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person knows the equipment and its capabilities
and the personnel. Don’t put the person in an
impossible position by demanding more than can
be done. But once a schedule is established, leave
the details of meeting the schedule to your expert.
Give aid in matters where you have more
knowledge and experience. Expect a high level of
performance, but if emergencies arise, such as a
breakdown of machinery, give the support your
people need in obtaining repairs or making
emergency arrangements. Insist that your
subordinates take good care of the machinery, but
be certain you know the facts before you start
assigning any blame for a mishap.
In supervising the barbershop, you should
make certain the required sanitary regulations are
observed and the haircut schedule is adequate to
meet the requirements of the commanding officer.
Direct responsibility for matters such as main-
taining an adequate stock of supplies and the per-
formance of each barber should belong to the
petty officer who is in charge of the barbershop.
Here again, unusual problems or difficulties
should be of concern to you, as the supervisor,
and these problems should receive your immediate
attention. The important thing to remember is
that you must always act promptly. Never let a
problem go unsolved even if the best you can do
at the moment is to provide only a temporary
solution. Follow through later on to discover the
correct ultimate solution, and see that the solu-
tion is adopted.
In your supervision of the retail activities
under your control, the importance of main-
taining strict control over all the retail functions
cannot be overemphasized. This does not mean
that you should try to supervise all the operations
directly, but you must impress upon your subor-
dinates that they are required to follow correct
procedures. By observation and inspection, you
must ensure that proper accountability is main-
tained. One of your most important controls is
that of auditing the ship’s store’s records and
returns. A thorough discussion of the auditing of
returns will be provided to you in chapter 7 of
this training manual.
In your duties as a supervisor, you will
probably discover that providing good customer
service is one of the most important aspects of
your job. You will have significant responsibilities
for making certain the enlisted personnel who man
the points of contact with the customers—
barbershop, laundry, ship’s store, tailor shop—
are aware of the importance of providing the
best possible customer service, The success of
any ship’s service division in improving the general
morale of all shipboard personnel is dependent
to a considerable degree on the face-to-face rela-
tionships between the custodians or operators and
the customers. You, as leading petty officer,
should encourage ship’s service personnel to
respond to each customer’s needs as they would
wish others (the DK, for example) to respond to
their needs. You should always try to instill in
your people a sense of pride in performance. A
more detailed discussion of the importance of
effective customer service
later on in this chapter.
Maintaining a Suitable
Span of Control
to the Navy appears
In all the activities you supervise, a principle
of good organization that you should use is the
maintenance of a suitable span of control. This
principle implies that the greater number of
people that one person must supervise, the more
difficult it will be for that person to supervise
effectively. A common rule you should use is that
your immediate supervision should not extend
over more than eight persons or less than four
persons. However, the type of work being done,
the capacity of a given supervisor, and the
relationships between a supervisor and the
subordinates are all factors that enter the
picture. The location of subordinates in relation-
ship to the supervisor is also a consideration. Your
layout should permit you to have frequent
personal contact with those you directly super-
vise.
There is also a time element involved with
supervision. As was mentioned, you should assign
responsibilities and delegate authority as much as
possible without losing control of policy and pro-
cedures. Generally, your span of control should
allow your subordinates to perform most of the
routine work. This technique provides you wit h
the time to supervise your people, to perform
any work that is beyond the capacity of your
subordinates, or to complete any work that
has been assigned to you by your seniors.
Evaluating the Work of
Your Personnel
As a supervisor, you will be expected to
evaluate the quality and quantity of the work that
is performed by your personnel. Most supervisors
you may ask will probably tell you that the fair
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