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I am an operations manager, responsible for a staff of 80 employees, 2 of which are front line supervisors. One of the supervisors is established and we have O3s almost every week (I know, I’m working on every week). The other supervisor is new to the role, and it seems we have O3s daily, nothing scheduled but we usually spend 10-15 minutes in the morning and 10-15 minutes in the afternoon together. I had the O3s scheduled, and when the time came, there was nothing additional to discuss. Are daily O3s OK to have, in the short term?

Also, with the same new supervisor, should he have O3s with all his employees? There are 50 that report to him (I’m currently begging for an additional supervisor) in 4 different departments. The vast majority of those employees are part-time (35 hr/week) production employees. There are 3 CSRs which are basically assistant supervisors, which I do plan to make sure he has O3s with them. Should he spend about 5 minutes with each employee, bi-weekly, discussing performance?

What about the other supervisor who has 30 employees?

jhack's picture

The daily meetings are probably focused on operational issues. You should still set aside time weekly for O3's. You can discuss long term goals, development plans, etc. If it doesn't run 30 minutes, that's fine. Establish it, nonetheless, as a separate and distinct meeting.

Part time employees don't need weekly O3's. Twice a month is probably fine for them. But it should be 30 minutes, not 5. This works out to maybe 15 hours a week doing O3s. See threads below this one for discussions on O3s with large numbers of directs.

It is time well spent.

John

HMac's picture

I agree with hack - it's ESPECIALLY important to continue the formal O3's, (even if they're shortened by lack of content). Chances are good that your daily contacts cover "getting the business done" and not necessarily your direct's development or less-urgent concerns.

One of the great powers of the O3 is that you're telling all the directs they're important enough to you as people to merit this time in your calendar, come hell or high water. Builds tremendous relationships.