Learning Proper Supervision: Hard Edition During my tenure as a Wal-Mart Associate, I saw and did many things related

to supervision. Many of the things that I saw were not done according to what I have learned in this course. There were some actions that were done according to what I have learned in this course. I will go over what I saw that was done correctly and what wasn't. I will also cover things that I did correctly and what I did incorrectly as a supervisor with Wal-Mart. I started off as a cashier on the front end of the Wal-Mart store in Tullahoma, TN. There were many things that I now know were done not according to my textbook. One of the things that I remember seeing was the fact that when we had multiple Customer Service Managers on duty and we got busy, very few of them ever took the initiative to assign the other Customer Service Managers to a register to reduce the lines within the store. This is an example of a supervisor who doesn't accept their share of this management responsibility and ends up wasting time because of avoidable delays and human resources because of underutilization or improper assignments (Newstrom 30). About 4 months into the job, I had done so well that I started being trained at the Customer Service desk. Company policy states that a customer is only allowed 3 returns without receipts in a 6th month period. As an Customer Service associate, I

followed policy every time and would denied the return. I have had both Customer Service Managers and Assistant Managers come up to assist in the transaction when the customer would complain and would give in to the customer. Company policies were made for a reason and the associates shouldn't be breaking them. As stated in our text, deviating from policy is usually a very dangerous thing to do (34). Another thing that I saw that wasn't according to policy was the fact that Customer Service Managers were suppose to come up to the Customer Service desk and check each transaction with the merchandise as a check to make sure that associates where actually getting return merchandise and not just giving money out to customers. I never saw this happen during the entire time I worked at the Customer Service deck in my store. As I found out later after becoming an Asset Protection Coordinator, the CSM's were supposed to be doing this according to corporate policy to keep shrink down. As it states in our textbook, [p]olicies exist with good reason; they are set to guide action (34). There was times that management was doing things correctly. For example, the store had been in a situation where Assistant Managers would come and take over the Customer Service Managers duties and send the Customer Service Managers to run registers to get the lines down. Notice how in that example the salaried managers did the exact opposite as what happened when the Customer Service Managers did when they where faced with the same problem. This effective use of resources follows our textbook's definition of management of resources: [s]upervisors are expected to use these resources effectively by holding waste to a

minimum while focusing on cost saving and improvements in efficiency (13). After about 6 months at the Customer Service desk, I took a promotion to the Sporting Goods department and then eventually moved to the Electronics department. I continued to see incorrect applications according to this textbook. One of the biggest issue that we had was with the communication process. We have had situations where we were given orders to set up certain features by the assigned assistant manager over our area. We didn't get an opportunity to get all of the features finished so the next day the assistant manager over the area was off, so another assistant manager would come in and completely change what was assigned the day before. Each manager should have turn in rotation notes so the next manager would know what is going on in their areas. This showed a complete disregard of the communication process and made our jobs even harder (218). Before reading this textbook, I had thought that I had been punished unjustly once during my time at Wal-Mart. This example shows how some members of management followed through correctly according to my textbook. I received a verbal coaching for not going to lunch before being on the clock for 6 straight hours on two consecutive days. On both of these days, I was covering multiple departments due to the fact that an associate had not shown up for his shift. This meant that no one was left to cover the area when I would go to lunch. I contacted the assistant manager and informed him of the situation and he stated that he would find someone to relieve me to go to lunch on both nights. This did not happen until after the 6 hour mark had been crossed both

nights. When the area assistant manager returned to duty, I received this coaching for violating company policy even though I did so trying to alleviate having customer service issues while I was at lunch. I thought that the supervisor had caused a [v]iolation of policy because I was not the direct cause of the violation (271). I found out that the policy was written according to state law. I was guilty because I didn't follow state law, therefore I had to be punished for it. After about 6 months in Electronics, I received a promotion as the new Garden Center department manager. This is where I got more experience in understanding a supervisor role. I made positive strides in the Garden Center. When I took over the department was struggling with its sales, its profitability and its moral. I first set some clear, achievable, and measurable goals (37). I set my sights on making the Tullahoma Wal-Mart Garden Center to be the best Garden Center in the market area for the 2009 calender year. This was easily measurable as I got a copy of the P&L sheet for the departments that I was over to examine daily. This also included rankings among the Wal-Mart stores in the district, region, and national levels. I looked first at gaining trust and increasing moral via employee-centered concerns (15). I also tried to do a lot of active listening with associates under me as most of them had worked in the department for many years. I found out that a lot of the supervisors were not good listeners, including the former department manager. Our text suggests that [s]upervisors need to be good listeners (210). These techniques helped me turn around a struggling area of the store. I also made mistakes as I learned my new role. One of my personal

mistakes here was my managerial style. I tended to use the participative style almost exclusively (186). I didn't like to use the authoritative style at all due to my personality. According to my textbook, I should have used situational model of leadership to have been more successful (183). After a year as Garden Center department manager, I received a promotion as the new Asset Protection Coordinator at the Wal-Mart Store in Shelbyville, TN. One of my mistakes here came when an associate on 3rd shift had an accident on the job. Obviously due to HIPPA regulations, I cannot speak about what happened, but it was determined that her accident could have been prevented had the associate followed company policy. Now there was a clause that a level of coaching could be skipped in certain situations. I made the decision to skip a level of coaching on this associate, moving it from a verbal to a written. This associate contacted the district human resources manager and complained that I had overstepped my bounds. After getting my report and checking with regional HR and legal, it was determined that I did not have sufficient evidence to skip a level of coaching. My supervisor checked with Regional HR and legal after this ruling came down and stated that since I broken policy without first checking with market HR to do research on what I should have done, I was then subject to the same punishment by skipping a level of coaching. My mistake was thinking that as a Wal-Mart assistant manager, that I had limited authority (100). In reality, I had something between limited authority and no authority (100). This mistake was unfortunately my last as a

member of Wal-Mart as this one pushed me from a written coaching to termination due to skipping the suspension. During my time as a Wal-Mart associate and member of management, I say a lot of things that I thought were right and a lot that I thought was wrong. After taking this course in Supervision, I realize that all is not what it seemed. Somethings that I saw and did that I thought were wrong were in actuality correct. Somethings that I saw and did that I thought were correct were actually wrong. Our textbook did a good job of clarifying things about being a supervisor, salaried or otherwise, in today's business world. Life is a learning process and I am grateful for the experiences that I had in those five years with the retail giant. Learning on the job is much harder than learning in a classroom. My future will be brighter with this knowledge that this course has brought me.

Works Cited Newstrom, John (2012-07-01). Supervision: Managing for Results, 10th edition. Career. Kindle Edition.