I think most companies would agree it is almost always best practice to give your staff the ability to climb the ladder within your organization.

In the last article, I spoke about how the message of a labour shortage is starting to become too large a message. As I said previously, the shortage is just one variable a business can face, so I thought talking about some of the other variables, and my experience with them, might be a good next step. At Plains, we believe in providing a platform for, “customers and suppliers to become partners in success.” In fact, we use that as a slogan for our company. So why not start a dialogue?

One thing I have seen happen in every company I have worked for is the internal promotion of an above average employee into a lead hand of manager position. I think most companies would agree it is almost always best practice to give your staff the ability to climb the ladder within your organization. We feel that as well, but how many times has this internal promotion been successful? How much time did you spend analyzing the employee’s personality before you made the move? Did you factor into your decision the loss of production which will surely result from the loss of one of your best people? Did you think about how your new manager will cope now that he is down one of his best people? Did you prepare him/her to deal with personalities, procedures, policies, reviews, forecasting, basic accounting, and/or lean tools? The list of considerations and consequences goes on and on.

Being a manager is not as simple as being the person who understands the most about an occupation. You need to understand people, and you need to understand the basics of standard business practice. No, you don’t need to be an accountant to be a lead hand, but if you don’t understand how businesses make money or if that is something your new recruit doesn’t want to bother with, you need to ask yourself if you are doing the right thing. To take your best welder or your best engineer and make them a manager is not a bad decision unless you decided not to prepare them for what being a manager actually means. These skills cannot be learned overnight, and some people do not have what it takes to be a manager even after training.

A good manager will not only make you money, but they will pay for their salary two or three times in a year by making the right decisions at the right times.

Hiring staff is always a gamble. Anyone can put on a good face in an interview. We all have success stories and complete failures, and in both cases, we probably used the same criteria for the hire. I like to joke internally that there are times in the province of Alberta where finding a truly great B-pressure welder is like trying to find a leprechaun. Hiring a truly great manager who really understands the job right out of the gate is harder than finding a mythical creature. There may be rare exceptions, but do you want to make one of your most important decisions based on a rare exception?

A good manager will not only make you money, but they will pay for their salary two or three times in a year by making the right decisions at the right times. They may do it just by troubleshooting a problem to make sure it never happens again. You can ask a good manager something once, and when you come back, whatever you asked is done or being worked on. A good manager understands the morale of his people is integral and knows how to balance between an employee or a department’s want and a company’s need.

It is too easy as a manager to make a bad management decision and rush into hiring a department manager or a lead hand. Look internally to your problem areas, and often places where you struggle can be traced back to the manager. The employee morale can be high or low, and again, this is management (often upper management but maybe in the next article we will tackle that landmine).

At the end of the day, would I hire internally for these positions? Absolutely.

Would I do it without spending the time and effort required to make that person understand what the job entails? I hope not.

Plains Fabrication is now trying to identify our future managers, so slowly over time, we can send them for the training they require to understand what leadership truly entails. If you are looking internally to hire a manager, do your due diligence – or ask yourself who the bad manager truly is when you don’t get the results you expected out of the person you chose for the job. If you answer that question honestly, you may realize how many problems start from the top and work their way down.