The concept of self-supervision makes employees feel a high level of responsibility toward their work, which leads to increased work motivation and productivity. According to research studies, employees with good self-supervision skills tend to develop positive personality traits. These traits create a positive impact and contribute to the work performance of the employees because they are bound to utilize their best skills and abilities.
However, everything has its flaws and imperfections. There are many pitfalls that organizations may incur in an attempt to train employees how to effectively self-supervise. These mistakes are expected especially because the move to self-supervision in the workplace is a step-by-step process. But the company has to realize these drawbacks and must learn from it.
There are several pitfalls an individual or an organization may encounter. The main discussion in this article revolves around three common and major mistakes of self-supervision: too much self-supervision, lack of preparation of employees to self-supervise and lack of communication and monitoring in the workplace.
Too Much Self-Supervision
The feeling of being able to manage one’s own actions and activities is empowering both in personal or professional aspect. However, too much self-supervision in the workplace is a big mistake that management and employees should be cautious about. This eventually leads to employee dissatisfaction because not every employee has the same level of need to self-supervise.
There are working individuals who still prefer guidance and direction from management. Some are even uncomfortable with the concept of self-supervision. They may not utilize their competencies on their work and might not accept the responsibility of working on a task or project with minimum supervision.
On the other hand, too much self-supervision may adversely condition the employees to become authoritative and to dominate others. They may feel that they can overpower their supervisors. In this situation, they may resort to insubordination or may decline any extra responsibility assigned to them.
A company must take heed in the needs of its employees. If the change in organizational structure is a little abrupt for some workers, the management should make the transition a gradual process until they become comfortable with it and learn to embrace self-supervision as a highly disciplined skill.
Lack of Preparation to Self-Supervise
Many organizations have realized the need to change to a more revolutionary structure, as it becomes a more effective approach in promoting growth and success. Traditionally, the structural design involves various job classifications. In the management level, managers and supervisors take higher level functions and the low-level employees are under their direction.
One common pitfall that companies fail to notice is the lack of preparation of low-level employees to self-direct. Either they don’t have the right skills or they do not have the needed personality traits to self-supervise. If this is the case, employees are prone to poor performance and workplace tension.
An effective method in developing self-supervision is to create self-directed teams. This way the individuals can learn more by working together with the team. Trainings and workshops on personality development help them bring out the best in their potentials.
Lack of Communication and Monitoring
The third common pitfall of self-supervision in the workplace is when the management fails to consistently communicate or monitor the employees who are under their direct supervision. This results in various issues such as poor job performance and unethical work behaviors.
The primary purpose and objective of self-supervision for working individuals is to develop a sense of responsibility and motivation in their work. The employees have to practice a certain level of self-supervision and should still maintain a level of respect toward their direct supervisors.
Self-supervision in the workplace is supposed to help establish a comfortable relationship between the management and employees. Even with self-directed teams, the supervisors have to make sure that they still check on their members from time to time.
Superiors must see to it that while the members are working autonomously, the aims are still in line with company goals. Regular team meetings and periodic monitoring are helpful in handling too much work autonomy as well as keeping a good level of employee self-supervision.
