Employees who manage a network of sites or a frontline of employees and direct as much as two-thirds of the workforce are a company’s most vital asset. They are the people responsible for enforcing plans and policies as well as reporting operational results, but most of the time they have limited flexibility in decision-making and very little room for creativity.
How can these frontline managers oversee the implementation of improvements while coaching their employees and improving quality? Nev Lockwood, global operational excellence director for Albemarle, recommends empowering frontline managers to communicate decisions, not make them; ensure compliance with policies, not use judgment or discretion; and oversee the implementation of improvements, not contribute ideas. Following these guidelines results in flexibility and productivity that generate financial returns for the company.
Frontline managers need to foresee trouble and stem it before it begins, added Anchal Liddar, director of operational excellence, API. For a frontline manager to truly do what his or her job entails requires a significant amount of time spent helping the team understand the company’s direction and its implications for team members and coaching performance.
“But how many actually do that today?” asked Bryan Canfield, general manager, Port Arthur Refinery, Total Petrochemicals and Refining. “It seems most frontline managers spend their time on administrative work and meetings or non-managerial tasks and a small portion on actually managing frontline employees or coaching them directly.”
Many companies devalue frontline leaders’ effectiveness at driving performance and increasing engagement across the entire organization. Research has proven a good manager has the potential to increase employees’ commitment to their jobs and increase emotional commitment to the organization, remarked Hugo Ashkar, global risk manager, BP. “At BP, we value this skill set. If an employee is engaged and committed to his job thanks to his frontline manager effectively coaching him, then that means safety continues to be at the forefront of all that they do — day in, day out.”
“We need to drive a culture of high performance, rather than just a performance review event,” stated Canfield at the Operational Excellence Forum in Refining & Petrochemicals held recently in Houston. “This will help create a cohesive, motivated and high-performing team while increasing organizational effectiveness through operational excellence and increased productivity.”
How can one effect this change? “By eliciting key behavioral changes from the frontline,” answered Liddar.
To elicit a changed behavior, she added, one needs to be transparent about how the workload is managed — especially frontline managers. A lot of work is concentrated among a small number of task team leaders or project managers, which only becomes apparent once an internal review is performed.
“This amount of work becomes unsustainable, which leads to other problems down the line,” she added.
Most companies issue guidelines to frontline managers and expect them to perform without explaining what to do and how to do it. The best practices that create integrity, reliability and efficiency require:
- Leadership and vision.
- Principles and expectations.
- Management systems and processes.
“If you allow your frontline manager to be honest and forthcoming with what works and what doesn’t in operational management, then change can happen for both parties,” remarked Liddar. “But they need to know that they are empowered to take risks and make changes. People get excited about changes they want to make, which allows for participation from all.”
By identifying and leveraging issues that prevent frontline managers from doing what is necessary, motivated employees start to deliver operational excellence over the long term. Pride-building development is a great motivator in any workplace, Liddar concluded. There is no standard approach to pride building, but when it’s done right, engagement and commitment start to gain momentum throughout an organization.