HR departments

[Bird]

<font color=blue>a good supervisor only needs to know how to manage people, they don't need to know anything about the job at hand</font color=blue>

I think that's taught in nearly every "management" or "supervisory" course in the country. Naturally, there is some truth to it. Unfortunately, I grew up in the times when, if you had a question, you asked the "boss", and that's one of several reasons I retired a bit early. In our organization, you knew you could forget asking the boss, because he (or she) wouldn't know. You either found out yourself or asked someone lower down the chain of command./w3tcompact/icons/frown.gif

 

[cp1969]

dummy, I don't know where that notion originated (that supervisors only need to know how to 'manage people', not know what they do), but IMHO it is at the very root of what is wrong with the workplace today.

For starters, what is there to 'managing' people anyway? If you strip away the part of knowing what an employee is supposed to do and how to do it, I have trouble finding what there is left to 'manage'. If you don't know who among your employees can do what, how do you give job assignments? If you can't answer a question regarding the actual work being done, what value are you, as a supervisor, to your employees? I can tell you what value--none whatsoever. The boss/employee relationship has to be a two-way street, and when it becomes one-way, because the boss can only receive from the employees, not give-- there will be no respect given to the boss. When that happens, coupled with the fact that the boss can't tell if you're blowing smoke or telling the truth, you have the recipe for Chapter 11 in front of you.

Now, there may be exceptional cases where a person has such natural leadership qualities that he could lead, at least temporarily, a group of employees while he learned the ropes. But this is in my opinion the exception, not the rule as it has become. Whoever sold American business on the concept that 'you only need to know how to manage people' ought to be given the equivalent of the Billy Sol Estes Award for Grain Management.

Bird, the job your daughter does is termed Benefits Administration here, a separate entity from HR. These people, I agree, are necessary and I intend no disrespect toward them and apologize if I gave that impression. The ones I wholeheartedly intend to disrespect are the ones who come up with idiotic schemes like this ridiculous box and the forced percentages of performance. I wonder what would happen if HR gave the leader of the Blue Angels this form to fill out? I'm sure HR would tell them that there MUST be 10% who are unfit to fly in the Navy.