How to orientate yourself in a new role

You should have a formal induction covering all the immediate practical information you need. If not, ask for information such as “What is the fire drill procedure”, “where can I get lunch”, “what about car parking”? Get passwords and login details for email and any other systems you need to access. Make a note of them! It is useful to have a small, pocket or handbag sized notebook on you at this stage to note down things you need to remember, or follow up. Using one will probably massively improve your performance. Or else use the calendar and notes function in your phone or tablet -but do remember to follow up! You will probably have a meeting scheduled with your manager, where they will be able to provide guidance. If not, ask for one. If you are senior enough to have a secretary or assistant, then it would be reasonable to assume they will be able to guide you through a lot of the difficulties you will face, and supply answers to your questions. If you are not that senior though, many large companies will nominate a “buddy “to help you during the first few days or weeks and perform that function for you. The first thing you have to do now is consider the business of the day. What is in your in-tray or email account? What do you need to do, or manage, today, this week, next week? What immediate deadlines are there to be met? Is anything waiting for your decision? Do you have time to do some research or do you need to “hit the ground running “now, and orientate yourself as you go? If immediate decisions are required and you don’t have the information you need, discuss them with your line manager before issuing instructions. Only make the decisions you must right now, until you can “find your feet“. What needs to be put into your diary and plans for the next few days and weeks? Has anything been booked on your behalf? Do you need to attend meetings or conferences in the immediate future, are there hotels and flights to be booked? Is your predecessor available for a handover meeting? If not, get a status report from your manager, peers, or staff. And discuss any queries you have at this point. Then as soon as you are up to speed with all that, you need to start gathering the information you need to perform your role effectively. You need to gain an understanding of the people and departments around you, how everything fits together. Orientate yourself. Ask for a departmental organisation plan if there is one, and also your own job specification, and that of your direct reports. It would be useful to have access to your own staffs’ performance review files at some point, but it may be a little early to ask for them now. Sometimes it is better to form your own opinions, rather than rely on your predecessor’s judgement. Use your discretion about the timing of that request. Then you need to access any departmental reports produced daily, weekly, monthly or annually. If you have an assistant or secretary, they should have prepared a file for you. If not, ask them to do that. How is your department performing, and specifically what are the issues and challenges you need to address in your role? How is the business doing? Are there market intelligence reports you can read? Is there a list of suppliers or contacts? Have you worked with any of them before? Can they help you by meeting soon and explaining their relationship with your new company? Do your main suppliers and contacts have information, analysis or market intelligence they can share with you? At this point, your best bet is to listen rather than to talk. You probably know the least of everyone in the business about how this company works. Give yourself the benefit of the experience of those around you before you start changing things or making important decisions. You may not agree with others opinions that you hear at this point, but before you start taking action, listen and at least give yourself the time to thoroughly evaluate them. Humans normally have two eyes, two ears, one mouth. It’s a good idea to use them in that proportion until you have a good understanding of your role, and your way forward.

Difference between a manager and an administrator

Management is defined in several ways, generally as the organisation of resources in a business to achieve defined targets. My favourite definition is “achieving things through other people “. Administration can be defined in many different ways, sometimes as the process or activity of running the business, so an administrator may be the person responsible for carrying out the administration of a business. Administration is itself a legal term, and means the person legally appointed to manage and dispose of the property of a deceased person, debtor or insolvent company. An administrator can also be used to indicate someone who works alongside a decision maker and implements their decisions, as an assistant or secretary. In this latter context the manager makes the decisions, and the administrator helps to implement them, perhaps controlling paperwork, communicating requirements. I can’t answer your question specifically as it depends on local usage and the context of your question. however, I hope this has helped. 

Role and Responsibilities of Supervisors

Some job roles are specifically to supervise a team of workers, and purely that, but almost all management positions include an element of supervision, as managers need to supervise their team members and their workload as well as perform their own work. Examples of a pure supervisory role would be;- in a process environment a call centre environment deploying an emergency services team In these instances, the supervisors’ role is to manage the workload, allocate work to the team, balance the workload. They don’t usually perform the work themselves, but manage the team. So in this context, a supervisor can usually be considered as a junior member of the management team. In a professional environment such as law or medicine, there is usually a team working under a solicitor or doctor who are not as qualified or experienced as the team leader or supervisor. They play a supporting role to the team leader, performing administrative or less skilled work. In this situation, the supervisor has to perform work on their own account as well as managing the team. This second situation is reflected in most business settings, with teams having a leader, supervisor or manager who also performs their own tasks and has their own workload to deliver, their own targets to achieve. They will take ultimate responsibility for their teams’ work, signing off files, projects, contracts as appropriate. This will often be used as a “check and balance “system, ensuring that everyone’s work is monitored by a senior member of the team. In practice this will useful to all parties particularly where an unusual situation arises. In this case the person performing the work must pass it by their team leader for endorsement. Examples of this might be; – a junior doctor discussing their caseload with their senior A solicitor dealing with an unusual conveyancing situation requiring insertion of specially written clauses into an otherwise standard contract An accountant finding something unusual in a client’s books may seek his senior’s advice as to how to treat it A headteacher advising a class teacher on a difficult child, situation or family Higher up the management tree in large companies you will sometimes find people in roles where their only function appears to be to manage the work of others, perhaps with titles such as Sales Director or Technical Director. But they will have a significant workload in working with the Board of Directors to develop and implement strategies and policies to drive the company in the correct strategic direction, keep ahead of the Market and the Competition, ensure compliance with regulations and legislation. This is in addition to the supervisory aspect of their responsibilities, ensuring their team performs to its optimum and that targets and objectives are met and exceeded.