Upskilling Factory Supervisors

Supervisors are often the most consistent point of contact for blue-collar workers. While the focus on their technical skills is crucial, soft skills such as effective communication, conflict resolution, preventing harassment, stress management, time management, among others tend to be underemphasized. This gap can also increase psychological, verbal, and physical abuse in factories. Acknowledging that good managers play a key role in affecting worker productivity and wellbeing, we hypothesize that a key lever firms can use to improve the workplace environment and raise productivity is to invest in the provision of soft skills training.

Can soft skills training empower supervisors to navigate the factory floor better? Can this translate to workers who are more satisfied with and productive at their workplace?

In collaboration with Options & Solutions, a personnel consultancy firm, we designed a soft skills training program called STITCH (Supervisors Transformation into Change Holders) for factory production line supervisors (floor managers supervising the work of front-line machine operators and helpers). We conducted an extensive survey of approximately 2000 supervisors at a large-scale garment manufacturer about their managerial practices and styles, workplace behaviors, and personality characteristics. This led us to create our intervention, STITCH, which delivers soft skills training and works towards creating a positive environment for workers and supervisors alike.

We found that tenure, cognitive skills, internal locus of control, autonomy, and attention significantly affect productivity. With our intervention, we were able to show that:

• Supervisors through STITCH were 5.8% more productive up to six months after STITCH concluded.
• Trained supervisors attain 6% salary growth.
• Supervisors who underwent STITCH were 15% less likely to quit.
• Workers in their lines were more likely to receive incentives and bonuses. 
• The firm saw a net return on investment of 12% by the end of the intervention.

Soft skills not only empower workers, and support them in building pathways to professional growth, but are also a profitable investment for the private sector. GBL Ventures has developed the STITCH tool to further worker development while boosting efficiency and reducing turnover. Visit the GBL Ventures Website to know more.