SEAHO Report - Spring 2024 - 31

The Supervisor's Toolbox
By Robyn Svercauski, Coastal Carolina University
It is not every day that we have students who supervise peers in their on-campus role as undergraduate
students. This is the case for our Desk Managers (DM) at Coastal Carolina University. These students work
as managers overseeing a collective 100+ Desk Assistant (DA) team throughout the year. DMs assist a
professional staff member with upkeep of the desks, projects, and supervision of DAs. They also serve oncall,
assist with shift coverage, and keep track of accountability as issues arise. Each DM is assigned a specific
number of DAs to directly supervise, overseeing their training, conducting evaluations, facilitating staff
meetings, and engaging in accountability conversations. For many of these managers, it is their first time
ever serving in a role that they are a supervisor over another individual which makes training very important!
Each summer, we host a week-long manager training that allows our DM staff to get to know each other,
learn their responsibilities, develop training methods, and gain skills in supervision. One of the most
successful ways I have learned to help develop new supervisors is by providing them with their supervisor
toolbox, a physical box that they get to hold and use throughout an afternoon of developing skills. This box
represents their presence and their ability to be available and open to their staff whenever needed. It also
gives them a place to store all of their new " tools " they will receive, both physically and metaphorically.
During this time, managers have the opportunity to participate in about 15 activities, all representing a
specific tool and supervision skill that they may be able to use throughout the year with their staff. These
tools can be traditional (such as a screwdriver, wrench, pliers, or hammer), or nontraditional (such as a
microphone, bottle of water, or rivets). Each tool has a meaning and a corresponding lesson for supervisors.
One example of a tool that is often used by my staff are their pliers. They learned how to use their pliers
by playing a game of 20 questions. One person will have a situation listed for them while the other person
asks 20 questions to help them try to figure out what is going on. This allows them to learn what questions
are beneficial in trying to " pull " information from their staff. Oftentimes, DAs may have something going on
that they are unsure how to talk about. They are able to remember and use this tool when trying to have an
intentional conversation with their staff member. Other tools provide similar lessons in supervision.
I have seen this method of supervision work for supervision skills they need to learn and also for skills that we
may not want our staff to use as often. For example, everyone has a hammer in their toolbox, but that is a
tool that we don't often use. Anyone can lay down the hammer, but in the workplace, we have found that this
approach is less productive than having intentional conversations. Although we make sure staff know they
have this tool at their disposal, we discuss a variety of alternative ways to approach the issue as a supervisor.
Seeing staff members progress throughout the year utilizing these tools demonstrates how useful hands-on
learning can be successful supervision.
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SEAHO Report - Spring 2024

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of SEAHO Report - Spring 2024