Should You Standardize Your Supervisor Development Plan?

As your business evolves and expands, cultivating strong leadership becomes essential for sustainable growth. This may involve promoting high-performing team members to supervisory roles or investing in the professional development of existing supervisors.

A vital step in this process is developing a robust supervisor development plan that nurtures leadership potential. However, the question then becomes whether you should utilize a standardized program and approach or tailor one specific to your organization.

This article explores the advantages of both approaches and delves into how they can be effectively combined to foster a well-rounded and impactful supervisor development program.

Standardized vs. Custom Supervisor Training

54% percent of workforce members say they would invest more time learning if they had a clear path to follow, while over 75% value personalized learning experiences. So, which approach is more effective, a standardized or a customized program?

The answer is “it depends.” Both training styles have distinct advantages, but they also present challenges. By weighing the pros and cons of each, you can make an informed decision that aligns with your organization’s goals and team-member needs.

Pros of Standardized Supervisor Training

There are some benefits to standardized training for supervisors:

• Comprehensive Coverage: Standardized plans are designed by leadership experts intended to serve a broad audience, ensuring that all essential aspects of being a supervisor are addressed.
• Ease of Implementation: Ready-made and easy to launch, these programs allow you to quickly schedule and implement the training without the need for extensive project management.
• Efficiency: Many standardized training plans are designed with efficiency in mind, making it possible to cover the vital supervisory skills in a short amount of time using a variety of learning formats while staying within budget.
• Scalable for Multiple Trainees: A pre-designed program is ideal for training multiple supervisors simultaneously, making it a time-efficient choice for large teams.

Cons of Standardized Supervisor Training

The cons of standardized training include the following:

• One Size Does Not Fit All: A uniform model may fall short when addressing unique industry or organizational needs. Standardized approaches, though comprehensive, can sometimes lack the flexibility needed to align with specialized supervisory challenges or issues.
• Potential Skill Gaps: The rigidity of a one-size-fits-all approach can hinder personal growth, as it may not adapt well to individual learning styles or personal development needs, leaving certain learning behind in the process.

Pros of Customized Supervisor Training

On the other hand, customized training for supervisors offers several advantages:

• Skill Diversity: Creating customized training allows team members to build a wider range of skills or competencies for their role compared to a standardized training program.
• Personalized Learning: Each team member learns differently, and customized supervisor training can better cater to individual learning style and needs, enhancing their ability to absorb, practice, and apply new concepts.
• Flexibility for Growth: As team members and the organization evolve, customized training offers the flexibility to adjust and focus on areas that need more attention, making it more dynamic and responsive.

Cons of Customized Supervisor Training

Despite its benefits, customized supervisor training can also present certain challenges:

• Starting from Scratch: Custom plans require development from the ground up. To create an effective program, you will need subject-matter expertise in both leadership skills and instructional design.
• Time-Intensive: Creating and implementing tailored plans takes more time, budget, and effort compared to off-the-shelf options.
• Scope Creep: When building out customized plans, the wish list of skills, competencies, and development topics can easily grow out of control. When this occurs, it requires stakeholders to make hard decisions about immediate needs.

Should You Standardize Your Supervisor Development Plan?

Standardizing your approach to Supervisor Development training may be the right choice for your organization, or it may not. Instead of comprehensive standardization, you may want to begin by creating a standardized training outline to follow and then add in customized training elements based on the unique needs of learners or your organization. This will provide you with the benefits of both training approaches, blending the reliability of standardized training and proven concepts with the adaptability of customization. This will ensure that you meet both organizational objectives and individual learning needs.

For example, you can offer standard guides to follow and tools to use but also maintain flexibility in application: how supervisors can put the skills into action relative to their roles and responsibilities. This can help create a more user-centric approach to a fully developed supervisor learning experience.

What to Include in a Standardized Supervisor Development Plan

To set your team members up for success, make sure your standardized supervisor development plan includes the following elements.

