Line manager

[spikey]

Having now Googled term, I'm finally clear what one is.  But when did the term come in, and what was wrong with "supervisor"?

[Steamport Southport]

Mid 1980s at least.

 

I was an office worker in Ford MC and we were using the term by then.

 

 

 

Jason

[njee20]

No one over the age of 15 should have a “supervisor”! I much prefer line manager. 

[Steamport Southport]

The other job title that disappeared about the same time was "foreman".

 

I believe the difference is a foreman is a worker, line manager is management.

 

 

Jason

[Ozexpatriate]

50 minutes ago, spikey said:

what was wrong with "supervisor"?

English is a magpie language and accumulates words and terminology as people see fit to use them. There is no equivalent to the Académie Française to preserve the language in aspic.

[Ozexpatriate]

52 minutes ago, spikey said:

... what was wrong with "supervisor"?

25 minutes ago, njee20 said:

No one over the age of 15 should have a “supervisor”! I much prefer line manager. 

A supervisor does not necessarily imply reporting structure. A team lead (like a foreman) might be a supervisor, but not a manager. Similarly, a shift supervisor is not the same as a manager.

 

"Line manager" became popular when the term "manager" also became popular for titles without direct reports - like "project manager" and "account manager".

 

[Ron Ron Ron]

I worked under the day-to-day watchful eye of a number of supervisors, but only one of them was my line manager....and I wouldn't necessarily work with him half the time.

In my line of work, they meant completely different things.

Everyone was assigned to a particular line manager, even managers.

 

 

.

[Oldddudders]

'Line Manager' is all part of the gentrification of personnel management into a pseudo-science. If ever there was a breed the planet does not need....

[great central]

Seems to me it goes with the modernish idea that 'management' is a career in itself, rather than a progression from 'worker' into a management position.

We now have 'managers' who have never done the job they have to 'manage' and in some cases cannot do that job!

[Jeremy Cumberland]

The thing about "line manager" is that it applies all the way up the heirarchy. Rather than having a labourer reporting to a chargehand who reports to a foreman who reports to a manager, who reports to a more senior manager and so on till you reach the general manager, now everyone reports to a line manager.

 

Foremen have mostly become "team leaders" now, but apart from that, I haven't noticed a great deal of change. "Line manager" is not a job title, so far as I am aware.

[Zomboid]

Probably comes from the lines drawn on org charts.

Supervisor implies something different - my line manager is quite capable of being a people manager, but he couldn't "supervise" my work because he came up a different branch and doesn't understand a word of it - and I don't understand a word of what he did before becoming my manager.

 

I don't think it's always important that managers can do the jobs of those they manage. Often it can be a hindrance if they get sucked into doing the work and neglecting the management duties (some of which area actually useful).

[Ron Ron Ron]

11 minutes ago, Jeremy C said:

....... "Line manager" is not a job title, so far as I am aware.

 

It's more a role.

 

.

[DaveF]

When I was working I had a line manager who oversaw my work. He was, like me, a senior manager, just a bit more senior than me.

 

However for a significant part of his time he worked in the area I managed.  I was then regarded as his line manager.

 

Fortunately we got on well together.

 

It could be interesting at appraisal time.

 

David

[John M Upton]

Someone once said to me:

 

"Those who can, do - Those who can't, manage"

Edited September 26, 2021 by John M Upton

[SM42]

52 minutes ago, John M Upton said:

Someone once said to me:

 

"Those who can, do - Those who can't, manage"

 

Similar to the Dilbert principle

 

Andy

[zarniwhoop]

3 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

'Line Manager' is all part of the gentrification of personnel management into a pseudo-science. If ever there was a breed the planet does not need....

My memory says they became the colonisation committee for the planet fintlewoddlewix (or ...wicks), but like everything else related to hhgg (including my username),the results on google seem to keep undergoing spelling mutations.

 

When I took this username (elsewhere) i had the printed book, and both that and google agreed on the spelling, but nowadays the 'h' seems redundant.

 

But ignoring that - they colonised this planet!

[Michael Hodgson]

3 hours ago, Steamport Southport said:

The other job title that disappeared about the same time was "foreman".

 

I believe the difference is a foreman is a worker, line manager is management.

 

 

Jason

Actual distinction in a factory where I worked in the early 1970s:

• A foreman wears overalls and eats in the works canteen as do shop floor workers.
• Office staff wear a collar and tie (suit optional) and eat in the staff canteen  - which is the part of the same canteen, but has red plastic chairs whereas the works have black plastic chairs.
• Managers wear suits and eat in the Managers' restaurant (= they get tablecloths) 
• Directors wear what they like and eat in the Director's Dining Room  (=waitress service).
• The MD might entertain customers in a separate room off that - and wine is available, although that is a secret since the whole factory is officially "dry" for safety reasons.

Don't even ask about the distinction on who uses which bogs.

[great central]

8 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Actual distinction in a factory where I worked in the early 1970s:

• A foreman wears overalls and eats in the works canteen as do shop floor workers.
• Office staff wear a collar and tie (suit optional) and eat in the staff canteen  - which is the part of the same canteen, but has red plastic chairs whereas the works have black plastic chairs.
• Managers wear suits and eat in the Managers' restaurant (= they get tablecloths) 
• Directors wear what they like and eat in the Director's Dining Room  (=waitress service).
• The MD might entertain customers in a separate room off that - and wine is available, although that is a secret since the whole factory is officially "dry" for safety reasons.

Don't even ask about the distinction on who uses which bogs.

 

Yep used quite a few works canteens in that era, you, usually, got a decent meal for a few bob, or new pence, rather than now where people dash to the local sandwich shop or small supermarket for their often not particularly great 'meal deal'.

