The Story of Michael, the Production Manager (Part II)

By Better Employees. 

Finding the perfect online program for Spanish-speaking employees.  

Editor's note: Read part I, which addresses how and how not to promote someone without leadership experience into a leadership position.

Michael, the plant manager, decided to train Juan and the other supervisors in the supervision and leadership competencies. 

Michael and the human resources manager considered some options to train Juan and the team of supervisors, such as: 

• Send Juan to a full two-day course for supervisors. But these were offered only in English, and in those seminars, they give you a lot of information that you forget a few weeks later. 

• Enroll Juan in a leadership development program at a local college, which would last two semesters, but was only offered in English and cost about $8,500 per person. 

• They considered looking for videos on YouTube about leadership and supervision in Spanish but felt there was no consistency between the topics, and they were very general. 

They googled and found an online training program in Spanish to develop the leadership competencies of Hispanic supervisors, titled SupervisorEficaz.com.

When they saw and analyzed the lesson and materials that were offered for free, they realized that they were designed with short videos (20 minutes average) and with activities to complete in groups (45 minutes), which seemed like a very effective and practical alternative to train all supervisors in a group who preferred to learn in Spanish. 
 
Additionally, they learned that the program had been designed and produced by a Latino person with more than 20 years of experience and who had trained and developed supervisors and leaders in the United States and Mexico — someone who knew the Hispanic participants’ ways of thinking and learning very well. In fact, the program was videotaped in Spanish with English subtitles, and the materials were bilingual. 
 
Michael was very excited that they had found this option. Although they had some doubts and did not know if Juan and the other supervisors were going to follow the full program, they also felt that, if the supervisors — especially Juan — were able to learn something from this program, it would transform them into more productive, respectful and responsible leaders. 
 
And it would give Michael time to focus on more important and profitable projects for the company. 
 
Michael and the human resources manager had a Zoom meeting with Eduardo Figueroa, the author of the program, who taught them how simple and flexible it was to use the program and answered all their questions. 
 
Both Michael and the human resources manager could visualize positive transformations in the participants, the employees in general and the company. In addition to not having to deal with so many conflicts and problems caused by having poorly trained supervisors, the program would give them peace of mind, less stress and more happiness at work. 
 
So they invested in the “Platinum level” and started the training using the Effective Supervisor’s tool. 
 
Juan and the other supervisors started meeting for an hour each week to watch the video lessons and do the exercises together. 
 
The group of supervisors consisted of nine people who found the video lessons easy to follow and very participatory, with many stories relevant to them, and with exercises for the group to do. One of the human resources people was moderating the lessons. 
 
The participants, after watching the video lessons, left motivated and with practical knowledge that they could use in their work and also in their personal life. 
 
Michael and the human resources manager began to notice some positive changes in most of the participants, and in a few weeks, they had already seen the positive transformations of the supervisors and how they were working better as a team, in addition to fewer complaints about Juan by his employees. 
 
In fact, Michael, who understood a little Spanish, tried to attend the sessions, which reinforced what he had learned every time he had the opportunity to interact with the supervisors. 
 
Michael began to see some encouraging results in the production reports. Productivity was increasing, and errors and waste were decreasing. If they continued like this, they would generate an increase of several hundred thousand dollars per year in the profits of the company. He was already anticipating an amazing return on the investment. 
 
In addition, Michael heard that some of the program’s participants commented on how the program was helping them in their personal lives with their families and saw how the program was also having an impact on the employees of those supervisors, since they shared some of the things they learned with their teams. 
 
But what Michael liked the most was that he no longer felt so stressed out, he already had more time to dedicate to his personal things and his family and that he was now carrying out the other pending projects that were very important for the company, which pleased the director of the plant. 
 
Read about Juan’s transformation and results in the next part III, coming soon! 
 
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