are over.” Only if employees are generally satisfied with the type of supervision which they get in an organization will they put forth their best efforts.
Professor Pfiffner has rightly summarized the importance of human characteristics of supervision in these words. “The pattern of leadership desirable in supervisory positions is based upon behaviour that emphasizes co-operation, participation, consultation, and satisfaction for the egos of the rank and the file, even though the strong leader may have to subdue his natural desire for self-assertion and self-display.”
At another place he writes, “The supervisor on the lower levels secures cooperation and production by de-emphasizing his own ego, stimulating group participation, and encouraging the maximum satisfaction of individual egos that is consistent with co-ordination.”
The Hawthorne experiments (Elton Mayo group) and Michigan Studies have proved that “employees can be most effectively motivated by people-centred and democratic leadership and by favourable institutional environment.”
The Michigan Studies have suggested the following conclusions:
(1) It appears that the closer or more exact the degree of supervision exerted by a foreman, the lower the level of output by a work group. Conversely, the more general the degree of supervision exercised by a foreman, the higher the level of production by a work group.
(2) The kind of supervision exercised by a foreman tends to reflect the kind of supervision to which the foreman in turn is subject. If a foreman is closely supervised by his own superior, he will tend to supervise closely the work of his group.
(3) The foremen who take a major interest in the individual workers—that is, are “employee-centered”—tend to be associated with groups having high levels of production output. Foremen who take a major interest in production processes as such, i.e., are “production centered”—tend to be associated with groups having low output records.
Supervisors in high-production groups tend to have a considerable interest in the off-the-job problems and activities of employees.
(4) The foremen of groups with high-production outputs tend to spend more time on supervisory duties and less time on direct production work than foremen of low-production groups. In particular, foremen in the high-output groups spend a good deal of time in planning the work to be done and in performing special, skilled tasks.
On the other hand, foremen in low-production groups spend more time in doing ordinary routine tasks. In other words, a successful manager devotes more attention to “responsibility” job than to “work” job.
(5) The foremen in high-production output groups tend to encourage group participation in considering common tasks, tend to be helpful rather than punitive in dealing with those having a poor output record, and tend generally to be satisfied with their own job set-up.
(6) The foremen in groups with a high-production output are usually willing to train their personnel for job advancement, even though this means breaking up the “team.”
The above conclusions definitely suggest that effective supervision depends in the last analysis upon “supervisors who understand people not just in groups but as individuals, different from one another, with varying interests and desires.
Supervision means harnessing the productive energies of many persons into a common endeavour so that the desired output is realized to the fullest extent possible. No such objective can be realized without full attention to the peculiar characteristics of the people who make up any organization.”
It may, however, be mentioned that some later researches made at Ohio State University (by E.A. Fleishman, Edwin F. Harris, and Harold E. Burtt of Bureau of Educational Research) have contradicted the Michigan Studies generalizations. They have proved that extreme ‘soft’ type of supervision does not pay; rather it adversely affects the morale of employees.
Of course, they do not suggest a return to pre-Hawthorne production-oriented supervision but nor do they out rightly advocate “employee-oriented” leadership. In fact, a middle ground has to be accepted, i.e., a supervisor should be both production-oriented as well as employee-oriented.
In the words of Seashore “If a leader abdicates his interest in and responsibility for production it has an adverse effect on both productivity and morale. ‘Soft’ leadership, over-emphasis upon consideration, is not conducive to high morale. A moderate amount of emphasis on production is required to avoid both low production and low morale….”