Formal Training

It’s essential to cover all the basic skills and tools a supervisor needs to do their job properly:

• Communication: Potential supervisors must be able to speak with clarity and, even more importantly, listen with intent. Effective communication between team members and leaders creates a work environment that minimizes wasted time and reduces burnout. 62% of team members who choose to stay with their current company say they have leaders who communicate well.
• Delegation: For many supervisors, relinquishing control can be challenging, especially when they’re accustomed to handling everything on their own. Yet, delegation is not only vital to a supervisor’s success, it’s a catalyst for team growth, empowering others to refine their own skills and drive collective progress.
• Interpersonal skills: Navigating conflicts, understanding diverse personalities, and fostering collaboration: these are essential interpersonal skills every supervisor must master to lead with empathy and build cohesive, high-performing teams. According to a survey of over 3,000 workforce members, only 29% believe their leader does well in the human aspect of leadership.
  Assessment and coaching. It is important for leaders to assess the skills and capabilities of the people they lead and provide feedback and coaching to further develop their skills, impact their performance, and engage them in productive dialogue.

Assessments

Periodic assessments are crucial to skill development and can be done before, during, or after supervisor training. They can be used as a quantitative resource to help team members understand their strengths along with gaps or opportunities for improvement. You can use pre- and post-program assessment results to provide specific feedback on where trainees are making progress in developing their skills.

Allow for Practice Time

Because standardized training is often centered on efficiency, it can sometimes sacrifice critical opportunities for practice. Mistakes are invaluable: they offer learning moments that transform knowledge into mastery. Allowing trainees to demonstrate the supervisory skills they learned in the program gives them an opportunity to practice their skills in a supportive, low-risk environment. This “test run” of their skills not only provides valuable insight into their progress and development as leaders but also fosters a culture of continuous improvement, both at the individual level and for the program overall.

Remember, knowing and doing are different things. Everything can seem clear during training, but skill or knowledge gaps can become more apparent when a trainee attempts to put what they’ve learned into action. Providing these opportunities to practice fosters improvement and a better overall learning experience. In fact, one scientific study found that learning is most productive when failure happens around 15% of the time. In other words, people who get everything right aren’t usually learning anything new, while people who are right 85% of the time tend to learn the most.

Include ample time to practice the skills in order to give supervisors the confidence to implement the learning in their day-to-day responsibilities.

Development Discussions

Consistent feedback loops are crucial to the learning process. A good supervisor training program will incorporate guided development discussions. These discussion templates or guides can be used before, during, or after the supervisor training program, helping to facilitate targeted discussions between supervisors and their immediate leaders. The purpose is to hold supervisors accountable for their own development efforts, to guide them in the process, and to ensure that progress is being made.

As leaders engage in these development discussions with their supervisors, they may identify skill gaps that aren’t being properly addressed or development topics that may be missing from the program. This feedback to the training team can be critical in determining if the program is meeting the learning objectives or if additional customization may be required.

How to Develop a Supervisor Training Program Customized for Individuals

If you’re looking for ways to customize your supervisor training plan, here are a few suggestions.

Consider the Supervisor’s Learning Needs

The easiest way to customize a training plan is to consider what your trainee needs in terms of their learning style and baseline skills. When looking at learning style, ask yourself what kind of learner they are. Do they do well in a traditional classroom setting, or are they better at learning through on-the-job experiences or self-directed courses? In one survey, 65% of workforce members indicated that watching videos is their preferred way to learn. Lectures and presentations were in second place at 55%, followed by reading short articles at 47%. Cater your training approach to team members’ learning styles so they can get the most out of it.

When approaching learning from a skills perspective, assess a person’s baseline abilities and then go from there. What are the person’s skill gaps? Many employees already have part of the foundation necessary to become good leaders and simply need to refine or enhance their abilities or engage in focused training on specific topics. Doing a thorough assessment of each person’s skill level before you begin will save you time and help you provide more impactful training.

Create an Outline to Follow

Once you’ve identified the person’s needs, crafting a clear roadmap is essential. While a customized training plan thrives on flexibility, having written guidelines offers direction and ensures that key objectives are met along the way.

Having something to follow—whether it’s an outline, a schedule, or a to-do list—will provide organization and structure throughout the training. Remember, you can always alter the plan as the training process progresses.

Perform Frequent Evaluations

Just like in standardized programs, regular evaluations are key to the success of customized training. They allow you to track growth, refine your approach, and gain valuable feedback on the training’s efficacy, helping you fine-tune the development process.

Create the Perfect Supervisor Development Plan with CMOE

CMOE has over 45 years of experience in providing leadership training for a variety of industries, giving us a unique perspective and ideas on how to implement effective development solutions for leaders at all levels. Ensure success with your supervisor development program by collaborating with us to enhance your supervisor development plan and get your program off the ground. Our team is skilled at helping organizations implement standardized and customized plans to ensure your supervisors and team members walk away with a comprehensive set of leadership skills.