As a senior manager, one of my first tasks of the day is to walk the factory floor. this serves a million purposes. The main purpose is so that i can talk to the boys. Not just about work, but about their home lives. Things that may bother them. Have a laugh. They rarely try to pull the wool over my eyes as they know i have 20 years experience within the industry and no matter how serious a problem could be, that i will sit down with them and we try to work our way through it. Having this experience doesnt mean i know it all; hell i still make mistakes, but it shows them i'm human!
I don't believe in managing with a rod of iron, but by being approachable and fair. They know that if I have them in my office for them to have a rollocking then they've really disappointed me and let themselves down. My office is a last resort.
I think that I have the respect from all the staff at my old site, from the cleaners to other managers ( i have just left there) and i hope i can build the same rapport with my new team. To me it was one of the best compliments i could ever have had when an engineer with almost as much industry experience as my self, said i was by far the best manager he'd worked with, because i didn't pretend i knew what he was going on about!
Experience cannot be replaced by education. But when both are hand in hand it goes a long way to building respect.
Hi All,
I think cazyncymru is absolutely right. I am 7 years in food industry. I've had a chance to begin working in production plant as a technologist right after graduating university. For two years I work in another company in quality department.
If the education and experience are hand in hand everything goes better from day to day.
Ufortunately, very difficult is to gain the experience at first. You have to have refference or really good luck to find a good job without experince in the CV.
This forum is great to share opinions from all over the world