Assignment:
First Line Supervisory Training is important to any organization. The relationship between employees and supervisors can be strained by many factors including long work hours, job stress, wages, and workload. To ensure that supervisors have the training and resources they need in order to effectively manage their subordinates they must be trained. Mahaney discusses several management training programs for first line supervisors in a police department. He cites that most police departments do not prepare officers well enough to take on roles as leaders and supervisors (Mahaney, 2000). These instructional programs will offer valuable information to supervisors with instruction in leadership values, leadership theories, personnel issues, and budgeting (Mahaney, 2000). First Line Supervisory Training will increase the effectiveness of all members within a department, increase morale, and decrease overall costs.
No I do not agree with the manner that Sergeant Rick handled the situation with Officer Johnson. Sergeant Rick could have given Officer Johnson the day off and avoided issues with the Union and his supervisor Lieutenant Murray. This would have been a good opportunity for Sergeant Rick to show compassion and empathy for Officer Johnson's situation. Since Sergeant Rick had experienced missing activities with his own children, giving Officer Johnson the day off would have shown his ability to understand what his subordinates were going through and this could have helped build a good foundation for a working relationship between Sergeant Rick and his Officers.
I would have handled the situation in a different manner than Sergeant Rick, even though it is easy to say that since I was not in that situation. I dealt with this type of situation a lot when I worked as an Officer for the Department of Defense. As a supervisor I would always encourage officers to coordinate between other officers to see if they could cover down but sometimes that would not always happen so I would coordinate with other supervisors to see if their officers were willing to change shifts. This actually worked pretty well because officers from other shifts had different days off and they could be used interchangeably. Shift rotation and scheduling is an important consideration for the morale off officers (Buran & Stenzel, 1984). The same could have been applied to the situation with Sergeant Rick and Officer Johnson if they operated on that same type of scheduling.
Additionally, I would have also handled the administrative situation differently. Instead of knowing following a protocol that would have resulted in disciplinary action I would have explained the situation to Lieutenant Murray. It would have been easy for Sergeant Rick to explain the situation to Lt. Murray and tell him that he was unable to give Officer Johnson the day off so Officer Johnson took sick leave. I think this would have been a better way to handle the situation than involving more administrative paperwork by recommending disciplinary action and then having the Union involved.
Ultimately, these situations are great examples to First Line Supervisors on how to handle issues that arise with employees. "Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity" (1 Timothy 4:12).