Introduction to Job Relations
A supervisor gets results through people — and the everyday relationship with each person is what makes those results good or poor.
This opening section introduces Job Relations (JR) and explains where it fits in the work of a supervisor and in the larger Training Within Industry program. Job Relations is a method for leading people and handling the everyday problems that come up between a supervisor and the people he or she directs. It is one of the three "J" programs of Training Within Industry, alongside Job Instruction and Job Methods.
By the end of this section, you should understand:
- the five needs that every good supervisor has to meet, and where Job Relations fits among them,
- why a supervisor gets results only through people,
- what good supervision actually means — the JR motto,
- what the Job Relations line is, and why good relations produce good results and poor relations produce poor results.
1The five needs of a good supervisor
For the purpose of this guide, a supervisor is anyone who is in charge of people or who directs the work of others — group leader, team leader, foreman, lead, or any similar role. Whatever the title, the work has a common shape.
Good supervisors recognize that they have five needs.
A good supervisor must meet five needs: knowledge of the work, knowledge of responsibilities, skill in instructing, skill in improving methods, and skill in leading.
The first two are kinds of knowledge; the last three are skills.
- Knowledge of the work is the information that makes one business different from another — materials, machines, tools, processes, operations, and the technical skills of the area. A person can spend a lifetime in one line of work and still be learning it.
- Knowledge of responsibilities is the particular situation in your company — policies, agreements, rules, schedules, and relationships. These differ in every plant and must be supplied locally by management. They are the ground rules under which a supervisor works.
These first two are specific to each plant and cannot be supplied by a course. The last three are skills that can be developed through practice, and the three TWI "J" programs were each built to develop one of them:
A supervisor meets the work's goals — production, quality, cost, safety, delivery, training, maintenance — not directly, but through the people in the area. Each "J" program develops one of the three skills; Job Relations develops the skill of leading.
What to notice: every responsibility a supervisor is held to is reached through people, and the link to each person is a two-way Job Relations line.
The three skills each map to one of the TWI "J" programs:
- Skill in instructing develops a well-trained workforce — reducing scrap, rework, rejects, and accidents while improving output. This skill is the subject of Job Instruction.
- Skill in improving methods uses materials, machines, and people more effectively by studying each operation in detail to combine, rearrange, and simplify it. This skill is the subject of Job Methods.
- Skill in leading improves a supervisor's ability to work with people. There are basic foundations that, applied day in and day out, keep relationships smooth and prevent problems from arising — and an organized procedure for handling problems when they do arise. This skill is the subject of Job Relations, and it is what this guide is about.
A supervisor is not born with the skill to lead or to resolve problems. Like instructing and improving methods, it is acquired through practice. It takes time, and it grows with use — but as soon as it begins to develop, the supervisor becomes more effective at the whole job.
The broader history of Training Within Industry — where it came from, who developed it, and how it spread in the United States and Japan — is covered in the Training Within Industry guide. This section keeps only the part needed to understand Job Relations itself.
2A supervisor gets results through people
Management wants output and quality. But output and quality take more than machines; they take the loyalty and cooperation of the people doing the work. A supervisor who could once do the job alone now has to get it done through others.
A supervisor gets results through people.
Consider what a supervisor is held responsible for: production, quality, cost, safety, delivery, training, maintenance — and a good deal more besides. Now ask, for each one, who actually gets it done? Who gets out production? Who is trained? Who produces quality? Who gets hurt? The answer in every case is the same: people. There is no part of the supervisor's job that does not run through people.
When a new machine is installed, it usually comes with a handbook and someone who knows how to keep it running. New people arrive with no handbook at all. Keeping them in top form — and knowing what to do when something goes wrong — is part of the supervisor's skill, not the machine's.
Employees tend to judge the whole company by the treatment they get from their immediate boss. Most people remember their own first day on a job, and remember it largely in terms of the person they worked for. A good supervisor makes for a good work experience; a poor one colors everything.
Believing technical know-how is enough. A newly promoted supervisor may know the work cold and still struggle, because the job is no longer done by hand — it is done through people whose cooperation has to be earned.
3What good supervision means
If results come through people, then good supervision is fundamentally about getting people to want to do the work well. That is captured in the Job Relations motto.
Good supervision means getting the people in your area to do what you want done, when it should be done, and the way you want it done — because they want to do it.
The whole phrase matters, but the last clause carries the weight. Getting the right work, at the right time, in the right way is not enough if it is done grudgingly. The mark of good supervision — long recognized as such — is that people do it because they want to.
This is a skill, not a personality trait. Some people start out better at it than others, but anyone who puts in the time and practice can develop it. It saves the supervisor and the employees a great deal of trouble.
4The Job Relations line
To meet any responsibility through people, there has to be some kind of relationship between the supervisor and each person. Picture a line running between them — a two-way line, because it carries influence in both directions. That line is Job Relations.
Job Relations are the everyday relations between a supervisor and each of the people he or she supervises.
There is always a relationship — sometimes good, sometimes poor, but never absent. And the kind of relationship determines the kind of results.
Good relations produce good results; poor relations produce poor results.
The line is not a single event or a yearly review. It is built and spent in the small, daily exchanges between a supervisor and each person. Because it runs to each person, a supervisor maintains not one Job Relations line but many — one for every individual in the area. When a supervisor wants good results, the place to start is good relations with the people who produce them.
Treating relations as something to repair only after they have broken down. The Job Relations line is maintained every day, in ordinary moments — long before any problem appears.
This guide develops the skill of keeping those lines strong and of handling the problems that still arise. The next section presents the foundations of good relations — the things a supervisor does day in and day out to keep every line in good condition.
Section summary
A good supervisor meets five needs: two kinds of knowledge — of the work and of responsibilities — learned locally, and three skills — instructing, improving methods, and leading — developed through practice. Each of the three TWI "J" programs develops one skill; Job Relations develops the skill of leading.
A supervisor gets results not directly but through people: every responsibility — production, quality, cost, safety, delivery, training, maintenance — is met through the people in the area. Good supervision therefore means getting people to do what is wanted, when and how it is wanted, because they want to do it. The link to each person is the everyday, two-way Job Relations line, and good relations produce good results while poor relations produce poor results.