[Oldddudders]

8 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Don't even ask about the distinction on who uses which bogs.

Essex House, Croydon, opened in 1962 as the Divisional Manager's Office, Central Division, Southern Region. The DM himself, and several of his senior team, all inhabited floor 7 (of 10). The gents' loo on that floor had a Yale lock, to which only they each held a key. On floor 8, where lots of people did really useful train-planning etc things, the gents' loo had no lock, but someone had stuck on he door a BR 'declassified' coach label saying "For the use of second class passengers".

 

The South Eastern DMO, opened at Beckenham in 1968, had no such posh loo. I don't know about the South Western DMO, but can say the same address, 19 Worple Road, Wimbledon, is now the HQ of Lidl UK!

[Michael Hodgson]

6 minutes ago, great central said:

 

Yep used quite a few works canteens in that era, you, usually, got a decent meal for a few bob, or new pence, rather than now where people dash to the local sandwich shop or small supermarket for their often not particularly great 'meal deal'.

Yes, prices were very reasonable although the menu offered rather limited choice and it rarely changed.  I think they must have got good discounts for bulk buying.  I never noticed any deliveries - do baked beans come in tins the size of oil drums?  It wasn't just value for money that meant we all ate there - we didn't go to sandwich shops etc because there weren't any nearby - you would have brought your butties with you.  People just didn't leave the site as it wasn't really practicable to go to the town and back in their lunch hour..

 

The canteen was catering to a very large workforce many of whom were on shift work.  Even when the production line didn't need to run night shifts, there were still quite a few storemen, security staff and engineers in doing maintenance.

[Nearholmer]

12 hours ago, great central said:

We now have 'managers' who have never done the job they have to 'manage' and in some cases cannot do that job!

We always have had to a lesser of greater degree, and it would be pretty daft if we didn’t.

 

If the manager of a department or company containing multiple specialists had to train to become competent in all trades and professions before being a manager, they would need to spend a lifetime being an apprentice in multiple trades, attending multiple college and university courses, and participating in multiple graduate training schemes. They’d start work at about age 74.

 

Understanding the rudiments of each job, and how it fits into the grand scheme, and how people tick, and how to spot good advice from BS, and a host of other things are vital to managing, but being able to do every single job within the team isn’t.

 

 

[Michael Hodgson]

2 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

Essex House, Croydon, opened in 1962 as the Divisional Manager's Office, Central Division, Southern Region. The DM himself, and several of his senior team, all inhabited floor 7 (of 10). The gents' loo on that floor had a Yale lock, to which only they each held a key. On floor 8, where lots of people did really useful train-planning etc things, the gents' loo had no lock, but someone had stuck on he door a BR 'declassified' coach label saying "For the use of second class passengers".

I hope the cleaners had a key too!  "Staff" wouldn't consider using the "works" facilities on the shop floor.  

Yes, senior management had keys to their own.  In practice they rarely emerged from their own floor and would never be seen on the shop floor unless accompanied by either a Shop Steward or the Works Foreman/one of his deputies.  Staff didn't usually venture onto the shop floor either - and certainly never with a stopwatch or clipboard!

[Reorte]

13 hours ago, great central said:

Seems to me it goes with the modernish idea that 'management' is a career in itself, rather than a progression from 'worker' into a management position.

 

 

TBH I think that's a not unreasonable approach. Different people are suited to different things and there's no guarantee that anyone good at working will be any use at managing and vice-versa. I've had to tell them where to go a few times when they've been trying to nudge me to "promotion", which AFAICT just involves more chance of having to do stuff I don't like and aren't any good at (and now an application process that I've got nothing but contempt for, since it appears to be entirely about how good you are at blowing your own trumpet rather than doing the job).

 

At least when it comes to skilled work the problem lies with for some reason managing being seen as more important and valuable, instead of just another thing that needs doing.

 

Management is like toilet cleaning. Someone has to do it, things can turn in to a very unpleasant mess very quickly if it's done badly, and I'm glad there's someone else to do it.

[Oldddudders]

BR's Traffic Management Training Scheme, for which I was very lucky to be selected, was designed to take graduates - and a minority of staff applicants like me - into the industry at ground level, teaching us about operating procedures and other similar basics. We then took initial junior management posts at station level, working with staff and customers. Thus we did have experience at the coal-face before climbing the ladder a little - or a lot in some cases.

 

Other parallel schemes were run for accountants and engineers of various key disciplines.

 

This contrasted with the TOC era, when I found managers from high-street retail - a Route Manager fresh from Tie Rack comes to mind - in station management. Not necessarily bad people, but lacking the basics from BR days.

[EddieB]

Yes, there may be downsides which are open to ridicule.  Job title inflation - where the lowest post-room* clerk becomes a "correspondence management executive" - means that no-one outside the organisation knows what anyone within it actually does.

 

Many big organisations like to operate a "chain of command", such that those higher up gain more prestige (and have pretensions of militarism).  The term "line manager" is useful to those higher up the chain.  A line manager may be a fall-guy to take the blame in case they mess up (exemplified by cabinet ministers) or the "Spiro Agnew" principle - you wouldn't want to get rid of me, because then they would take my place, and that would be a disaster.  A number of line managers is a reflection on the size of "my empire" and stops me having to deal with the real workers.

 

Which is a shame really.  Management is a skill - rarely practised well IMHO - be it planning, administration, managing people, clients or projects.   It should be recognised and rewarded for what it is, rather than an exalted title.  I'm sure we've all seen "secretaries" who are better organisers than their (supposed) managers! 

 

 

 

*Of course, post rooms only exist for workers' personal Amazon deliveries these days.