Your Attitude Is Showing: A Primer of Human Relations, Tenth Edition

Closing Productivity Potential Gaps

It is the responsibility of the supervisor to close the gap between what the department is currently doing and what it might do in the future. There are two ways a supervisor can help to close the gap. One is by working harder, putting in more hours and making better use of personal time. Because the supervisor is only one person, there is a limit to what he (or she) can do alone to reduce the size of the gap.

The second—and by far the more effective way to reduce the gap—is to reduce the gaps between the levels of each employee. The productivity of the department is the sum total of the productivity of all members of the department, including the supervisor. The supervisor is interested in each worker’s productivity ...