Deepening skills by stretching challenges

When you are a supervisor or manager responsible for either someone new to work environment, new to the company or simply new in their role, you need to manage him or her in a special and particular way if you are to get the most out of them.

We know that usually, babies learn to crawl before they can walk and they master walking before they are able to run – with some isolated exceptions. Similarly, a new employee needs to be taken through stages of development and building of personal confidence before they can be assigned tough assignments. Assume, for example, that someone has just resigned having held the position under you for, say, five years and with total work experience of 15 years. You suddenly promote a junior staff into that role. This new junior staff member has only worked for two years since leaving college, but shows great potential, works hard and delivers all actions on time and so on.

This new member will require a special development programme in the new role if he or she is to continue to excel as he or she did before the promotion. There will be need to thoroughly brief the new member on the demands and expectations of the new job. Make sure that he or she meets the previous role holder.

One key element of building the confidence of the new person will be how effectively you will keep stretching the level of challenge in the assignments that you will be giving to the new role holder. The best way to scare, frustrate or ‘kill the future’ of the new role holder is to immediately flood him or her with lots of challenging tasks. It is important that in the beginning, you give him or her few and simpler tasks, even if it is at the expense of delivery of your team, in the interim period. If possible, assign some of the tasks that he or she is supposed to do to others as the new member settles in.

As time goes by, you can gradually increase both the amount and level of challenge of the tasks assigned to the newly-promoted or recruited staff member. As you raise the game, you need to continuously observe how the new member is coping with the amount and level of challenge. Whenever you sense that the new member is struggling with the amount or level of challenge, you need to begin to reduce a bit and then raise the level again later. Another key ingredient of this strategy is that you provide a lot of support to the new staff member, by openly indicating to them that if they find that the tasks are too big or very challenging, they should be open with you. Be clear that with time, you will be increasing the amount and complexity of work that you assign to them. Support should also be provided in terms of linking the new member with other people that they can rely on, ask questions or get support from as they learn the new job.

Many supervisors and leaders do not spend much time to help new role holders to settle into and learn the new job. Today, we have discussed the importance as well as the mechanics of this important component of staff management. Good luck as you rise and shine as a good workplace coach and supervisor for your staff. If you do this well, all your juniors will respect and remember you forever.

—Feedback: riseandshine@mtumbuka.com