Introduction
The complexity of modern organizations makes it almost impossible to combine in one person a head who is a specialist in a certain field and a supervisory manager. The head, being a formal leader, stands at the head of the organizational pyramid and carries out activities to achieve the organization’s goal. For many years, supervisory managers have generally been technical specialists. Their leadership was mainly reduced to administration, i.e., regulatory impact on subordinates and the organization of the life of the team. However, administrative leadership is an attribute of the bureaucratic system, and it is associated with a rigid hierarchy and centralization of information. Supervisory management, unlike administrative management, is not limited only to regulatory regulation or direct influence on subordinates. Today, many experts question the effectiveness of hierarchical and centralized organization models and methods of managing them. Not only the classical management model is being criticized, but there is also an active search for a new quality of management and, in this regard, a new understanding of the role of the head and supervisory manager.
Concept of Supervisory Management
Supervisory management is a production management based on a set of knowledge, principles, means, and forms of production management in a market economy. The main goal of supervisory management as a field of practical activity is to ensure the harmonious development of the managed object (Yaghi & Bates, 2020). This means that all elements of the control object must function consistently and efficiently. At the same time, the influence of the external environment on the object should be taken into account.
Supervisory management is used to clearly formulate the goals and objectives of a managed object and to find the ability to attract certain amounts of resources of various types to achieve these goals and solve problems. In these conditions, supervisory management helps to ensure that goals are achieved and tasks are solved with the involvement of as few resources as possible, which means efficiently. Minimizing the resources used means that goals are achieved and tasks are solved at an acceptable and acceptable level of quality (Park et al., 2018). That is, in conditions of the same quality of achieving goals and solving tasks, supervisory management that has attracted fewer resources will be considered more effective.
Supervisory management is defined in several aspects and several points of view. The most general content of supervisory management is the type of activity that is characterized by the main goal. This is the activity of setting goals, planning actions, organizing coordinated actions, monitoring the implementation of these actions and regulating the process depending on the results of control (Park et al., 2018). Supervisory management is also perceived as a science, and justifiably claims this interpretation.
Indeed, supervisory management has certain systematized principles, methodological foundations, methods, and technologies. It is known how a supervisory manager should act in order to achieve the harmonious development of a managed object and formulate development goals. Supervisory management concepts help to identify the necessary resources to achieve these goals, organize coordinated actions, monitor the progress of the process and make the necessary changes to the initial conditions if the course of the process significantly differs from the desired one (Navruzov, 2021). To create the tools of supervisory management, high-level scientific research is carried out with the involvement of achievements of such sciences as economics, mathematics, psychology, sociology, etc. Thus, supervisory management makes sense to consider from two points of view: as an activity and as a science.
Role of Supervisor
The pandemic and the subsequent socio-economic crisis will irreversibly change and are already changing a lot, including on building effective work relations. In the Coronavirus era, the role of supervisor becomes even more important, as it is necessary to organize work in new conditions. The pandemic has had a significant impact not only on people’s everyday life, but also on their work activities (Yaghi & Bates, 2020). In particular, it influenced approaches to supervising personnel in companies.
The forced necessity of transferring some employees to a remote work mode required the creation of distributed teams with an effective system of interaction between them. Supervisors have revised their approach to employees, especially in terms of building mutual trust and moving to goal-based management. The main trend for 2020 is a massive transition to online work; many companies have already spent huge resources on transferring employees to a remote format (Shjarback & Todak, 2018). This affects the principles of the organization of work in general, and supervisors should build a new model of interaction with employees who will be transferred to a permanent remote mode.
The pandemic provoked an atypical global crisis. Therefore, organizations will have to develop adaptive strategies, create new projects and reformat. All this will require the active involvement of all team members, and it is from group actions that the success of the company and the development of the company’s economy will depend (Yaghi & Bates, 2020). With the arrival of the pandemic, there were practically no technical problems associated with ensuring business communications between employees at a remote location.
However, there were supervision difficulties in the organization of work, setting tasks, and monitoring their implementation. These problems required not only the revision of regulations, the assignment of tasks to employees, but also the revision of ways to motivate and maintain the proper level of involvement and responsibility of staff (Yaghi & Bates, 2020). That is, the situation required supervisors to introduce a fundamentally new system of interaction in the team. It became important to preserve the staff’s sense of integrity and unity of the team and the feeling of the employee’s involvement in the common aim of the company.
Some democratization of the management style helps to solve both problems: the transition from a rigid vertical to direct, open, and transparent communication between supervisors with subordinates. In the remote mode of work, the democratization of the managerial approach contributes to the rejection of formal assignments in favor of daily communications (Navruzov, 2021). It is done in a natural, lively form, as well as the manifestation of greater sensitivity to the employee on the part of the supervisor. Thus, in the Covid pandemic workplace, the role of supervisor was changed with the aim of building effective work relations. The democratic approach chosen by the majority of supervisors contributed to the development of teams with a high level of responsibility, involvement, and an entrepreneurial approach to solving tasks.
Conclusion
The pandemic has pushed managers to use a new approach in supervision — leadership, which is based on the highest degree of trust between the manager and employees. It is formed thanks to an open dialogue, compliance with agreements, and the spirit of partnership in the development and adoption of decisions. The role of supervisors during the Covid is anti-crisis management of employees, which helps to bring enterprises out of a difficult situation. The system of measures taken by supervisors allows to develop a strategy for building effective work relations in new conditions.
References
Navruzov, D. (2021). Improving the evaluation of the effectiveness of the supervisory board in joint stock companies. The American Journal of Management and Economics Innovations, 7(4), 16-20.
Park, S., Kang, H. S., & Kim, E. J. (2018). The role of supervisor support on employees’ training and job performance: An empirical study. European Journal of Training and Development, 42(2), 57-74.
Shjarback, J. A., & Todak, N. (2018). The prevalence of female representation in supervisory and management positions in American law enforcement: An examination of organizational correlates. Women & Criminal Justice, 29(3), 129-147.
Yaghi, A., & Bates, R. (2020). The role of supervisor and peer support in training transfer in institutions of higher education. International Journal of Training and Development, 24(2), 89-104.