My thoughts on promoting from within. #EnvironmentalServices #Leadership #Mentoring #Recognition #Joy
Category: Mentoring
Years ago, as a Supervisor, at a different medical center, I walked in and found nine callouts. Vacations already approved and sick calls reduced half of my team that same day. On paper it looked impossible.
I didn’t try to fix it myself. I pulled the team together, explained exactly what we were facing, and we worked through it as a group. We agreed on what had to get done that shift, the basics that could not wait, and what could safely hold until the next one, based on who was actually going to be there. It worked. We got through the day, and it still amazes me to this day.
It’s not always a staffing shortage. We have a leadership development vacuum. If a paycheck is your only retention strategy, you are losing your best people to whoever offers a slightly bigger one.
I’ve hired people straight off the floor who had more leadership in them than some managers I’ve worked with. The instinct in a lot of departments is to look outside for that: post the supervisor job, bring in someone with a title already attached. Meanwhile the person who already knows the building, the staff, and the standard is standing right there, wiping down a room.